Book Review: The Psychology of the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo

Lisbeth Salander is one of the most intriguing literary characters of all time. A new book, The Psychology of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, examines Lisbeth’s character in depth. The book’s publishers, SmartPop (BenBella Books, Texas), recently sent me a copy for review.

Edited by a clinical psychologist and written by various PhDs in Psychology, The Psychology of the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo gets inside Lisbeth’s head in a more thorough and professional way than any fan or blogger could. The essays look at Lisbeth’s personality, decisions, and growth, e.g. her Goth appearance, the tattoos and body piercings, the silent stance, and even the significance of Lisbeth’s breast implants toward the end of the third Millennium Trilogy novel.

The Psychology of the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo not only looks into Lisbeth’s reasons behind her behavior, but places those behaviors in a larger society as a whole, giving us a broadened perspective on the beautiful logic and justice of Lisbeth’s joie d’ vive. In dissecting the hero of Lisbeth, the academics build up her character to the superhero proportions it deserves.

Lisbeth is truly the newest Titan of our day. Superman would want to whisk Lisbeth away to his bed but Lisbeth would geolocate the Fortress of Solitude within seconds and broadcast its GPS co-ordinates on the Internet. Spiderman would want to web her up but Lisbeth would nail his feet to the floor, then empty his accounts and publish his identity on Facebook. X-Men’s Storm would make Lisbeth laugh (then maybe Lisbeth would seduce her). James Bond 007 could learn quite a number of tricks from Salander, like international hacking techniques, disguises, videotaping, money laundering, weapons handling, and hand-to-hand combat theories. The Terminator would give Lisbeth pause but she’d find a way to either sleep with it or erase and reprogram its harddrive. Or both, in reverse order. Lisbeth is supremely capable and cannot be stopped.

How did Lisbeth get this way? What age-old mythology supports Lisbeth’s super-humanness? Why do people tattoo and pierce themselves? Why are we so uncomfortable when someone like Lisbeth doesn’t fit into one feminine or masculine profile? By the way, WTF is up with Sweden? What’s with the extreme sexism and the gnarly dudes in the books? What if Lisbeth Salander were real? What would happen then? Where would she have come from?

The Psychology of the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo answers all of these questions and more. Just take a gander at the book’s essay titles:

1. Lisbeth Salander and the “Truth” About Goths
2. The Body Speaks Louder than Words: What Is Lisbeth Salander Saying?
3. Lisbeth Salander as Gender Outlaw
4. What to Say When the Patient Doesn’t Talk: Lisbeth Salander and the Problem of Silence
5. Mistrustful: Salander’s Struggle with Intimacy

1. Sadistic Pigs, Perverts and Rapists: Sexism in Sweden
2. Broken: How the Combination of Genes and A Rough Childhood Contribute to Violence
3. Men Who Hate Women But Hide It Well: Successful Psychopathy in the Millennium Trilogy
4. If Lisbeth Salander Were Real
5. Confidential: Forensic Psychological Report: Lisbeth Salander

1. The Magnetic Polarizing Woman
2. Resilience with a Dragon Tattoo
3. Lisbeth Salander, Hacker
4. Salander as Superhero 
5. The Cost of Justice

These titles alone are enough to start active fan forum threads. Plus, the writing isn’t at all dry or academic – it’s accessible and flows, but is not in the least condescending to the normal reader. I do wish that some of the essays would’ve steered away from the typical pitfalls, e.g., the first essay on Goth cites statistics that affirm the stereotype of Goths but doesn’t fully examine how those stats are deceiving. Sometimes the analyses can be a bit off. Also, if you’ve read my reviews of the book, I don’t see Blomkvist as such a great guy; In this book he’s referred to as a good influence on Lisbeth (perhaps so, but Blomkvist is no prize himself). Another thing I had an issue with was the promulgation of the word “Girl” to describe Lisbeth. I understand the book is just riffing off the American title but as responsible citizens and members of the Psychology profession, I would have hoped for a bit more accuracy. (There’s a great essay about gender in the book, though, and it’s worthy of study by any top Women’s Studies university-level classes).

I did enjoy the book and will keep it as a reference for my own character studies in my writing. Enjoy the American version of the movie, which releases on December 21, 2011 and then pick up a copy of this book for the fan, the literary writer, the psychologist in you or your family. It’ll add depth to your knowledge and understanding of our most favorite modern-day hero, Lisbeth Salander.

