I chose to read the book The Girl
that Played with Fire by Steig Larsson. It is basically a murder mystery that
takes on all kinds of forms and has many “layers” to each conflict within. The
first and second questions; “Are people of the world more alike than different,
or more different than alike?” and “Why should we care about what happens in
the rest of the world?” would automatically be eliminated because it hardly relates
to either one of them. This obviously only leaves two possibilities; “What
purposes and functions does artistic expression fulfill for individuals and
cultures?” and “What social institutions oppress or limit oppression, and how
are they perpetuated?”
While computer hacking and boxing
may be an art in themselves, I hardly think that they relate to the definition
of artistic expression being inferred in the question. Blomvist is a journalist
whose writing could be considered one of the arts but it is unfortunately not a
large theme in this story. This probably leaves me with the final question; “What
social institutions oppress or limit oppression, and how are they perpetuated?”
This book contains many examples
of oppression. The main character Salander was locked up in an institution
because she was basically declared incompetent and crazy. The forces that tried
to keep her there however, were the police and the government, for reasons of
protecting a rouge soviet spy. An off topic but still extremely relevant in the
book, is the sex trade in Sweden. The story starts with the investigation of the
sex trade and the johns involved with it. Uncovering the “top of the food chain”
was the reason for the murders being investigated in the rest of the book. This
is an extremely complicated book and will be interesting to write about.
