End date for discussion

I see that posts and comments are increasing on the blog, which is great, so I'd like to set a date for everyone to finish the book. That way, we can discuss all the details without worrying about spoiling it for others.

How does February 15th sound?

My visit to Blomkvist's neighborhood / Comments on the translation

I've finally read enough of the book to post about it. I have a good American friend who lives in Stockholm. My husband and I visited her in summer of 2008, so I am able to picture a lot of the places in and near Stockholm that are mentioned in the book. Sergels Torg is mentioned once so far-that's the square in the heart of Stockholm. So much of Stockholm was strikingly beautiful, so I was shocked at how unattractive Sergels Torg was, even reminiscent of Communist block buildings. Ahlens department store, also in the book, is a very large store right next to Sergels Torg. In central Stockholm in general, there are a lot of upscale furniture shops with that modern look we attribute to Ikea. When we visited my friend, she lived in Karlaplan, a nice part of Östermalm in central Stockholm. Now she lives in Södermalm, the southern island of Stockholm proper-literally just down the street from our character Mikael Blomkvist!

Visiting my friend got me interested in Swedish culture and climate. When we were in Stockholm, it was very close to the summer solstice, or Midsommar as they call it, which is a big holiday celebrated by all. The tradition apparently is to get out of Stockholm and spend several days in a country cottage. Unfortunately we just missed Midsommar, but we did enjoy the long, long hours of sunlight. It didn't turn twilight until around 10:30 at night and never got completely dark. The descriptions in the book of small town Sweden have further convinced me to go up to Norrland, or somewhere north of Stockholm in Sweden and Norway the next time we visit (who knows when that will be). I think Stockholm at Christmas would also be charming, but all the Swedes I talked to advised me against going then, saying the only time to visit Sweden is in the summer. I'd get tired of the dark winters too, but I'd love to experience it for a brief time.

As for the English translation, a few things caught my eye. For one, the word "gaol" (as John pointed out) keeps throwing me off. The translator used British spelling, but the temperature is in Fahrenheit. I didn't realize that the British press actually uses both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Also, I guess the translator included a few Swedish words in order to infuse more foreignness into the story? For example, he used the word "skål", which means "cheers". You can figure that out by context, but it may not be immediately obvious. That reminds me of another book I read recently, Labyrinth, which had a whole lot of untranslated French in it. I could only pick out a few words in several sentences, so I was often lost. However, this book was originally written in English, so the effect was definitely to create a sense of foreignness, not to preserve some effect of the original.

Let's get started?

Happy 2010 to one and all!

Just checking in to see if anyone else has had a chance to start reading the book. I'm about 200 pages into it, but I'm going to hold off on comments until there are others on this journey as well.

Hope to hear from you soon.

-John