-Christine Cavalier

 FROM THE PUBLISHER:

Book Details:

Title: The Psychology of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Editors: Robin S. Rosenberg, PhD, and Shannon O’Neill

Publisher: Smart Pop, an Imprint of BenBella Books, distributed by Perseus Distribution

Publication: December 2011, $14.95 (CAN $18.95), Paper, ISBN: 9781936661343

Psychology, 256 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4

Book Review: The Psychology of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a post from: PurpleCar

Book Review The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else by George Anders

Skip this book. In summary, here are the author’s 5 basic lessons for hiring talent:

1. Don’t overlook people with “jagged” resumés. Look instead at the person’s career choices and skills they have learned and instincts they inherently have.
2. Search for people who demonstrate resilience and creativity as well as the traditional skills like work ethic and reliability.
3. Don’t assume management skills in one area translate to skills in another. Just because a person is a successful manager at a tech company doesn’t mean she will be great at managing a food manufacturer. Companies have different cultures.
4. Analyze your current hiring methods and overhaul the ones that have led you to build ineffective work forces in the past. Your cutesy questions of “What is wind?” or “What is education?” may be bringing in the worst candidates.
5. Nurture talent and foster a sense of purpose and belonging at the company.

Anders’ writing style is more on the academic rambling tradition than the quick, short, case studies of most pop-business books. The first few chapters were written in an introductory manner that jumps from example to example without as much as a conclusion or major question addressed. I kept turning back the pages to see if I was reading an elongated introduction or actual chapters.

Anders would have served us and the subject better if he had concentrated on just a few great examples per chapter and then followed it with an in-depth analysis of the concept he was trying to teach. Reading this book was like seeing a bunch of movie trailers that were cut down to 15 seconds each – you could see the common themes but the staccato barrage of information is disturbing and ineffective.

One more thing about the cases used in the book: I’d prefer it if Anders didn’t fall into the tired and very annoying cliché of sports analogies, especially when using sport team examples goes against one of his main tenets. Anders cites many sporting examples in the book, but one of the main lessons he purports to convey is that experience from one situation doesn’t necessarily translate into success in another. The spattering of sports examples, the overwhelming use of men’s examples and male-dominated industry cases also turned me off as a reader.

I feel like this book could’ve been great and exceedingly popular amongst very diverse markets if Anders just had a good editor. It seemed like Anders, being Mr. Bigtime Business Writer, intimidated the editor into entertaining his ADHD-like rants.

Anders’ points are valid and I appreciate his message. I wish he’d take this book off the market and sit down and re-write it for a more general audience. The thought of this may turn his stomach, but simplicity would have been the best policy for this subject matter. I fear the rambling quality of the book obscures the worthy lessons therein. It’s such a shame and a staggering disappointment. No change will be brought about by this book, because not enough people will read it and those who do read it will give it up by the third chapter. Sad.

Next time, maybe the publishers will adopt the lessons of the book and instead look to an underdog writer with a diverse background and evidence of passion and insight to write the book instead of a old white guy business writer with lots of New York Times best-seller juice.

They can always call me, of course.

Did you read The Rare Find? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Book Review: The Rare Find by George Anders is a post from: PurpleCar

I’ll be attending as an exhibitor with PurpleStripe Productions: http://www.purplestripe.com/

Here’s a 15% discount code to sign up through my affiliate link:
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Social Media Plus Conference in Philadelphia, PA Nov 15-16 is a post from: PurpleCar

Buy Tell to Win on IndieBound

Nick Morgan Books:

Buy Give Your Speech, Change the World on indiebound

Buy Trust Me on indiebound

Video Book Review: Tell to Win by Peter Guber is a post from: PurpleCar

Here’s a quick review of Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing A Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone. I give a summary of what the book is about and why I didn’t mind graduating with $30,000 worth of college debt.

You can go to my YouTube channel to see the video also.

Video Book Review: Not Quite Adults by Settersten and Ray is a post from: PurpleCar

Here are the two books that are taking up my week:

Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis

Click here to buy from independent bookstores!

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl

Click here to buy The Last Dickens from independent bookstores!

Join me on Goodreads.com to see what else I’ve read and rated well.
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1726198

What I’m Reading Now is a post from: PurpleCar

My friend Geoff at The Junto started a book club at his place of business, P’unk Avenue. I thought I’d read along. The book to be read is The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz.

