Dan's Reading Journal

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second of the ten novels planned by Stieg Larsson.  Unfortunately, with his untimely death, it is the second of a trilogy.  The final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, is due out in the US this year. I reviewed Larsson's first novel in my "Summer Reading" reviews this past summer -  see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I will not get into the debate of whether The Girl Who Played with Fire is better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I find those debates of little merit.  The first novel has the advantage of bringing all of the cleverness, intrigue, terrific character quirks, and everything else to the reader as new and fresh. Clearly that is never true of the second in a series which has the heavy task of carrying the load from the first novel and then has to reengage, re-energize, and renew the reader's relationship.  Larsson does this with terrific form, great excitement, and an electric story.

Quick synopsis:  A freelance journalist is about to expose some very important people involved in the sex trafficking trade.  The journalist and his girlfriend are found shot to death and Lisbeth Salander (our computer hacker, state monitored violent offender co-protagonist from the first novel) is the prime suspect as her fingerprints are found all over the crime scene.  The journalist Mikael Blomkvist (the other co-protagonist), who hasn't seen Lisbeth in quite some time, works to clear her.

There are plenty of twists, turns, and reverses.  There are multiple murders, multiple investigations, complications, and confusion.  Larsson's great prose and incredibly interesting characters will first spark, pique, and then continue to hold your interest. This guy could write a murder mystery...he can also write misdirection, sex, and action.  If for nothing else, read The Girl Who Played with Fire for all that.

However, I read Stieg Larsson for his absolute refutation of all those myths we are told about the wonders of the Scandinavian society.  You know, although they have higher taxes, they have a better health care system, more gender equality, better functioning government, more tolerance, cleaner cities, they are in better shape and they have better and more sex (ok, this last part appears that it might be true..but remember, this IS fiction).  Before you buy into all or any of that, read this. 

Stieg Larsson's Sweden is anti-all-the-hype, it is dark, it is scary, and it is bleak.  Not always, but often.  It strips bear the emotions, betrays the senses, and challenges the soul.  Punctuated by an occasional but always entertaining and quirky sense of humor, Larsson has something to say about what has happened in Sweden and what the human cost has been.  I find it fascinating.  Read anything that Stieg Larsson has written.

God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

If you regularly attend religious services, you will not like this book.  If you have any affinity for the basic tenets (i.e., the sacred texts) of your particular spiritual association, you will not like this book.  If you have any attachment to the historical founders of your religion, you will not like this book.  If you have any respect for the clergy (of any stripe) based on their goodness derived from their adherence to the basic teachings of their faith, you will not like this book.  In fact, even if you are basically agnostic or atheist but are tolerant of your faith-bearing neighbors, there is a good chance you will not like this book.  And, if you are among the orthodox of your specific faith, you will not only hate this book, but actively agitate that it is blasphemy.

Christopher Hitchens has subtitled his book, "How religion poisons everything" and by God (pun intended) he means it. Compared to Hitchens, Sam Harris (the first of the recent anti-religion treatises in "The End of Faith") is a nice guy with a quaint perspective.  Harris's basic premise was that anyone who believed that their basic sacred text (e.g., Koran, Torah, New Testament, Bagvadhgita) was the literal word of God would by definition trample the rights (and eventually justify the taking of life) of anyone who did not agree with them.  In Harris's case unthinking belief drives irrational human behavior. It is my interpretation (or my feeble memory) that Harris leaves open the possibility that when tempered by real reformation, religious values might actually be put to some good.

Hitchens goes one step further...for him, the essential belief systems of religion are based on seriously flawed fables, fictions, falsehoods, fabrications, and total folderol.  Religion according to Hitchens is "man-made" and contributes nothing but oppression, violence, and the suppression of the human spirit.  Hitchens see religion as anti-science and anti-reason.  He has no time for the supposed saints and prophets. Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad get skewered as do more modern incarnations of religious leadership as Brigham Young, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, and Gandhi).  No one is spared, for example, "and in North Korea today, what has gone awry is not communism but Confucianism".  Ouch!

Hitchens' detractors (and there are many as you can imagine) argue that he is one-sided, unfair, and blind to other interpretations.  They argue that Hitchens ignores the good that religion has brought us, that evil deeds are committed by both believers and non-believers, and that not everyone is a fundamentalist.

So why read this? 

Because despite the ramped up rhetoric, Hitchens does a few things worth examining closely.  First, he clearly exposes some of the greatest hypocrisies within the major religions.  The Catholic Church is devoted to improving the condition of humans but relegates 50% of the population to second class status (women); Orthodox Jews continue rituals and practices that violate any number of laws on a regular basis. Hindus and Muslims kill each other with wild abandon and glee.  Islamist jihadis celebrate the deaths of Americans and Israelis. And on and on. 

Second, while Hitchens critics continue to hammer at him that evil is done by all, Hitchens does more than a credible job of demonstrating that deliberate evil is done by, for, and in the name of the very institutions that should be models of better behavior.  Hitchens detractors on this are simply disingenuous....he is absolutely right.  Our religious institutions, hierarchies, and leaders should be more than the rest of us..more moral.  Hitchens' litany is compelling even if most of us will reject his arguments.  His detractors maintain that most of this is ancient history.  Catholics reject the Inquisition.  Jews no longer practice animal sacrifice.  Muslims no longer convert by the sword.  Really?  The current Pope wants to saint Pope Pius -- known for (at best) his indifference to the Holocaust.  The fanatics of the BJP in India have bombed mosques.  Islamists murder cartoonists and apostates, and kill their raped daughters for dishonoring the family. How far have we really come?

Finally, read this because, despite the reviews that argue that Hitchens' arguments regarding intelligent design are overdone, I did not find that to be true. 

Overall, I certainly believe that Hitchens is monumentally angry at religion.  I am also sure he drops into hyperbole on a regular basis.  He is also monumentally erudite and viciously incisive.  He will make you uncomfortable and he will make you think.  That is worth all the rest.