Book 3 Project: Character Comparison

In The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, can be compared to Peter Parker (Spiderman). Both of these characters can be seen as unlikely heroes because they aren’t the typical big and strong persona that people are used to associating with being a hero. Peter Parker is a nerdy teenager who deals with “rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness”. No one would suspect him of having the capability to fight villains. Salander is in a very similar boat because other characters acknowledge something off about her oddness. They’re both introverted and shy. Salander has very little trust in anyone else. When being interviewed by authorities and other people trying to help her, her lawyer, Giannini is confused by Salander’s attitude. “Salander seemed at times to be in a deep depression and had not the slightest interest in dealing with her situation or her future. She simply did not grasp or did not care that the only way Giannini could provide her with an effective defence would be if she had access to all the facts” (166). Giannini is thrown off be her behavior. She doesn’t know how this abnormal girl could’ve previously wedged an axe into her father’s head because she doesn’t see how Salander is intelligent enough to find him when police couldn’t. This is a lot like how Peter Parker is an awkward, clumsy boy which leads to people’s disbelief that he can be so fierce, strong, and agile as Spiderman. When the time comes, both Salander and Spiderman can turn on. Even as a petite nine year old girl, Salander was capable of bringing out a tough side. It was “reported that she was vicious and aggressive towards her father and that she seemed to be not in the least afraid of him” (104). When she feels she has to protect her mother, a whole different side emerges from her shy persona, much like how Peter Parker manages to be clever and quick as Spiderman compared to his uncoordinated life as Peter. Along with being unlikely heroes, Salander and Peter Parker both experienced difficult upbringings even though the degree is sufficiently different. Peter Parker dealt with the death of both of his parents leading to him being raised by his aunt and uncle who were a much older couple. Salander, on the other hand, was taken away from her mother when it was determined that she was unqualified to take care of children and her father was never in the picture. Because of a series events dealing with her abusive, government-protected father, she illegally ended up in psychiatric care where she was taken advantage of by a deranged doctor. Peter and Salander are both motivated by the past of their fathers. Peter Parker works to clear his parents’ names and prove that they weren’t traitors of the country. Obviously, Salander wants revenge on Zalachenko  because of all the damage he did to their family and since he is the underlying cause of her traumatic childhood.  On one incident in the hospital, “Salander spent the whole day brooding about Zalachenko. […] She had tracked him to Gosseberga fully intending to kill him. She had failed, with the result that Zalachenko was alive and tucked into bed just thirty feet from where she was” (122). She dedicated herself to revenge and Peter wanted justice for his parents in a similar fashion. Although Salander and Spiderman are very quirky characters, they both have a completely different side when it comes to getting justice. They came from troubled pasts and their motives are family related. Most importantly, both prevail.

Reflection 10: Villains

Villains are so interesting to us because they are constantly doing unexpected things. It’s difficult to understand why they do the things they do because most of it is extremely self-centered. I think villains also have the capability of bringing out the bad side of readers. We find things we can identify with even if we don’t want to. Villains pose readers with different perspectives and give other characters the opportunity to step up and be a hero. Readers love to hate villains. If there isn’t a villain in the book, there wouldn’t be anyone to root for, and that is one of the major reasons that make a book hard to put down. Villains can reveal effects of society and different cultures on people and how it can have a devastating, lasting effect. Most villains experience some sort of hardship in their past that cause them to be the way they are. I think the most interesting thing about villains is seeing what caused the evil inside of them and there’s nothing readers enjoy more than seeing the villain they’ve hated the entire novel get taken down by their favorite hero. It always makes for a great ending because readers can't wait for justice.

Reflection 9: Three Great Moments

Great Moments in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest:

            After her father tries to kill and Lisbeth puts an axe in his head, she finds herself in a hospital room just a few doors down from his. She’s still not thinking perfectly after having a bullet in her head removed, and many broken bones cause her mobility to be extremely limited. But her instincts are still sharp and she’s aware that Zalachenko definitely still wants her dead. In the specific scene, Lisbeth hears the sound of crutches hobbling slowly down the hall. She’s death-gripping a pencil she stole from a nurse, her only possible weapon, in case he attacks her. Lisbeth is describes as sweating and I could completely picture the scene, as if a movie, of hearing the crutches in slow motion with beads of sweat falling from her stationary head. It turns out that Zala just turns around and returns to his room after confirming Lisbeth’s location. The scene doesn’t end up being dramatic, but the build-up was very intense and powerful.

