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Based on the best-selling Swedish crime novel by Stieg Larsson, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” has finally hit American theaters and has hit the ground running...
...there's no way to brace for the morass of misanthropy in her new novel So Much for That (Harper; 433 pages), which attacks the American health care system more savagely than any Democrat in Congress has but at no small cost to the reader. The first half overflows with the rantings of a half-dozen furious characters. It's brave, bold and so abrasive that you almost want to give up. You feel as if you're trapped in Michael Moore's head, being lectured on all his pet subjects. I was reading, but still, I almost went deaf...
...engagement with Shep's private war between doing the right thing heartwise and doing the right thing headwise saves the novel. In its second half, So Much for That becomes a page turner. Having let her characters amply articulate all the reasons life stinks, Shriver starts making a case for why even a lousy life is worth fighting for, and she does it with a biting honesty that rebukes all sentiment ality. For too long, this book had me thinking its title is dispiriting, a cynical flick at our throwaway dreams. In fact, says this viciously smart writer, the that...
...secret to the mystery. The viewer is free to infer that Poundstone is L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and Dayne is the New York Times' Judith Miller. (Brown, the repository of weary espionage wisdom, is every CIA or MI5 spy out of a Graham Greene novel.) To complete the skein of conspiracy, the movie also has a stand-in for Washington's Iraq front man, Ahmad Chalabi. (See the top 10 CIA movies...
...hard to blame Blomkvist for being smitten though. Rapace has some Spanish heritage mixed in with her Swedish, and her eyes are dark, almost black. Her nose is strong, her cheekbones prominent. As with the written Salander, she's inexplicably attractive. I finished Larsson's novel with the uncomfortable sense it used a good mystery as an excuse to dwell on sadism and perversity - an aspect only exacerbated on screen. I thought I'd had quite enough but Rapace's quietly simmering performance made me curious about what The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo does next...