Top 10 Things I Learned About Sweden From Reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo…

… and the other two books. I enjoyed these books, I really did. I tried to get into the Swedish version of the movie and I made it like, 20 minutes… I’m aware it got great reviews, I do fully intend to try again. Hopefully the English version coming out next year will be more engaging! After reading all three books, I’m pretty much an expert on life up there, here’s what I learned.

1. Swedish people LOVE coffee. Everyone drinks coffee all the time… bedtime? Coffee. Meeting? Coffee. Lunch? Coffee. Reading files on an old murder? Coffee. Going for a walk? Bring your thermos! I’m surprised they sleep.

2. They also love sandwiches. I don’t know if Mr. Larsson was just hungry all the time, but these characters are living in sandwich paradise. Every kind, every size, every meal. I’m super jealous.

3. The title in Swedish is: Män som hatar kvinnor – “Men Who Hate Women.” What the hell, translators, that title makes about a gazillion times more sense! I just looked that up and the first thing I thought was “OH! I get it!” Like, I get the ENTIRE series all of a sudden! I knew it was about gender… but it’s ABOUT gender. Oh. Point taken: gender violence is a serious social issue in Sweden and needs to be addressed.

4. All the violence is just probably because it’s so cold. [note: I'm not going back and citing, these are from memory] Everyone is always bundling up. It’s always dark, there are long johns and scarves and sweaters and foot stomping and hand rubbing togethers. Although! The cold probably saves a lot of people from bleeding out, I imagine that it’s sort of like a preserver for those who get beat up during the books (no scientific basis, just imagining).

The Police aren’t so aggressive, here are some examples.

5. So they think they have the apartment of a murderer (I won’t spoil any plots). They get there, nobody is home… soooo what did they do? They called a LOCKSMITH! The murderer could be INSIDE and not answering, because that would be the smart thing to do since they’re going to have like an hour to kill while they wait for the police to get inside. They could be doing all sorts of things, like, leaving out a back door. Or, sitting there with a gun waiting for you to open the door! Kick it down!

6. THEN one of the police people pulls out their gun and it’s like the emotional travesty of the freaking century. On NCIS they kill people all the time… in these books they get really nervous and look around and wonder what to do. Not that I think police should be shooting like cray cray but if you have someone shooting at you, you do realize you also have a gun? There are 9358437657843 acts of violence in these books and hardly a one committed by the police.

7. They have sex a lot. Maybe it’s the cold? Maybe it’s just that the main character is irresistible. I guess if you’re single and going to meetings with people, or have a trainer at the gym, or know another person in any capacity at all and you have nothing better to do that would make sense… Side note, I was worried that they were going to make Erika Berger a not-older woman. She’s supposed to be 40s and I would be annoyed if it were like, Nicole Kidman. For reference the Swedish movie used Lena Endre, the US version is rumored to be asking Robin Wright Penn. I’m totally ok with that.

8. 1 Swedish krona = 0.1485 US dollars / 1 US dollar = 6.7335 Swedish kronor
(Are you reading the books now? You’re welcome)

9. Unsurprisingly, even more loved than the coffee are the coffee cups. Over and over they’re described in detail. My favorite is how the cups at the Millennium office all have union symbols or symbols from the democratic party line. We get it, they’re the liberal mag, I see what you did there.

10. Standing up for yourself is hard. The main character is a ward of the state even though she’s in her early 20s. Every time a woman tries to do something she’s shot down. Very few women work in the government, and the one that does is freakishly muscular (they also say “pump iron” makes me giggle, every time). All of this of course makes more sense now that I know the original title!

Here you go Lisbeth:

Have you read them? What did you learn? I’m waiting patiently for Popten’s resident Swede to chime in! Hi Jiun!!!