            All throughout the books, readers have learned about the insane intelligence of Lisbeth. She especially excels in math, reading a book on improvable theories, and obviously in the technological field. Lisbeth is shot in the head at the end of book two and the removal of the bullet threatens all the knowledge she’s ever obtained, which is a whole lot. The best doctor is called into surgery in the middle of the night because of the severity of her situation. It just so happens that the bullet is lodged in the logical part of Lisbeth’s brain that has to do with everything she’s ever known, like numbers and reason. It just wouldn’t be significant enough if it landed in the emotional side, since she hardly shows emotion as it is. The nail-biting moment comes when the nurse starts to ask her questions after the bullet is removed, right before she is asked the first question relating to mathematics. Luckily, she remembers. After the importance of her rational brain is emphasized so much, I took a great sigh of relief when she didn’t lose any of her memory.

            This whole mess what somewhat caused by a secret organization known as “The Section” because they’re responsible for Zalachenko and Saladander’s illegal admittance into psychiatric care. After all the events of shootings, investigations, murders, etc. in the second book, the entire existence of the Section is questioned because so many people have figured out what they’ve done, including Salander and Blomkvist. Resigning from his previous post, Evert Gullberg, a founder of the Section knows what he has to do to try and keep everything quiet. The great moment that happens is when Gullberg, who also has cancer, shoots Zalachenko in his bed. They can’t put up with him anymore and fear he’ll threaten to expose them if they don’t give in to his every demand. It’s so shocking because they’ve covered up for him all this time and all of a sudden he’s just shot in his bed. More suspense follows when he plans to kill Salander, but he is fortunately stopped by her new lawyer.

Reflection 8: Top Five Series

The Girl Who Played with Fire-Book Project 2

The most intriguing part about Larsson’s books is the way he manages to make everything seem unrelated and the fit it all together. He spins a confusing and elaborate web all through the book and it doesn’t come together until the very end. This is what I loved most about the book, along with, of course, the thrilling and stimulating plot with twists at every corner. The main connection from The Girl Who Played with Fire is a man named Zalachenko. Everything leads to him in one way or another.
            His first link is Ronald Niedermann. He’s Zalachenko’s hugely built, but mentally slow son and right hand man. He carries out Zala’s orders, considering he has a hard time getting around due to an amputated foot thanks to Salander, but that comes later. Niedermann kills journalists Dag Svensson and Mia Johasson when they’re on the verge of releasing a book about a sex trafficking scandal and their investigation gets a little too threatening to Zala’s secrecy. Niedermann also kidnaps and tortures an girl named Mirium Wu, friend and lover of Lisbeth, to find out where Salander is.            
            At the time, Svensson and Johansson are working for Millennium and were hired by Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is a friend of Salander’s from working together on a case in the first book, and throughout The Girl Who Player with Fire he continually tries to prove Salander’s innocence when she became the prime suspect for the murder of Dag and Mia. After their death, Blomkvist takes it upon himself to finish their exposé and find out who killed them. He starts by sorting through the list of johns they planned to expose, seeing as these men may have a strong motive for wanting them dead. This is how he stumbles across the name Gunnar Björk. When Björk trades information for his anonymity, Blomkvist gets closer than he realizes. As it turns out, Björk was involved in a secret section of the Soviet government, Säpo, that granted a man named Karl Axel Bodin, a Russian defect, asylum inside their country in exchange for information on the location of other spies. Björk became in charge of giving Karl a new identity, Zalachenko, and keeping his existence a secret. Coincidently, Nils Bjurman was a junior officer who happened to be there when Zalachenko arrived. Seeing as though he already knew too much, Bjurman was assigned as Lisbeth Salander’s new guardian after her former one had a stroke, not a coincidence at all. He was given this job to keep Salander under a close watch to make sure she never does anything that may give up Zala’s indentity.
            After a series of events, Björk enlists the help of Dr. Teleborian, a psychiatrist. His job was to keep Salander in psychiatric care since the age of twelve. He forged reviews on her mental state and lied about her problems. So what if she didn’t talk? She was right not to trust him, as she was cruelly and unfairly kept here for countless years. What prompted the need for Dr. Teleborian was the event known as “All the Evil”, which leads to the biggest shock of all… Lisbeth Salander is Zalachenko’s daughter! Wow! I just couldn’t even believe Larsson pulled that off.
             Salander described Zala as an abusive father to her mother. She hated him more than anything and tried to kill him multiple times, including an unsuccessful stab attempt. Clever from the start, one day Salander threw a gasoline-filled carton into his car to set it on fire, leading to her stay in psychiartric care because authorities were more concerned with keeping Zala’s existence hidden than this little girl’s well-being. They declared her insane and moved on. So, while authorites and journalists are tracking down for Zala for numerous crimes, Lisbeth Salander is also on the hunt to get revenge on her unbearable father responsible for her traumatic past. Somehow, Larsson spun a tangled web that all managed to make perfect sense.

