Let The Right One In

*WARNING: may contain spoilers *( I don't normally do this, but it's fine if you skip the last paragraph!)

I haven't gotten the chance to read a lot in the past few months. Well, not do the type of reading that I want to do, anyway. Sure, I could tell you all about what the experts are saying about the biological effects of drug addiction on the body and mind, but as far as reading for pure entertainment goes, my life has been kind of lacking. Which is why is my first priority upon graduation was to sit down and sink my teeth into a good novel. Maybe it was that particular desire that lead me to pick up John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In.

In the age of Twilight, vampires have lost a lot of their luster for me. They've gotten soft, and I've missed the days of the Anne Ricean vampire running around taking innocent victims and seducing hapless humans. The best part of LTROI is that it effectively combines that down-and-dirt parts of vampirism while humanizing Eli, the story's main "vampire" (although she adamantly denies being a vampire and simply refers to her ailment as an "illness").

I guess I should backtrack and say what it's about a little. Meet Oskar, a twelve-year-old boy whose life is marked by the torture he faces from his classmates. That is until he meets Eli, the girl who moves in next door. Being around Eli gives Oskar not so much courage as a detachment from his own fate, and allows him to stand up for himself. Meanwhile, Eli and the older gentlemen she moves in with are wreaking havoc on the town and its inhabitants, generally creating a mess that they don't seem to have any concern about picking up.

I hate synopsizing books or movies because they always seem flat. They always make the work seem less interesting (or possibly more interesting depending on what it is) than they really are. They are, at their root, false advertising. Also, they can never describe the best parts (without giving away too much about the plot). In order to experience the best parts, you have to experience it for yourself. LTROI is the type of book that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I can't quite think of why. Sure, the characters were great and the dialogue was phenomenal, especially considering it's been translated. But I could say that about a lot of books I didn't enjoy. So what sets this one apart?

For me, I think it could mostly be attributed to the way in which the relationship between Oskar and Eli plays out. They discover each other as we discover them, and because of how strongly Oskar feels drawn to Eli, and vice versa, I felt drawn to both characters, and I felt a really investment in their safety. Because this a horror novel and Eli is a typically villainized character, every page leaves you on the edge of your seat. I expected Eli to hurt Oskar just as equally as I felt like she was going to protect him. And because it wasn't clear what exactly she wanted from him, I never lost interest in their exchanges. I wanted more, and I think that's the biggest compliment you could pay to a book.

I haven't wanted to strongly recommend a book to anyone as much as I do this one in a very long time. I read a lot of books, and this is the best horror/vampire novel I have ever read. If horror and vampires are your thing, and you haven't read this for whatever reason, go out to nearest bookstore and do so now. You will not regret it.

All that being said, I feel no desire to see the film. I have heard from everyone I know that's seen it that it was one of the best films of 2008 (and not just for being a horror film), but I just don't think I could watch it. Especially not by myself. Reading about someone who pours acid on their face is a very different thing from seeing it on the big screen, and it's not something that I particularly want to see, either.  But go ahead and try to convince me. Everyone knows horror movies are my weakness.

If there's one thing I love, it's a good book

I want this blog to be mine. I want it to be more than a Capstone project, more than an academic endeavor. I want this blog to be a piece of my heart and soul, and showcase my writing capabilities. That being said, I want to start off by sharing something that I love: Bret Easton Ellis. And let me warn you, I am going to get carried away.

He first captured my heart when I stumbled upon The Rules of Attraction (the movie adaptation of one of his books) at the local movie store. Seeing James Van Der Beek of Dawson’s Creek star as such a dark and brooding character captivated me, and I had to read the book that the film was based on. As much as I enjoyed the movie, I enjoyed the book more (as it normally goes). I was mesmerized from the first sentence to the last sentence. His crispness. His simple language. His lack of characterization. His use of dialogue. I had to have more of it.

Using the school’s computer (because my parents didn’t get one until after I had left for college), I researched the author during lunch so as to not get in trouble for using the computer for non-school purposes. I went back and read his first novel, Less Than Zero, which to this day is my favorite of his works. The way that he used pop culture to include the audience in his scenes, and the passive way that his narrator relayed the horrific things he was witnessing was startling and amazing to me. Unfortunately, the movie adaptation of this one didn’t capture the magic.

Then came my encounter with his most famous work, American Psycho, which is a cult classic if I’ve ever heard of one. I have to begin by saying how much it upsets me that 90% of the people I talk to about this novel never even knew it was a novel. All they know about is the movie, which I cannot speak against given my devotion to Christian Bale. That being said, the movie is better. So much better. I read it junior year during English class when we were reading Huckleberry Finn for the thousandth time. I hid it behind the school’s worn copy of the book I was assigned. It both terrified and thrilled me. As much as I wanted to recoil and put it down, never to return to it again, I couldn’t put it down. The star character and narrator, Patrick Bateman, drew me into his world of executions and murders, and I’ve never been the same.

The Informers, a collection of (sort of) inter-connecting stories, held my attention long enough for a first read-through, but never brought me back to it a second time as with the previous novels I had read. Ellis maintained his distant and passive voice, but being told from so many voices made it hard to connect to for me. I’ve never seen the film.

Senior year of high school, for Twenty Century Literature, my final assignment was to choose a twentieth century author and write a paper (and give a presentation on them). I chose Bret Easton Ellis, obviously, and part of the assignment was to read one of their works and include a review of it into our paper. At this time the only novel I hadn’t read of his was Glamorama. It is almost unmentionably bad. The worst character from The Rules of Attraction makes a comeback as the star character and narrator, and it did nothing to captivate me. He was just as unrelatable and annoying in this novel as he had been during his appearance in the previous one.

Soon after that, Lunar Park was released with very mixed reviews. I must say it confused and terrified me. Starring a character named Bret Easton Ellis who had written all the novels with the same titles as the real Ellis, but not being autobiographical in narrator, it was hard to swallow at first, but before long, I found myself engrossed in the story. I read it one night when I was alone in the house, and my parents were on vacation. I loved it, but it gave me nightmares for a week.

This morning I woke up, poured myself a stale, lukewarm cup of coffee, and marched my behind down to Barnes & Noble because Bret Easton Ellis’ latest book, Imperial Bedrooms, was released today. And let me start of my review by saying, he’s still got it.

The book is the sequel to his first novel, Less Than Zero, and tells the story of what became of the novel’s main characters, Clay, Blair, and Julian, twenty year after the original novel’s release. Filled with the same sort of pop cultures that made me fall in love with the first one, it succeeded at making me feel like I have been palling around with the narrator, Clay, all these years.

There were, of course, some surprises (Blair married Trent!), but also the strange familiarity. Clay remained the passive narrator more content to let things happen to him than to take action, and Julian remained the helpless friend, in a way.

Only towards the end did I find fault with the new novel. As the story’s climax grows nearer and nearer and Clay becomes more aggressive, he began to lose some of his Clay-ness and become more… Patrick Bateman, the homicidal narrator of American Psycho. In fact, when the prostitutes enter the picture, I had to flip back to the cover to double check what book I was reading. But I love American Psycho, so I really can’t complain.

All in all, his new book was fantastic and Bret Easton Ellis still holds my heart.