Let the Right One In

By John Ajvide Lindqvist
Well there was no mistaking that this was a vampire story, because it says “A vampire love story”, right there on the cover! Unfortunately it is a rather sordid and gruesome vampire story (I know, I know – what should I expect??), devoid of any trace of hope or humour. (Unless you count the odd smirk about character names that sound like IKEA furniture). Unremittingly grim. Also it is written in that kind of style that forgoes proper sentences. Yes.

Set in Stockholm, our main character is Oskar, who is thirteen and bullied at school. Another child, Eli, and a man who Oskar assumes to be her father move in next door. People start being killed, gruesomely, which of course those foolish police assume is the work of a serial killer. Well, they're half right. So, who do you think the vampire is??

I don’t feel I have the energy to write much more about this – it was depressing. Every character’s relationships with everyone else were crappy. Everyone is unhappy, sad, deeply ashamed about some aspect of their lives, cruel, or all of the above. What can I say? These vampires aren’t the sexy doomed vampires of Anne Rice, or the trendy, sassy doomed vampires of Buffy, they are just doomed. Eli’s “Father”, Håkan, is a particularly revolting character, being a pedophile and all. Bleah. And seriously, what love story?? Still, this kind of realistic, gritty vampire novel might appeal to many readers.

I'd read Fangland instead. It’s not exactly a laugh a minute either, but there is something about it that lifts it out of the unrelenting gloom…

Rating: 5 out of 10

Down and out in Paris and London (2006)

By George Orwell
Another book by my new literary hero, detailing his actual experiences of being poor in Paris and London. Should be mandatory reading for anyone who reckons that people who beg on the street make a good living! Also by anyone who wants to be discouraged from eating in restaurants or staying in hotels. A very interesting read, in Orwell’s simple, succinct style about which I have raved previously.

I might have to take Orwell off his pedestal though, and just place him near it instead – undoubtedly Orwell was a smartypants and a fabulous writer, but my ever-alert misogyny detector thought it detected a hint of misogyny. Near the end of the book, Orwell notes that the majority of homeless poor in England are male, and surmises that a woman who has fallen on hard times “can at least attach herself to some man”, which seemed a little over-simplified to me. I don’t suppose Orwell spent any time hanging out with women forced to work in brothels or live in the homes for unmarried pregnant women – although technically they do have a roof over their head, I wonder if he would really think their situation was a desirable alternative? (Orwell recounts at one point a particularly disgusting tale told to him by someone he met in Paris, about a girl who had evidently been sold into sexual slavery).

Nevertheless, this book is a fascinating account of how the poor of London and Paris survived at that time – I wonder if much has changed?

Rating: 7 out of 10

Complicity (2003)

By Iain Banks
I’m not counting this one in my tally of books for the Readathon because frankly I thought it was crap and only got up to about page 50. It starts off alternating between the activities of an unnamed murderer and the activities of a semi-junkie journalist, set somewhere in Scotland. The unnamed murderer (assuming it was all the same guy, I didn’t get far enough to find out) is very busy and had killed two people, several dogs and sexually assaulted another (person) by the time I gave up. The journalist seemed to drive around the countryside a lot getting uptight about the quality of beer in Scotland, smoking, drinking whiskey and sniffing one of those white powders, I forget which, to keep him awake and hanging around in telephone boxes waiting for some secret source to call him about something. By page 50 there was still no apparent connection between the two although obviously there must have been, unless the author was trying to be all post-modern or something.

In the end it was all getting a bit sordid for me – and to top it all off I thought it was pretty badly written, relying way too much on shock value. I won’t be picking up any more Iain Banks books unless they come with a very good recommendation!!

Rating: 0 out of 10

Interzone (2004)

By William S. Burroughs
I'm really not sure what kind of review to give this book; I found it kind of patchy. I’ve only read one other work by Burroughs: “Junky”, an autobiographical account of his life as a heroin addict, which I thought was excellent. (Other MS Readathoners take note: it’s also very short). Burroughs has a bright, sharp way of writing that can’t help but hold your attention, and his ruthlessness in his descriptions of people can make you breathless on occasions.

Interzone is made up of short pieces or sketches, diary-like accounts and ends with a stream-of-consciousness-like part called “Word” – so, patchy in nature but also in quality. Parts here and there I thought were brilliant, like “Twilight’s Last Gleamings”, “International Zone” and “Antonio the Portuguese Mooch”. Other parts I found tough going, particularly “Word”, which I was tempted not to finish and in all honesty didn’t read terribly carefully anyway.

For those who haven’t read Burroughs before, he writes a lot about taking drugs and being queer, and the inevitable seamier side of life that went along with these in the middle of the twentieth century. Don’t read his books unless you are willing to read bits about shooting up, gay sex and lots of talk about cocks and so on. In particular, “Word” is about 60 pages worth of Burroughs being as confronting and as offensive as he can be, without any particular story to it that I could find, and was all a bit much for a prude like me. Even so, I would still encourage you to read Burroughs – maybe don’t start with this one, though.

Interzone feels less like a novel and more like a writer’s journal, about Burroughs trying to figure out how to write, which is weird because he’d already written two books, “Junky” and “Queer”, by the time he wrote this one. His next was “Naked Lunch”, his most famous – his previous works were autobiographical, so perhaps Interzone was Burroughs trying to figure out where to go next; how to step away from writing as “I”. I’d better read “Naked Lunch” so I can see where Burroughs went next.

Rating: Averaged out, 6 out of 10. Some bits I’d give a 10, others a 2, others somewhere in between.