Reflection 7: Non-Fiction

To be considered non-fiction, I think a book has to be 100% true. When I think about non-fiction, the first thing that comes to mind is a true story. If even anything is made up in it, I don’t think it should still be considered non-fiction. Lies are added to stories to make them more interesting. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that if you’re not listing it on the book shelves as the truth. Half-truths make some of the best stories because the author can give you true insight on a real topic without the actual situation being true. Authors still list these as non-fiction because they think it will be more interesting. I bet The Blind Side wouldn’t be near as popular if someone had made up the whole thing and Michael Oher wasn’t actually an NFL football player. These stories are more inspiring and heart-warming to readers because someone it’s happened to a real person. I definitely think that there needs to be more distinct lines between genres because there’s obviously something wrong if anyone with a good story filled with embellishments can publish a book as a memoir. It takes credibility from authors and everyone else involved in the release of that books. Readers have a harder time trusting the genre given to books. Are they true or just a way of selling a fabricated tale?

Review 3: The Girl Who Played with Fire

                I would classify The Girl Who Played with Fire as a thriller. It definitely has the aspects of a crime thriller because they are looking for refuge who is organizing crimes, including sex trafficking. There are “chase scenes, cover-ups, kidnappings, spies, and espionage” which are all components of a crime thriller. Suspense is one of Larsson’s best talents when it comes to these books. I think it has a small twinge of mystery to it because there are authorities and detectives trying to solve a murder. In these ways it is a very typical for thrillers. What separates it from others is definitely the story. A “random murder” ends up unraveling all the strings of an ex-military man seeking asylum in this country in exchange for military information. Cops are on the hunt for him for numerous charges at the same time the federal government still trying to keep his identity a secret. Scenes where people are being taken to an unknown warehouse to be tortured or digging up bodies in the woods are what make it a thriller. Police are important to the reader because that’s how we find out about most of these things, despite a few details being figured out by journalist Mikael Blomkvist and a technologically advanced girl named Lisbeth. Other subplots, like finding out Zalachenko is Lisbeth’s abusive father, her trying to kill him, and her countless unfair years in psychiatric care also make it a thriller because in a seemingly unrelated way, these are all important to move the plot forward and making sure readers get the full story. So many things happen in this book and something Larsson will bring up in one chapter won’t be addressed until maybe ten chapters later. His books thrive on suspense. This thriller literally makes it impossible to stop reading.

Reflection 6: Book Genres

I think that genres help books a lot. If people know the specific type of novel they like to read then it’s easier to find books they’ll enjoy. Personally, I like fictional books. I don’t like science fiction at all because I don’t really understand it. I enjoyed books like The Hunger Games and The Uglies that take places in a futuristic world without it being too much about the scientific aspect. In this way, my taste has pretty much stayed the same. Genres are extremely helpful and necessary because it would be nearly impossible for people to find the books they like if they don’t have anything to go off of and genre is an easy way to classify books that everyone can understand. Out of the genres we discussed, my favorites are dystopian and magic realism. These seem opposite, but both of these make you believe in them. Dystopian makes you dive into a completely different world but it seems so real. Magic realism takes place in a world I’m familiar with so it’s easy to imagine that magical aspects could actually be happening. Am I a muggle? Are there actually wizards going to a different school than me? Do my toys talk when I’m not there? Books can make you believe impossible things.

Review 2: The Girl Who Played with Fire

The publishers chose to highlight the colors red, yellow, and orange obviously because the title is The Girl Who Player With Fire. It includes messy blonde hair that appears to be fire. This makes no sense when you first see it, but readers will be intrigued to find out. Advertising is also helped by associated this sequel with the first best seller. The hair symbolizes girls involved in sex trafficking. This is the underlying problem that leads to exposure, murder, and conflict. The blonde hair only has meaning after reading. I like that about the cover. The text is in big, black bold. I think this is because publishers want people to know that in no way is this a fun, light-hearted read. It also makes it look very mature because it’s probably not a subject for younger readers. The author’s name is the same size and font as the title, which I do not like. I think it takes away from the title because there is so much print. All of Stieg Larsson’s books are formatted this way: a small ambiguous image relating to the book with the title in large font. Larsson’s books always have several different plots that seem irrelevant to one another, but always find a twisted way to completely relate. For example, you have Lisbeth’s life and then the investigation of murders leading to the sex trafficking business. They seem separate until you find out that Lisbeth, authorities, and journalists are all looking for a man named Zalachenko, a prostitution organizer who turns out to be Lisbeth’s dad. At first glance I’m more attracted to covers that easily explain what a book will be about, but the books with covers that only make sense after reading are much more fascinating. I love the feeling when you can finally connect the title or cover art to the story. I feel accomplished.

