"let the right one in", and vampires as tragedy
vampires throughout time have always fascinated us, from back in olden days when they were metaphors for the unfounded fears of blood libel and satanic paganistic or "jewish" practices used as excuses to persecute and kill, to modern romantic re-imaginings of the vampire as desire or temptation. with books that have spanned the gamut from "the horror of a woman's right to enjoy sex" to mormon interpretations of the vampire as an ageless angel empowered by their ability to resist sin, it's not often that i see a take on vampires that i truly find refreshing, insightful and original.
that being said, i just got finished reading "let the right one in" by john ajvide lindqvist, and this book absolutely delivers one of the most unique takes on vampires i've come across (spoilers ahead - read the book if you're interested!) in LTROI, vampirism manifests not as temptation to give in to mortal desires, or as the physical manifestation of the domination of the wealthy against the poor, or as all-powerful all-sexy fuck machines, but as a sort of permanent trauma wracked upon somebody against their will. a monster that lives inside you, lives alongside you, feeds on you, makes you hurt others against your own will. a mind of its own encompasses your heart, and you're forced to either eliminate yourself or live with a monster for the rest of eternity - and you yourself are that monster.
the ways in which the vampire illness presents strikes such a chord with modern understandings of things such as complex-PTSD. hideous violence transforms people into perpetrators of hideous violence, keeping the cycle continuing. "we are so few. so few... because most of us kill ourselves, that's why." vampires kill not because they want to, not to subjugate or to gorge themselves, but because they need to to survive. because someone made them that way.
the tragedy of virginia's character resonates so heavily because she is so human. already struggling with her own issues with love and sexuality, wracked with the same alcoholism as her friends and lover, the violence put upon her - in this case, being attacked on her walk home - sticks with her, and unfortunately in her case, her trauma proves fatal. she dies by suicide in the morning sunlight rather than hurt others, hurt the one she loves, to survive. although not stricken with vampirism, lacke ultimately suffers just the same, succumbing to eli as his grief over virginia and jocke brings him to the breaking point, out for revenge to the point where he's even willing to kill a child. it is only oskar's rubik's cube that saves eli and dooms lacke. the same love and hurt that drives virginia to end herself is the same love and hurt that drives lacke to hurt eli, and he pays the price for it.
for obvious reasons, the sexual content in the book seems incredibly polarizing. i won't deny that it's graphic and disturbing. however, i truly think what this book is trying to do wouldn't be the same had it not gone down to those depths of depravity. eli is a child, and survives as a child does, relying on the kindness of adults and those who would prey on children like him. existing in parallel with the trafficked child sex workers hakan meets in the library, eli has sexuality thrust upon him as a condition for survival. all of his engagement with sex and sexuality is purely molesting in nature, and one of the biggest things that drew him to oskar is oskar's lack of desire, lack of sexualization. oskar doesn't see eli as a sexual object, he sees him as a companion and a partner. it is only with oskar that eli can feel comfortable in his own body. having previously had his genitalia literally stripped from him in the sadistic ritual that infected him with his vampirism, eli is forced to be a child forever, forced to live without carnal desire. sex has only caused eli pain, and oskar's love proves to be a reprieve and a savior.
regardless of lindqvist's intentions when writing the story (and maybe it was intentional, being surprisingly progressive for 2004), eli's character can be easily read as a trans allegory as well. if you consider him to be a boy that has been transformed into girl by the society around him, presenting in a feminine manner to avoid the dangers of the world around him, suppressing his true self as has been forcibly stripped away from him, it's easily applicable to the trans experience. oskar is the only character to call him by his full name "elias" and use he/him pronouns for him as he is the only character that has earned the ability to see eli's true self. their relationship blossoms into the true ideal for two traumatized outcasts - they achieve true, lasting intimacy not through sex and objectification, but by rejecting the violence and objectification put upon them by the world and seeing each other honestly for their true selves, despite their flaws. the most true form of love.
i'm not a great reviewer, and this is super off-the-cuff and unrevised, but i truly did love this book, and i think many people could really resonate with it. i think horror has an especially unique way of resonating with people like me who suffer from melancholy and have a deep hurt within them, and despite the gruesome nature of a lot of these stories, they can be incredibly and paradoxically cathartic. if you like vampire stories, horror literature, great character studies, swedish literature. doesn't matter. check out this book.