hilarious. I actually googled some of her furniture picks too. nerd alert.

Haha! One of my favorite parts of the book!!!

This...is in a bestseller? That book must have many, many redeeming qualities.

Hilarous, Aaron!

Who the heck needs five Poang chairs?

This was one of the most annoying parts of the book for me - that, and detailing product information for computers and cell phones.

This takes advance planning for movie product placement to a whole new level...

This book sounds rather dull, just like the furniture she picked out.

The book was NOT dull, nor was the movie! Jeez! Showing her putting together her IKEA stuff was a funny break in an intense story -- showed that the everyday furniture looked fab in a gorgeous apartment! Could you at least read and see before commenting?

There was a cathartic aspect to her shopping trip beyond just mundane product placement. A girl who has been poor and mentally and physically abused all her life gets to perform this ritual of "regular" people with unlimited funds and a fake identity - satisfying on several levels.

Perhaps she went to Ikea because she moves a lot and wouldn't mind missing the furniture if she had to assume a new identity and just had to leave her old life behind. It hurts to leave behind a $5000 sofa. It won't kill her to leave behind a Klippan.

Ditto Wally

The book wasn't dull. Just this part. And I'm a big Ikea fan. I just spent 4 hours and $1200 there this weekend, last night I couldn't stop dreaming about "flipfold"-ing my laundry to put in my new PAX walk-in closet.

Although I will say that he brought it home in the end when you find out the apartment has something like 39 rooms and she's only living in 3.

I couldn't even get myself to read the excerpt above in full. This seems like blatant product placement to me. I love Ikea and all, but I don't need to know every piece of furniture a fictional character writes. I've picked this book up at the store a couple times cuz the title is quite intriguing, but I've put it back both times and now I'm quite glad.

This post is awesome cheeky hilarious!! I read this book through last week and commented to my husband that it was my first experience of product placement in a book ;-)

I loved this part of the book.

All I could think while reading it was, "Oh come on, she's got the kronor to get something better than a LACK table!"

Anyone remember the Fight Club IKEA catalog scene?

"Like everyone else, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct. If I saw something clever like the coffee table in the shape of a yin and yang, I had to have it. I would flip through catalogs and wonder, “What kind of dining set defines me as a person?” I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections,proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of wherever.”

seems like she did a lot of assembling!

great post.
and I enjoyed the detailing technical products, it really brought home her expert technophile aspect and was such a clear way to immediately set the time of the story, which I thought rather brave.

You people are funny. This book takes place in Sweden (where IKEA has been a staple for a long, long time). The above quoted passage was more about familiarity than product placement. The details were merely a point of reference, a way to make an otherwise unrelatable character relatable, an opportunity to show this character doing something "normal."

Oh, just read the book.

Man, I love the Hemnes bedside tables.

Still need to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest!

WONDERFUL book! I was wondering as I read it what the pieces look like. In the Hornet's Nest, I believe, you find out that its a 23 room apartment!

Also, don't read this book without first reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. They must be read in order or you will be lost.

I thought this section of the book was a bit obsessive and unneccessary, but it was fun to read and it's fun to see here. Thanks!

"The details were merely a point of reference, a way to make an otherwise unrelatable character relatable..."

Shall we also know what brand of toilet tissue or contact lens cleaner they use?

Karlanda sofas and Malm dressers don't make a character relatable...
...it makes them banal.

@HeyNowTex: It's not product placement at all. Steig Larsson was a dedicated revolutionary socialist (and an anti-fascist targeted with violence for his work)--not some shill for Ikea.

I think this part in the book is a comment on how comforting the rituals of buying can be in a consumerist society, especially for a character who's been abused and displaced her entire life.

@bepsf, I have to respectfully disagree, and concur with @nicholson. I have read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and this selection from the sequel tells you a lot about how Lisbeth is evolving and trying to become some version of normal. I don't even think it's a question of being "comforting in a consumerist society." This character is caring about her home and having order in her home for the first time in her chaotic life...that desire is not exclusive to consumer cultures.

Sheesh. Larsson drops hints that Lisbeth has Asperger's throughout the books. Her mental inventory of every item she owns (and the technical specs) is a function of the condition. Furthermore, the shopping trip at Ikea, as @mitspeck said, is an attempt by Lisbeth to settle into a "home" for the first time in her life. Its also a clever bit of foreshadowing as all hell is about to break loose.

In the context of the book this really worked as a character moment, as anybody who read it would know (and surely those who haven't read it might at least be capable of suspecting).

I would say that this section tells us not very much about Lisbeth, but lots about Larsson & his compulsion to inundate us with unnecessary details. Do we need to know which processor or what size screen Lisbeth's laptop has? It's not even relevant to her hacking. The IKEA passage & many others annoy me, but I keep reading the books...

