The story: Oskar is a regular 12 year old kid who gets bullied at school by Tommy and his cohorts. He lives in an apartment block with his single mother (his dad is a raging alcoholic who has days of normality until he spots a beer). He also suffers from incontinence (and uses an ingenious contraption called a ‘pissball’ to prevent leakages appearing on his clothes – helloooo Dragon’s Den!) and is slightly tubby as a result of his comfort eating.
Oskar is also sort of obsessed with murderers and gruesome killings which he cuts out newspapers and sticks into his scrapbook – think sinister version of Mean Girls Burn Book sans fluffy pink cover. He imagines himself enacting this macabre acts of violence on his tormentors. Oskar is outside practising stabbing a tree and calling it “piggy”, which you can already guess, is his bullies’ moniker of choice. Enter Eli. Eli is a young, pretty little girl, about the same age as Oskar, everything about her seems normal-ish except that she smells like a rotting wound, has matted hair and walks around in unsuitable clothes in the freezing Swedish climate. Apart from that, she’s just your regular girl-next-door. They get chatting, well not exactly chatting, awkward conversation more like and before leaving, she tells Oskar that they cannot be friends because “that’s the way it is”.
The following day, Oskar returns to the concrete jungle playground where they first met and pretends to be playing with his Rubik’s cube. Eli resurfaces and curiosity gets the better of her. Scene ends with Oskar giving her the Rubik’s cube to solve even though she ominously declares, “I may not be here tomorrow”. By now, I’m sure you’ve guessed that she isn’t a regular wee lassie.
A bit about Eli. Centuries ago, her mother was a peasant on a farm belonging to a Count Dracula wannabe. He asked for all the young boys on his farm to be brought to him. After a random eeny meeny miney mo selection process, Eli gets taken into a room where she is castrated, blood collected and drunk. Although not explicitly said, you get the idea that the old pederast converted Eli into a vampire – probably to have a young boy around on whom to practise his carnal fantasies forever. As you’ve probably guessed, Eli isn’t a she. In the 21st century, and tons of anti-ageing cream later, she moved into the neighbourhood with a dude called Hakan, whom Oskar assumes to be her father. Hakan is a revolting character; he’s a paedophile and just reading about his encounters with young children sends shudders down my spine and bile up my gut! He refers to Eli as his Beloved and loves nothing more than for her to turn around and show him what she’s working with, if you get my meaning. Hakan is Eli’s pawn, sort of. He skulks around collecting blood for her in a flask.
Fast forward a bit. When Hakan refuses to kill again for Eli, she has to do it herself so she feasts on a drunk outside she finds in some desolate alleyway. His other drunkard comrades determine to find his killer. When Hakan discovers what Eli has done, he says he will go out and get more blood for her if she agrees to let him lie with her for just one night – she agrees. Sheer ineptitude results in the old perv getting caught in the act and proceeds to pour acid on his face to disfigure himself, thus removing any association with Eli. Unfortunately, he survives and is taken to the hospital where Eli comes to pay him a visit. He asks her to drink his blood but doesn’t snap his neck (this prevents the virus from spread and perpetuating vamps). Now we are left with a disfigured peado-vamp who Iooks like a walking sack of raw flesh (acid remember). Oh and he has a permanent erection. YUCK.
He sets off to find his Beloved and when he does, he tries to rape her up the duff and almost succeeds but Eli manages to get away. He then tries to leave to get some arsenic to burn down this detestable creature but it is daylight outside and we all know the legend about the sun and vamps. He tries anyway, to get back to Hakan to turn him into a true crispy critter but the sun proves too much for him. One of the drunkards I mentioned earlier, Lacke, vows to kill Eli because he fed on one his cronies and she killed herself when she realised she’d been turned into a vampire. Lacke manages to get into Eli’s apartment where he is found immersed in bath tub full of blood. Lacke pulls out the plug (what a busy body) and is about to kill Eli when Oskar intervenes and saves Eli’s life. Eli feasts on Lacke. Oskar falls asleep in Elis apartment and awakens to find Eli gone.
Back at school, the head bully in charge gets his older, equally insidious brother to come into school and take care of Oskar. They hold his head down in the pool until he becomes unconscious and are about to take out his eye with a stiletto when Eli turns up. You find out from later articles that Eli ripped both their heads off. He’s strong for a 12 year old eh? The novel ends with several little snippets. A newspaper article on scientists conducting experiments on Hakan’s body tissue. A conductor seeing Oskar on a train surrounding by several vintage suitcases (bet they’re Goyard – Eli was minted) and asks him whether he’ll be alright to alight with so many cases. To which Oskar crptically responds, “I will have help at the other end”. The end.
Rewa’s take on things: Brilliant novel – so good I devoured it in 3 days even though I work a Ny-ra-fahv (9-2-5). Lindqvist did a superb job in developing his characters and making you feel both sympathetic and revolting at the same time.
What adds to the brilliance of Lindqvist’s story is that it does not focus on the surreal or unimaginable supernatural but rather grim, harsh reality. The story transcends your bog standard vampire fable of immortality, bloodlust and some annoying damsel-in-distress to explore avenues pertaining to reciprocated love and all things deep and profound. The only flaw, in my humble opinion, was the Hakan-cum-pederast-cum-vampire subplot. Hakan worships Eli with a sexual compulsion which eventually drives him to the utterly horrific. I could have certainly done without the image of a disfigured vampire skulking round with an erection which he promptly tries to shove into Eli at first opportunity. Twilight this thankfully ain’t! This isn’t just a story of garlic-phobia and blood lust. It’s one that encompasses bullying, prostitution, paedophilia, teenage angst, alcoholism and desperate loneliness.
After reading the novel, I decided to watch both the Swedish and American adaptations. Surprisingly enough, I preferred the latter. I thought Chloe Moretz made a great Eli (or Abby – why on earth were the names changed?). I must say, both movies, whilst entertaining, are reductionist to the point of absurd and do not do the novel any justice. Surprising because LIndqvist himself wrote both adaptations… maybe he needed a redbull or two…
I really felt a lot for both Oskar and Eli. Matter of fact, my heart bled for all the characters. Each had their own burden to bear and no matter how despicable their thoughts or actions were, I still found myself wishing and hoping they’d find some sort of redemption or salvation. The only people that did were Oskar and Eli and that was in each other. As far as Oskar’s character was concerned, I felt the novel gave a real insight into the importance of a father figure in a young boy’s life and the importance of
companionship for an only child. The saddest thing for him as far as I’m concerned, was being consigned to carting round a funnel to feed a vamp for the rest of his days.
Lindqvist succeeds at maintaining his point of view shifts which can so easily lose a reader; even the chapter written from the squirrel’s point of view is executed brilliantly when it could have easily bordered on the ridiculous. All in all, you are kept on the edge of your seat (or whatever position it is you maintain whilst engrossed in a novel, I prefer to lie on my side with my head propped up on a pillow that has been folded in two) as the characters head unavoidably into a maelstrom.
It’s a rollercoaster of a novel – inducing so much nausea at times with its brutality and perverseness that I feared I might get a stomach ulcer. Great job Lindqvist.
Read & Reviewed 