A pale shadow of the original

Rajdeep Bains

A few years ago a series appeared on the bestseller lists across the world. Stieg Larsson and his Millennium trilogy had arrived and he took the literary world by storm. Readers were hooked. They devoured all three books — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. Larrson’s sudden death in 2004, after delivering the manuscripts of the trilogy to his publisher robbed the world of a talent it was just discovering. 

Another Swedish journalist and author, David Lagercrantz stepped into the void and continued where Larrson had left off, bringing the tattooed, vengeful hacker Lisbeth Salander back to life, and the readers loved him, too.

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye is the second book by Lagercrantz and it strikes at the heart of the question on everyone’s mind. What is the dragon tattoo’s origin? Why did Salander choose this as her symbol? 

The world of masculine violence, injustice and government corruption, which formed a backdrop of Larrson’s novels, finds privacy concerns and government surveillance added to the list in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the first Lagercrantz novel. To this heady cocktail, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye adds racism, religious fundamentalism and questions about heredity and environment. 

The mix is intoxicating with all the elements of drama, righteous rage, technology and violence, yet it fails to hold its own against the original trilogy. Where Larrson shone because of the extraordinary chemistry between the two stars, Salander and Blomkvist, there is so little interaction between them in this novel that a reader may be left feeling cheated. Instead, Lagercrantz chooses to concentrate on his own creations, particularly the twins, Leo and Daniel. Salander, who is still assumed to be central to the plot, is left as a mere shadow of the vigilante and almost feral crusader for justice that she shone as in the original trilogy.

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye is supposed to show the readers the dreadful things done to Salander in her childhood, but it fails. It only tells, and does very little showing. The harsh graphic descriptions are not only missing but are also replaced by pedantic lectures on genetics and eugenics that make the eyes glaze over.

Then there are the stereotypical arch villains — a mad scientist, complete with bag of murderous syringes and idiosyncrasies, and a psychopathic criminal gang boss who is, expectantly, beaten up and taught a lesson by the diminutive Salander. The sluggishness of the plot wears you down with its ‘backward-and-forward in time’ sequences. The entire sub-plot of the Islamist brothers and their deal with the gang leader to eliminate their sister seems contrived and only adds to the general sense of confusion. One can’t help looking back with nostalgia to the sharp incisiveness of the original series.

All original elements are there and referred to, but we are reminded again and again that this is a Lagercrantz novel and linking it to Larrson’s just does not ring true. The novel disappoints the core fans, though it still makes for interesting reading for the uninitiated. The trilogy, one feels, should never have been turned into a franchise. Lagercrantz, by being tied down by the limitations of the series, cannot shine as he probably would in any work that is completely his own. And that more than anything else sums up the book.