Nora Ephron gets Larsson's tic just right in a recent New Yorker spoof:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/07/05/100705sh_shouts_ephron

@jssbzk Exactly!

Well and keep in mind that Larsson wrote the manuscripts for these books and then DIED before they were published - which I think shows from time to time. I'm sure some amount of editing took place but I don't know that there were the rounds of rewrites that usually occur before publishing. It seems that they tried to stay as true to the original manuscripts as possible.

This passage stuck with me too as something you might insert in a first draft but then edit out eventually. Pure speculation on my part. I love the post though!

Ha! I can't believe you put this together. THanks so much for taking the time - i love a post with a sense of humor!

Didn't the protagonist to Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club have a thing for Ikea as well? (Until his condo blew up)

I think it is terrific, it is a brilliant idea, it makes the character more real, it is a litterary character, but you also have movie character, and they are decorated as if they were real.
It tickles me even though it is quite mercantile.
decogirlmontreal

@endbegin I'm reading the book now and I seem to remember it saying that she paid extra for the delivery people to assemble everything.

I actually found this section kind of amusing, since I recognized the lack tables and other pieces as the same things I purchased for my first apartment. Of course I only had about $250 to spend at the time, and I was delighted with how far my dollars stretched.

@bepsf - While the shopping list might be considered banal (by you), the character is anything but. She is as far from ordinary as any character in recent fiction. The fact that she is doing something as trite and "banal" as meticulously furnishing her entire apartment with IKEA furniture gives her a previously unseen dimension. You'd have to read the book to understand what such an ordinary chore would mean to this young, possibly autistic, woman. For some people, being boring and ordinary is not only a comfort, but a luxury.

Ahh, I loved these books. I read the first book in one night. Hell of a page-turner.

I agree that the sections where Larsson is detailing the furniture she bought, or the Palm and PowerBook she owns are a bit tedious—I'll admit to just skimming them—but the descriptions do make sense in context once we learn more about Lisbeth's... condition. It's hard to say a lot about it without revealing too much, but I think it's important that we are told exactly what she bought, that she didn't just go to some random store to buy whatever furniture.

Nora Ephron's spoof was bang-on and hilarious, though.

I agree with Scoot, five Poang chairs? really?

agree with tequila red

disagree with those who say it's a sign of Liesbeth's mental state because the same obsessive listing goes on by Blomqvist. I think a good editor would have taken a big red pen to a number of sections.

I read 1 1/2 of the three books and gave up

I'm engrossed in Book 3. I like detail and work my way through the Swedish names of people and places and the intrigue, etc. I guess I'm an IKEA nerd and thought Liesbeth's obsessively orderly apartment was great -- whatever the reasons. Chacun a son gouts! or Alla har sin smak!

Wouldn't all that stuff still cost a lot of money, even if it's all from Ikea? I haven't read the books yet but they are on my to read list.

Endbegin: She paid extra for delivery and assembling! Hahahaha... loved the book and thought IKEA must have paid Stieg a little something for the endless plugs.... then again, the Swedes are proud of their darling IKEA.

Heidi in NYC, thanks for posting that. I've never been interested in Fight Club before but now I want to read it!

As a writer I've always felt - and been taught - that such excessive detail about a brand name is terrible writing. By including without a doubt what was selected, down to the colour, he's stolen something from the readers - the way readers interact with the text is to picture it how it engages their mind.

It's one thing to say Lisbeth went shopping at Ikea, it's another thing to include a passage that sounds like it should have a 'Proudly sponsored by Ikea' footnote. There are always other ways to communicate obsessive behavior.

I haven't read the books, but this passage was enough to put me off for life. If I wanted brand names, I'd read catalogues.

Don't be a furniture snob. I have 2 Lack tables in my living room. They work for me and for my room. I don't have to spend a lot of money to have a room that I love to spend time in.

I love [most of] my fellow ATers, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't post the endings to books people are currently reading. At least be respectful enough to type "spoiler alert". Thanks!

Agreed. I too was annoyed that I was being told the ending of the book.

I'm sure Larsson could've written about her choosing furniture, without saying where it's from and name dropping EVERY single piece. In fact if you read through it, and cut out the names and IKEA-centric references, it reads a lot better.
I know a lot of people love this series, but I think this just cemented why I won't be reading it!
Apart from anything, his writing style gives me the sh*ts. "and then, and then, and then, and then". It sounds like an article in a bad home decorating magazine.... "Liz's exciting day at IKEA!"
I must say, I think there's a slight difference between the IKEA scene in Fight Club and this blatant product placement and sleep-inducing waffling that Larsson has indulged in.

i found that part of the book a hoot. As an Ikea fan but on a budget, I managed to spend under $300 for shelving, rung, chairs and table. Did they pay Larson for the mention?

