The Inked Girl With Poor Instincts Regarding Nature

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Only one review for the trilogy; I know, I'm tight lipped. But if they aren't read as a series they really don't make sense. Each book deals with a different aspect of Salander: her genius and dysfunction, her history, and finally her redemption. The plot was intricate, the prose was on the good side of decent and the characters fantastic. Often horrible people, but well drawn, like some of da Vinci's sketches: one wonders why on earth he bothered drawing that particular person. True, if you see a car wreck you'll see people around with cameras, but that type of morbid fascination doesn't always extend to the corners in art. With Larsson, it kind of does.

There is a disturbing moral vacuity that one finds on reading him. Adultery, theft, murder--all are acceptable. Rape is horrific, burning a rapist alive is good. Sodomy is appalling, unless it's in revenge. The one moral standard seems to be severe justice: if they deserve it, They will damned well get it. So if you are looking for a dark trilogy with a cataclysmic eucatastrophe in the redemption, Lisbeth is a fascinating girl. Definitely has Aspergers with her antisocial, mathematical mind, and her life gives flesh to the rage-filled vengeance on all those who prey upon women. The trial is a fantastic upset and very enjoyable to read.

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Ecce, Charles!

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Charles the Inkling Williams. Wow. I've been planning on reading him for some time, but had been hesitant due to mixed reviews from unnamed persons. Upon finding Frank Peretti upon their shelves, I happily heaved their advice overboard and bought the first Williams I could find, which happened to be Descent Into Hell.

Reviewing this book is hard. It's a type of Supernatural Realism with a heavy dose of Mythical Faerie, and blended with some of the most superb, even sublime prose that I've encountered. Nothing really happens in the book, even with a succubus and opened graves. You feel, at alternating chapters, as if you're walking either up a flight of stairs into an open vista of a far green country bordered by breakers curled like a lover's wet hair, or as if you're walking down a flight of stairs into a cellar of unnamed and unknown horrors with a whispered voice hissing "mad, mad, you are mad..."


There are two truly "main" characters, and then there are a handful of peripheral characters and one central character. There are two, yea verily even three timelines coinciding; there is Lilith and Death, there is Poetry and Life. There is the Real, and there is the Fake; Zion and Gomorrah, and I could explain the entire book without giving a single thing away.

The only explanation for Williams being as unknown as he is is two-fold: either this is by far his best work, or he was simply overshadowed by the vast output of Lewis and the incomparable genius of Tolkien. But this book is so very worth the read. I'll be adding him to my shelves as often as I find him.

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