The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy: Everything Is Fire, edited by Eric Bronson

  The books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series explore television, movies, and books and other exemplars of pop culture through the lens of philosophy.  Despite the name, and perhaps not surprisingly, the books tend to lean more toward pop culture than toward the philosophical end of the spectrum.  For those truly interested in philosophy, this is probably not the right series for you.  However, for those interested in a given show, movie, book, etcetera, this series can be fun a trip down the rabbit hole of fandom.

I’ve read and enjoyed a few entries in this series, including ones exploring the philosophical questions presented by The Game of Thrones, True Blood, and Batman.  Given that I have read the first two books in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy and seen all the movies (Swedish and American) The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy seemed like a good choice for my next trip into this series.  Plus Larsson's books would seem ripe for philosophical exploration, what with their complicated political, criminal and societal plots of murder and corruption.  Unfortunately I was a tad disappointed in this entry in the Blackwell series.  Too many of the essays did not even attempt to discuss philosophy.  Why Journalists and Geniuses Love Coffee for instance, focuses largely on the history of European coffee houses and their role in fostering intellectual curiosity and debate.  While this essay was sort of interesting it was nothing new and not exactly about philosophy.  Maybe it is just that I over The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  I mean, I haven’t even made it to the third book yet and don’t expect to anytime soon.

I recently discovered three other books in the Blackwell series I want to get my hands on: Hunger Games and Philosophy, The Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy, and Veronica Mars and Philosophy.  Being a huge fan of Veronica Mars I am especially eager to read that one.