I agree with Meganallison --cathartic. She is "nesting " , and she wants her nest to look nice. something most AT readers can understand.

I loved this part too, not sure what it is but I love when books talk in detail about shopping or eating and these books do both!

Thank you creative license - exactly!

That spoof made me chortle. I chortled. It isn't very often I do that.

@girlwhowrites: rules are there to be broken. Not by amateurs like you of course, that would go wrong, but by masters.

@Nicholson: Thank you.

Magiker has always been my favorite Ikea line, with Journalist being a close second.

who are the braintrust who think they can judge an entire book series by a couple paragraphs which were used to show how the character is trying to be normal by doing the most banal things and yes it is hilarious that she attempts to be normative by going to superstore and only using 3 rooms out of 35.

Critiquing the book without reading it says nothing about his writing or the book and everything about the commentor.

I just watched Noomi Rapace assemble a piece of Ikea furniture on Netflix.

@ Indigosailor: Thanks so much! I couldn't have said it any better!

The story line in these three books is great. I did find the writing to be unpolished, but then again, it was - based off a manuscript and then on top of that, translated. Whatever nuances the writing may have, you keep reading, because most of it is very good - good enough, in fact to forgive any issues you have with it. Lisbeth Salander is a refreshing heroine.

As a side note, I have to wonder how vastly improved the Twighlight series would be with the addition of this paragraph.

Great books, I am in the middle of The Girl Who Played With Fire. Have planned so I finished my school work early, and can devour the trilogy (and a zillion other books) before m y classes start again Jan 9th. The scenes in the books like the IKEA shopping trip, or her grocery shopping, help make Lisbeth more human. Despite being a pretty well traumatized young woman, she's showing more her nesting warm side. I like! Go Lisbeth!

OK, couple of things.

No ending was revealed. Apart from the idea that Lisbeth has an apartment to furnish in book 2, so you know she lives through book 1 -- you probably guessed that anyhow, since it's a trilogy. But do you know how she got it? Do you have a CLUE about what went before? No.

That she might be autistic is an idea that is pretty obvious from near the beginning. It shouldn't "ruin" anything for you.

Trust me, the endings of the three books aren't remotely addressed in this thread. Furniture has nothing at all to do with the story arc.

Also, *I* found the whole IKEA sequence amusing and relatable. I have some of that furniture and I like it a lot. Not everybody is happy with the lines of "quality antiques", and I, for one, can't afford high end contemporary minimalist furnishings. IKEA is a real-life compromise for me. So reading about Lisbeth's selections made her seem more real and showed that, even though she's TOTALLY unlike me in most ways, we do have some small things in common. A link. And that, I think, was the goal.

Read the d**n books before attacking them! (Or don't, but then don't act like you know what they are about.)

Haha, I have the Svansbo coffee tables(nesting). They were so boring looking that i covered in crocodile hide on one and python on the other. now they look like Fendi Casa or other high end piece.

I like this part of the book - it was a restful interlude in a high-tension work. I also think it says something about the character, in that she has huge amounts of funds but choses to go to IKEA.

I also think you should have read the book if you intend to comment.

@fivegiggles i am right there with you. every word.

I have read the first book and I think a lot of the people commenting have the right idea. There is a lot of this kind of writing -- the reader knows exactly what kind of cars everyone drives, which cameras they use, which computer they use, how much their condos cost, etc. To me, it was highly annoying and distracting. Not to mention every time we were treated to the knowledge that some character was about to eat two sardine sandwiches and a pickle.

To those of you who think this passage is irritating, don't read the book. You will be irritated a lot.

Thank you, creative license. I understand exactly what you are saying and appreciate the clarity of your comments.

One scene in the book is telling: the main journalist character enters Salander's giant apartment when she is not home and, familiar with her stark personality, is momentarily choked up by how empty the place is. No decorations on the walls, no art, no personal "flair", all an outgrowth of her emotionally distanced survival-coping strategies. This IKEA shopping list is just a dramatic illustration of her mental functions: a vast, memorized checklist of functional items that she has never had to acquire or really contemplate having. It becomes an abstract problem for her to "solve", and something she loses interest in as soon as she completes it. It's definitely symbolic of a woman with a previously deprived and stunted reality finally poking her head out of her rabbit hole into a very unknown world, that of "normal" consumerism. When I consider that her character is depicted as having a savant-genius level of rational intelligence, balanced against a bottomless well of anger and suspicion, I find the mundanity of this section hilarious, actually. Hundreds of pages about serial killers and morbid conspiracies and patricide...and a pause to go shopping for side tables! NOT mere product placement, that is just shallow cynicism from someone who knows nothing about the author's communist-hard-left politics.

this is an amazing list. We love it. We most likely would love to assemble it. We recommend the " Malm" dresser and the " Malm bed frames. there are the most popular items we assemble for college student and young customers