Monday 29 October 2012

Devouring Books: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

"He had never heard anything like it before. You don't cry like this. You're not allowed to cry like this. You die if you cry like this."

I've been meaning to read Let The Right One In for a couple of years now, but I somehow just never got round to it. It's weird, because it's something my friend Christina is always telling me to read, and it involves Sweden and vampires, and the combination of those two things always ends up being my favourite thing:
But yeah, somehow this just ended up staying on the shelf (or, more accurately, in the bottom of my wardrobe) for a while. But now it has been read, and all the world did rejoice!

So. Eric Northman does not appear in this book. I know. I KNOW. What is the point of even being Swedish and writing about vampires, if the greatest Swedish vampire of all isn't included? It's just like... Whatever. 

I'm going to start again. 

So, Let the Right One In is a vampire novel, but also it's a really novel vampire novel- I feel like I've said before how much I enjoy it when authors add new things to the vampire canon (like, artificial blood substitute drinks, and having a soul makes you good, and, well, being super emo about being a vampire...) and Let The Right One In does that in a number of different ways that I don't really want to tell you about because, hey, you want to discover them for yourself, don't you? You surely do! Although, let's just say that saving someone you love after they've been bitten? Maybe not the best thing you can do.

There are a LOT of different characters in Let The Right One In, a lot of things going on at once, and it's not always clear who you're supposed to be rooting for; or how everyone fits into the bigger picture. This is both a blessing and a... non-good thing, in that, hey, I don't really want to be told who to root for, and I don't even know if I'm sure now if what happened should have happened, and I like that. But then there are a lot of characters introduced who seem like they're going to be important and then turn out not to be (I'm thinking specifically of Tommy right now) or, it's not even that they're not important, but that their stories just aren't properly ended, which kind of bugs me. The fact that I want to know about what happened to them? The mark of a good book.

I read this over two weeks, because of reasons, and I would recommend NOT doing that if you want to read it. I mean, it was still a good read, but I'd kind of forgotten details and who was friends with who, and there's a kid called Tomas and one called Tommy and that got confusing, and I'd just say... aim to read it in less time. Which is probably good advice for any book, but still. The fact that the movie(s) have been such a big thing is kind of annoying too, because the word vampire doesn't appear in this book until the middle. And even though you can kind of guess what's going on before that, it would still be a lot more effective, atmosphere-wise, if you didn't know at all that it was about vampires (the blurb DOES NOT help, either). But I guess that's the price you pay for something having become popular and you having not read it for ages after you got it. Hmph.

Now, since this was my very last RIP read of the year (my tenth, I might add. Wow.) I should probably ask myself the question 'Do I feel lucky?' I mean 'Was this book scary?' and you know what... Yeah. It was. Kind of. I mean, it wasn't so scary that I couldn't sleep, or that I couldn't read it before bedtime, but it was definitely gory enough, and creepy, and also at one point this guy shits his pants with fear, which is both disgusting and... Understandable, in his circumstances. I'd say it's maybe more thriller-y than horror, but it's hard to define in any way because it really has everything- Paedophilia, vampires, murders, blood, bullying, hospitals, glue sniffing, alcoholics, useless parents, and even, in the strangest of places, love.

I'll bet you never knew Sweden was so dark.

16 comments:

  1. I loved the Swedish film version of this! I thought they did such a beautiful job, and the tag line was brilliant (Eli is 12 years old. She's been 12 for over 200 years and, she just moved in next door.) I didn't know it was a book though. I might have to check this out.

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    1. That IS a good tag line! My friend really loves the film, so I've been hearing about it for AGES, and I should probably watch it someday! (Although having read some below comments... I'm not so sure! Hehe!)

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  2. I didn't know this was a book either! I've seen the Swedish film as well and really loved it. I wonder how it holds up to the book. I'll be reading this ASAP.

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    1. Yay! I really liked this, so hopefully you will too- I'd imagine that liking the film is a good start :)

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  3. I watched the Swedish version of this. And was so bored I was screaming inside my head. But since you can put down the book, I'll bet it's not NEARLY as bad.

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    1. I'm thinking... I think there are things in the book that I can imagine being sort of boring onscreen like when characters are like thinking and gross things like that. But then there are also things that I'd imagine would be much better/scarier onscreen. So... I'm basically going to have to watch it myself, aren't I?

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  4. I've also seen the Swedish film and I hated it. It bored me to tears. Mainly because I thought the girl was such a bad actress and her accent/speech was not convincing. I bought the book a few months back since it's supposed to be a lot better, but I just don't feel like reading in Swedish atm, so it's been lost somewhere in my Swedish book pile conveniently placed behind my English tbr pile :)

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    1. Ahhh, see you have extra reasons to dislike it cause, how would we know what a bad Swedish accent is?! I'm really thinking that the book is a lot more exciting than the film, but... I don't know if I like the film or not! I probably would, so then you probably shouldn't trust my judgement on this either haha

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  5. I am intrigued by this. Especially the idea of the ambiguous good guys/bad guys/all the guys. I prefer that to being TOLD who I am to root for.

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    1. I loves ambiguity in characters. Just... All the shades of goodness/badness in all characters. Yes please. This book does that really well :)

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  6. Hmmm, heard of the movie but didn't realize that it was a book! Love your summary at the end - seems like a whole Smörgåsbord of craziness all up in there.

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    1. Duuuuude, I LOVE that word. (Smorgasbord... Just in case THAT wasn't clear!) and YES totally that, except also the craziness is kind of all spread out, so it's not TOO stressful to read, if you know what I mean?

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  7. I saw the Swedish movie when it came out, and it was really good and really screwed up. The book was oddly good too... like I didn't think I was enjoying it all that much as I was reading it, but then noticed that I was thinking about it even when was I wasn't reading it at the moment, and you know, that's a good thing. And I had lots of fun discussions with my honeyman after finishing it too. So yay, good unique twist on vampires!

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    1. Oh maaaan, I love it when you don't think you like a book that much, but then you think about it all the time and you're like 'MAN that got under my skin!' Like We Need To Talk About Kevin did to me, only really, I don't like that book! But it sure got to me!

      And YAY VAMPIRE TWISTS! I do so enjoy those. Especially Eric-style ones. :)

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  8. Sorry for being so late in replying to your comment on instagram but I'll do it here if that's OK. I haven't read the book and came to the film off the back of the high critical acclaim and also recommendations from a wide variety of friends, many of whom I hadn't taken for foreign film fans. I expected something much more immediate and fast-paced. As the film progressed, I was even holding out for a 'From Dusk Till Dawn' style left turn. Obviously it never came, and I was left having seen an underwhelming, albeit gorgeous looking film that I knew I'd have to see again, minus the skewed expectations.
    I saw it again last week and loved it. It's an art-house love story/coming of age film and the pacing is completely appropriate. While a book-film adaptation will always be decried by fans of the book demanding absolute faithfulness, I'd have hoped the author having written the screenplay would lend some authenticity. Anyway, there's my two-penneth. If you can watch the film as the film, I fully recommend giving it a go.

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  9. Of course that's alright!
    I feel like... I wouldn't necessarily expect the film to be that action-y (because the book, if you look at it as a whole, isn't really that action-y) but that there'd be just enough suspense and action to make it interesting as opposed to like, dull.

    So, basically, considering all the different opinions on the film just in the comments here, I'm clearly going to have to watch it myself to see who's right... I mean, who I agree with. Obviously. Ahem.

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