Millenium trilogy

Stieg Larsson has written a millenium trilogy - 3 novels all based on a girl called Lisbeth Salander. Novels are originally written in Swedish and translated to English by someone.

I saw the movie based on the first novel - Girl with the dragon tattoo. Liked the movie a lot. It was after a long time i had seen a fiction suspense drama movie and i think the movie is quite decent adaptation from the book. I particularly like the acting of Blomkvist (another protagonist) played by Michael Nyqvist. I was hooked. On my way to India i bought the second book - The girl who played with fire and read it in the plane. Loved reading the book. After reading non-fiction for a long time i had a craving to read bourne like fiction drama where there is a certain aura behind the main character (something like harry potter ). The second book is exactly that, it builds on the past and present of Lisbeth salander and it has many twists and turns. At the same time, the writing also does a good job in building characters, going into details etc and creates a very good mental picture while reading the book. I saw the movie based on this one two days ago and almost hated it. The movie makes a 24 like story out of the novel where you just see event A followed by event B and so on without going at all into the characters, the motifs, the environment and mainly there is no way to associate with the protagonist Lisbeth Salander.

On my way back to India i read the third of the trilogy - Girl who kicked Hornet's nest. The problem with trilogies or series that start off well is that there are too many expectations with the ending. And generally books which have gained cult status are all the ones which are able to match up to the expectations. I believe Steig Larsson's trilogy also falls in such a list. The last book is equally fascinating, villians from book 2 are quickly removed and new villians are created, while adding more depth. The pace is quite good and also the final climax is decent, could have been more dramatic though. I saw the movie on third part yesterday and even though it was a lot better than the second movie, it still had its shortcomings. One of things that one has to be careful while adapting a book into a movie is figuring out which details to throw and which ones to keep. Surely all details can not be kept. I think the third movie could have been a lot better had they chosen to focus more on Sapo and less on Niedderman. The movie did a good job by throwing away the SMP section and Berger. But i would have liked the Blomkvist Monica angle.

Overall, these novels are very good page turners. The kind that is addictive once you start reading. I think the first novel would have been a good read too but having seen the movie, i have lost the charm to read through it. I believe that there is a huge opportunity here to remake these movies, mainly in Hollywood style. Swedish cinema lacks the jazziness meaning the crisp editing, fast pace and raw fights (remember Bourne movies). Also, i think these books also make a strong case to make a tv series out of them. I think each book can be equivalent to a season and it would be a good watch.