Having seen the film before reading the novel, I'm less impressed than I might have been had the experiences been reversed. I was engaged throughout, but compared to Lindqvist's screenplay, the novel felt bloated and overtly prurient (while Tomas Alfredson's film was more atmospheric, nuanced, erotic, morally ambiguous, and mesmerizing). Every episode cut from the novel during the adaptation process was absolutely necessary; and a character central to the novel (Haken) was whittled down to just the right amount of screen time, leaving the spectator to work through a variety of intriguing questions and concerns which the novel spells out in capital letters.