Reflection 5: Judging Book Covers

I hate boring and cliché book covers. If the title seems abstract and the cover doesn’t clarify at all, I’m less likely to read it. I don’t think having the title really big is necessary because people will look for the title of the book no matter its location or size, and it’s easily found on the spine. I also think that including awards on covers don’t need to be prominent because you find some on almost every book on the shelves. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series does this and I don’t think they’re very attracting covers. The plot definitely doesn’t lack interest, but readers may never know that if the cover isn’t anything special. Personally I like when covers are real pictures and not rough sketches of what might be the plot. These can come from the movie adaptation or not, but I’m more likely to read a book that appears to be from this era. I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and I think the cover with the boy on it was very well done. It looks modern and it’s not an image you seen a million times, like most Jodi Picoult novels. I’m always looking for something new and if a book has an interesting and unique cover, I’m much more likely to pick it up. A cover tells more about a book than authors would probably like because it’s hard to capture a novel in its entirety in a single picture.

Review 1:The Girl Who Played with Fire

Since these books are originally in a different language and take place in a different country, that’s an obstacle when adapting the book. I feel like the author thought a lot about the appearance of his characters and how it relates to who they are, so casting could also possess an issue. As a reader, most of the story is told in the form of people talking or reading different reports. I think it would be hard for the film to show these things when they’re just simply told to readers. Audiences don’t like to sit through hours of talking in theaters. Directors would have a hard time getting across all the important information without boring viewers.                                                                                                                                      

   The first scene I would keep would be when Lisbeth throws a gasoline carton into Zalachenko’s, her abusive father, car and it bursts into flames. This is important because it shows Lisbeth’s internal issues and why she turned out hostile and alone. I would also include the part where Lisbeth saves a couple and a boy from an intense hurricane. This shows a lot of her character because she comes off as unfriendly and keeps to herself, but this scene demonstrates that she does care about other people. Lisbeth is known for always having a reason for her actions, respecting people that respect her, and never giving someone something they don’t deserve. A third scene I’d pick is one where Ronald Niedermann, an enormous trained assassin, is freaking out because he’s scared of the dark. His character is portrayed as the largest man anyone has ever seen and he has a condition where he doesn’t feel pain. This scene shows that his mental state isn’t nearly as strong as his physical.

I would cut out the subplot about Lisbeth finding her sister because it’s a very long book and this part isn’t essential. Her sister is a small part the author can include but can be ruled unnecessary for the movie. I’d also exclude scenes about Erika Berger, chief editor at Millennium, and her promotion. As a reader we like to hear about how her life moves forward, but it’s a minor detail when you focus on the story of Lisbeth and Zalachenko.

Reflection 4: Books to Films

Demi’s Best & Worst Film Adaptations

These are adaptations that I have personally read and seen. I included some that I liked and some that I thought didn’t do a very good job portraying the book. For the most part, I like when the movies are very similar to the book and stray very little.

Best
Best Children’s Book Adaptation: The Cat in the Hat
I can't even count the number of times my mom read The Cat in the Hat to me. My sister’s and I loved all Dr. Seuss’ books, but this one never got old. Our whole family made the trip to the theater to see the movie and at seven years old I was ecstatic. The movie was fun and entertaining and just like the book. That’s what made it so good and I loved it.

Best Adult Novel Adaption: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

 This movie did a great job sticking to plots and character description. Things were just like I imagined and the characters were almost dead on. At some points in the book I got confused because it takes place in a different country, but the movie was very clear and easy to follow.

Best Action Adaptation: The Hunger Games
The movie included the important parts of the books and left out scenes that weren’t completely necessary to the plot. I liked how it still portrayed the fighting scenes but included things happening outside at well. It gave a lot more perspective and entertained viewers.

Worst
Worst Tear-Jerker Adaptation: My Sister's Keeper
I couldn’t believe directors changed the ending and made a different girl die. It made it a bad adaptation because the book ending provided so much more closure. The characters were somewhat accurate, but it strayed too far from the book.

Worst Adaptation Based on a True Story: The Blind Side
Michael Oher isn’t described at all in the book how he is portrayed in the book. The movie was a lot more just for pure entertainment and the book was all about the true story. His character was too different.