Men Who Hate Women

16Apr10

The other day I finished reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, the sequel to Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the second in the Millennium trilogy by the Swedish author. The third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, comes out next month, and I can’t wait to read it.

A main theme of the two books is violence against women, and it’s interesting and refreshing to read a book by a male author that has such obvious feminist themes. In fact, the Swedish title of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is Män som hatar kvinnor, which translates to Men Who Hate Women. The fact that the title was changed fascinates me, and I kept thinking about it as I was reading the books. Why was it changed? How does it change how the book is read and/or perceived? Maybe I’m reading way too much into it, but I think it says a lot about the publishing industry and American society.

There are any number of reasons why the title might have been changed for English readers, but I can’t help but think that it’s because of the left-leaning, feminist content of the book. It makes sense: a book called Men Who Hate Women, based solely on the title, has less appeal to a wide audience, especially men, who — I think it’s safe to assume — are the majority of crime/mystery novel readers. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, on the other hand, follows the naming pattern of the second book, adding an element of cohesion to the series, and adding an air of mystery and intrigue. In addition, one could indeed argue that Americans (and less so the English) are, by and large, more conservative than European readers, and may be put off by a title that sounds like some feminist manifesto, since feminism has some very negative connotations. The publisher no doubt took these things into consideration when deciding how to publish and market the books to English-speaking readers.

As much sense as it makes to change the title, I think it does a disservice to both the novel and its readers, for several reasons. The first is that Men Who Hate Women so accurately describes what the series (or at least the first two books) is about that it almost seems stupid to call it anything else. In fact, I would argue that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo isn’t even that great of a title, because Lisbeth Salander seems to me to play more of a supporting role in the first book, and her tattoo (one of several) is the least interesting thing about her.

Second, with the title of Men Who Hate Women, you know right off the bat that this isn’t just some frivolous, entertaining, run-of-the-mill mystery novel; there are political and social commentaries embedded within the plot, commentaries the reader ought to be aware of. The social and political themes aren’t removed in any way by the alteration of the title, but the original title frames the entire novel in a different light than the English version. Men Who Hate Women is more thought-provoking; I knew about the title change going into the book, and subsequently found myself thinking about the characters in reference to the former title. “What is this man’s attitude toward women?” I would ask myself. “How does he fit into the theme of violence against women?” We don’t have any way of knowing, since he’s dead, but I imagine this is the sort of thing Larsson had in mind when he wrote the books. They were written for his own pleasure in his evenings after work, but he clearly had something to say, and he went through the effort of submitting them for publication.

I have a tendency to over-think things sometimes, but not usually when it comes to books. I don’t like to over-analyze them; however, some novels are enhanced by thoughtful contemplation (To Kill A Mockingbird and The Old Man and the Sea immediately come to mind), and I believe these books to be of that caliber. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest comes out in the United States in May, and when I read it, I’ll be keeping in mind that it was originally titled Luftslottet som sprängdes, which translates to The Air Castle That Blew Up (air castle being a term used in Swedish to refer to pipe dreams).

Alright, kids, that’s it for Comparative Lit. class today! Don’t forget your essays on Sylvia Plath, due next week! 

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Tags: feminism, gender violence, literature, men who hate women, stieg larsson, sweden, the girl who kicked the hornets' nest, the girl who played with fire, the girl with the dragon tattoo