![]() It’s supposed to be pedagogical, entertaining, gorgeously illustrated and full of anecdotes. ![]() Parnault nor the book in question exist in real life, but Larsson tells us that Dimensions is a book about “the history of mathematics from the ancient Greeks to modern-day attempts to understand spherical astronomy”. Parnault (Harvard University Press), a 1,200 page book that’s allegedly considered the bible of mathematics. Salander’s primary resource is a book called Dimensions in Mathematics by a Dr. Mathematics, to her, is “a logical puzzle with endless variations”, a meta-riddle where the goal is to understand the rules for solving numerical or geometric puzzles. She has always been good at solving them, but was not aware of their mathematical side until sometime between the end of TGWTDT and the start of TGWPWF. Salander comes to mathematics by way of puzzles: Rubik’s cube, intelligence tests in magazines, every logical puzzle that she can lay her hands on. Then again, Salander performs an even more unbelievable feat in a follow-up action sequence, and I’ve commented on the resolution of the third book already, so there’s that to consider. I just wish that the math part weren’t so far off the mark. Mind you, I’m all for having more novels and movies with strong, resourceful and mathematically talented heroines. We’re told that Lisbeth Salander, the goth hacker played by Noomi Rapace in the movie, is also a puzzle-loving math genius who solves Fermat’s last theorem, or thinks she does, in a passage that Tim Gowers singled out for attention some time ago. The worst thing about the series is the mathematical interludes in The Girl Who Played With Fire. It feels like a cop-out when we learn in the third book that “All The Evil” (Larsson’s term) was really the work of a few deranged individuals overstepping legal boundaries and that the negligent legal system of TGWTDT just needs a good kick to snap back into place. The first book in the series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, is also the best one and I’ve caught myself wishing that Larsson had stopped there. I’m not used to seeing it in #1 New York Times bestsellers. This is stuff that I normally only read on feminist websites. Around New Year’s Blomkvist heard through the grapevine that she had been elbowed out. She had covered the story herself that first week – after all, she was the only reporter who had thoroughly researched the subject – but some time before Christmas Blomkvist noticed that all the new angles in the story had been handed over to male colleagues. She stood her ground, and it became the story of the year. Several of her more senior colleagues had given it a thumbs-down and told her that if she was wrong, her career was over. Only later did Blomkvist find out that she had had to fight tooth and nail to convince her editor to run it. She had been the first journalist to pounce on the story, and without her programme on the evening that Millennium released the scoop, it might not have made the impact it did. Parallel to this, and not entirely unrelated, is the nagging sexism in the workplace, the media, and the society at large: (The Robert Pickton case comes to mind, for several reasons.) Larsson does not romanticize domestic or sexual violence – it’s not about love or sex, it’s about control and humiliation – nor does he spare the legal and welfare systems that let the victims fall through the cracks too often. They’re actual human beings who have agency, fight back and take control of their lives, even as they remain damaged by the experience. ![]() His female characters aren’t just props against whom crimes can be committed so that the action could advance. The villains are “men who hate women” (the Swedish title of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), and here Larsson has a point of view that’s all too rare in mainstream popular culture. The best thing about the trilogy is its feminist angle. ![]()
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