I read a book!

I recently finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.



It was a little slow at first because there was a lot of dense information about financial markets and overseas bank accounts and money laundering. Anyway, I eventually did get into it and really enjoyed it. Literary mystery. Kind of P.D. James. Except Swedish.

Here's a couple of random things I noted:

Anna produced a great quantity of bacon pancakes with lingonberries.

I dunno what bacon pancakes are, but I'm pretty into the idea.

All her furniture seemed to be strays. She had a state-of-the-art PowerBook on an apology for a desk in the living room.

I just included this because it's an interesting turn of phrase that I think might be a mis-translation. (The book was originally written in Swedish.)

I assume the translator was going for the American colloquialism "an excuse for a desk," meaning that it's a very shoddy desk indeed. Or maybe "an apology for a desk" is a well-worn Swedish phrase of which he was preserving the integrity.

That's the long and short of it.


EDIT - I've been informed in comments that what I refer to as an "American colloquialism" may indeed be a "Southern colloquialism" and therefore the phrase as translated isn't awkward at all. Who knew? Not me!