The Girl Who Can't Stop Reading

And just like that, 100 pages later, I finally figure out why I see so many people in public reading this book. It's because even if you can only read a page or two, it gets you that much closer to knowing what on Earth this is all leading up to. And with basically 150 pages of introductory text, it better be leading to something good. I assume it will,though, since there are so many people in love with this series.

One aspect of the book I just don't quite understand yet is the idea that Lisbeth is the main character. In every blog I read in preparation for my reception report, the focus was on her. I mean, she's basically the title of the book. But in 220 pages, I feel like she's still secondary to Blomkvist and this whole murder mystery thing. I suppose when the two characters finally meet, her story will sort of take over since we know a lot of his back story already.

In my research, one of the most interesting things I discovered was the true inspiration behind her character (other than Pippi), or maybe the motive Larsson had behind writing the book. Apparently when he was a teenager, he witnessed a girl his age named Lisbeth being gang raped, and didn't do anything to help her. Apparently it haunted him for the rest of his life (understandably so), and it's definitely an interesting aspect to think of from a psychological criticism perspective. Maybe as I find out more about her character, that will be the topic of a blog to come. We shall see.