Ding #1 came in the intro. Much of the funding for the research in the book (and perhaps funding for the book itself) came from the Positive Psychology set. As a scientist and technologist, I have to say I’m not at all impressed with the dubious basis of the Positive Psych movement, the center at Penn, and its leader Marty Seligman (Just look into the Templeton Foundation and its religious objectives, then ask yourself how religion gets into the business of funding research, and how reliable those results must be…)

Marty Seligman is mentioned in the first few words of The Paradox of Choice’s Acknowledgments. That is usually enough to stop me. But I read through it and moved onto the first page. This is where we hit Ding #2. Mr. Schwartz begins with whining about how hard it was to shop for a pair of jeans. Not, mind you, how hard it is to find jeans that fit, but Mr. Schwartz complains that it took him more than 5 minutes to shop for a pair of jeans because, Horror of Horrors!, the store clerk tells him that the store has different options in jean styles:

“Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy or extra baggy?” she replied. “Do you want them stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly? Do you want them faded or regular?”

This was all too much for Mr. Schwartz. He complains that he just wants “regular” jeans and that the whole shopping trip should have taken less than 5 minutes. He says:

Before these options were available, a buyer like myself had to settle for an imperfect fit, but at least purchasing jeans was a five-minute affair. Now it was a complex decision in which I was forced to invest time, energy and no small amount of self-doubt, anxiety, and dread.

This was where I stopped reading. Let me tell you why.

1. The whole image/metaphor reeks of solely the male perspective. We women don’t want to settle for an imperfect fit. We’ve been doing that for years and we pushed the industry to give us more options. We could use a few more, actually. Mr. Schwartz’s whole complaint and value set (time is worth more than effort in terms of looking your best) did not apply to me. The rest of the book would undoubtedly be tainted with this old-white-guy perspective, and I have had enough of that.

2. Why did Mr. Schwartz go to the Gap (or some similar denim specialty store) to buy jeans? He could’ve had his 5-minute shopping experience at a store like Kohl’s or JC Penney, where the jean selections for men are trimmed to the bare essentials. Mr. Schwartz fabricated this situation just for the book. I’m sure he doesn’t normally shop at the junior or trendy stores normally. If he set up this shopping situation for the book’s sake, then what other research in the book was set up? His credibility was lost even further. This plus the whole Templeton Foundation/Marty Seligman association is enough to make me shut the book.

So, that’s that. The Paradox of Choice wasn’t much of a choice for me at all. I could’ve set aside my disdain for the Positive Psychology associations to just see what Mr. Schwartz’s perspective was, but with this particular opening scene, I knew the book wasn’t credible AND it didn’t apply to me. He obviously didn’t have any women read, edit or feedback on that first chapter. He should’ve chosen shopping for electronics instead of something so gender biased as jeans (or clothes in general).

So annoying.

Anyway, Geoff, sorry. I can’t hang with this particular spewage. Maybe the next book can be one of Dan Ariely’s or Daniel Pink’s books, both authors I interviewed for my podcast. Those are actually good, gender-neutral, well-researched and credible works.

Did you read The Paradox of Choice? Let me know what you thought.

______________

Links:

The Junto

P’unk Avenue book club

Dan Pink

Dan Ariely

The Paradox of Choice Lost Me at Hello is a post from: PurpleCar

Click to watch

A great, but heady panel from The National Book Critics Circle.

Here’s the description:

Panelists discussed the differences between books reviews and literary criticism. They examined such issues as academic vs. popular reviewing and whether there has been a decline in true literary criticism. They also took questions from the audience.

To watch the video (1 hour, 22 minutes long), click here.

This is for book reviewers and academics only. It’s serious book geekdom, for realz.

For Book Geeks: C-Span panel on literary criticism vs. reviews is a post from: PurpleCar

Cap’n Billy “The Butcher” McDougall’s Guide to Pirate Parenting by veteran writer Tim Bete is a short but sweet parody of parenting books. Within its pages is sage wisdom such as this:

But even as a parody, it contains some solid advice:

There’s also solid advice about common kid ailments like cuts and bruises, viruses and what to do with picky eaters. The book covers the range from newborn to the end of the teenage years. It’s amusing and clever and keeps the pirate gag going throughout. I can see this book as a great shower gift for dads (who are usually ignored in the pre-baby process and parties). Just tell your friends to skip the (bit tedious) intro and get right into studying the nitty gritty of Pirate Parenting.

Get a paper book copy today via ThinkGeek‘s website or download the free e-book.

Pirate Parenting now available as a free e-reader download. is a post from: PurpleCar

Hop on over to iProng magazine to read my interview with podcaster and author of the popular 7th Son trilogy. J.C. Hutchins.

Interview: J.C. Hutchins is a post from: PurpleCar