{"id":4117,"date":"2010-07-10T22:36:30","date_gmt":"2010-07-11T02:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=4117"},"modified":"2010-07-10T22:36:30","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T02:36:30","slug":"weekend-with-the-dragon-tattoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=4117","title":{"rendered":"Weekend with the dragon tattoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Saturday went by much, much too quickly.<\/p>\n

It rained for most of the afternoon, and I spent it mostly playing with the dog and watching TV or reading. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to mail out issues of Kaleidotrope<\/i> this weekend, though I did finally mail a copy of issue #8 that I’ve been neglecting to for a little while now. (A very little while. I’m usually good about that sort of thing.) I just wasn’t going to be able to have all them printed, folded, stapled, enveloped, and mailed. Next Saturday, fingers crossed!<\/p>\n

Last night, I watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo<\/i> (on Netflix Watch Instantly), which I think I liked about as much as I did the book<\/a>. Which is to say that I liked some of it quite a lot, particularly Noomi Rapace’s fearless portrayal of Lisbeth Salander, but found the rest of it a weird mix of padded tedium and gripping (if inelegantly structured) whodunit. <\/p>\n

It’s also funny that so much has been made of how the translated title, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo<\/i>, is inaccurate, that Laarson’s original, M\u00c3\u00a4n som hatar kvinnor<\/i> (or Men Who Hate Women<\/i>), is more apt. And it’s true, the book is more about misogyny (and family secrets) than about Lisbeth. Her tattoo gets mentioned, briefly, but it’s hardly important, and she’s hardly the main focus of the story. And yet if you take her character out of the book — and out of the movie — you’re not left with much else that works. Certainly nothing that’s half as intriguing. Rapace is riveting every time she’s on screen; but every time she’s off, you notice. And while the movie streamlines a lot<\/i> of the book — for better and for worse — it’s still two and a half hours long. Laarson’s title is more accurate, but it’s boring and underlines what doesn’t work; the English title is misleading, but it focuses in on what’s best about the book.<\/p>\n

The movie also had what I think is a pretty big spoiler for the next two books. I say think<\/i>, because I haven’t read them yet. (I may at some point, but it won’t be immediately, even with the second movie now playing in the US.)<\/p>\n

Apparently, there’s also a TV show (starring Rapace) in Sweden. I’m a little dumbfounded by the mass appeal of the books, but there’s something<\/i> there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday went by much, much too quickly. It rained for most of the afternoon, and I spent it mostly playing with the dog and watching TV or reading. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to mail out issues of Kaleidotrope this weekend, though I did finally mail a copy of issue #8 that I’ve … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[16,4,14,28,114],"class_list":["post-4117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-kaleidotrope","tag-movies","tag-personal","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}