Re-Linking Let Me In to Let the Right One In: *SPOILERS*

[SPiN]

If I go with what my heart tells me. It argues that Abby and Owen were just two lost kids who found in each other the rescue that they were looking for.

im happy with this...anything else would be uncivilized.

[cmfireflies]

If we want to go with the Evil Abby hypothesis, we can assert everything we've just asserted, with the addition that she may also have deliberately jumped into his bed naked with the express purpose of seeing if he'll react to it the way an older boy or man might. We could even hypothesise that she'd deliberately tried to provoke a sexual response just to turn it away (but gently, oh, so gently, all part of the carefully orchestrated recruitment process...)

You're not thinking evil enough. Isn't it an entirely arbitrary act on Abby's part? To say, "Don't look" and climb into bed naked and bloody at the same time. If she had the presence of mind to say "don't look" she should have the presence of mind to at least wipe the blood off her face first. A truly evil Abby would have used this as a test of obedience. It's a test to see if Owen will obey her, just because she asked. No other reason. Kind of like, God saying don't eat the apple, but putting the tree right there. Anyone care to guess what would happen if Owen had turned around and seen Abby's bloody face? CHOMP!

[sauvin]

If we want to go with the Evil Abby hypothesis, we can assert everything we've just asserted, with the addition that she may also have deliberately jumped into his bed naked with the express purpose of seeing if he'll react to it the way an older boy or man might. We could even hypothesise that she'd deliberately tried to provoke a sexual response just to turn it away (but gently, oh, so gently, all part of the carefully orchestrated recruitment process...)

You're not thinking evil enough. Isn't it an entirely arbitrary act on Abby's part? To say, "Don't look" and climb into bed naked and bloody at the same time. If she had the presence of mind to say "don't look" she should have the presence of mind to at least wipe the blood off her face first. A truly evil Abby would have used this as a test of obedience. It's a test to see if Owen will obey her, just because she asked. No other reason. Kind of like, God saying don't eat the apple, but putting the tree right there. Anyone care to guess what would happen if Owen had turned around and seen Abby's bloody face? CHOMP!

Or a really awkward "Um, don't scream, please, I can explain..." kind of moment, "but no... please... wait... stop screaming... I won't hurt you, I promise! I can explain...! Can't you give me a minute...!? Please!?"

[cmfireflies]

Or a really awkward "Um, don't scream, please, I can explain..." kind of moment, "but no... please... wait... stop screaming... I won't hurt you, I promise! I can explain...! Can't you give me a minute...!? Please!?"

I doubt an explanation would help, let's see

Oh it's OK, see this isn't my blood. It's my dad's blood. Who I had to kill after he was caught murdering people so I could drink their blood. But I'm totally full now, even though I'm a vampire. And my dad isn't really my dad, he was my boyfriend from 30 years ago, and he was jealous of you, but he's dead now, unless he comes back as a zombie because I didn't kill him properly. But that almost never happens. Probably. Hey it feels so good to let it out, you know? Wait, where are you going? And why are you clutching that crucifix?

[sauvin]

If we’re going to try to “re-link” the two movies and the novel together, to try to claim they’re really all the same story, but with emphasis placed on different facets, then I thought we might go through our memories of the movies and compare them to the scene I personally find the most significant: the bedroom scene.

I’ll agree in advance that they all convey the same basic “information”. In all three, Eli pays Oskar a surprise visit, and in all three, Oskar returns the favour with a surprise of his own. Demands are made, and concessions offered. In a way, the scene was a bit unique in that nobody gave anything away, and nobody came away from the encounter with less than he’d originally bargained for. The whole point of the scene wasn’t about advantage or gain, and it wasn’t actually about attaining a nominal goal, even if Oskar did successfully attain it. This whole scene was all about negotiation, learning to trust and about a stage of transformation.

It was about reaching out.

I cheerfully grant the moviemaking process is laborious and expensive, thus demanding that the original story be compressed. However, both movies blew it in a very important way, in my opinion, in not showing the kids the way the novel does in this scene. The movies were radically more goal-oriented: get the actors in there, get the words said, and cut to the next scene. The movies were all business. Both still managed to remain powerfully moving, but not nearly as much as the novel.

The following, in which I uncharacteristically quote the novel profusely, should give some idea why I find this “re-linking” business problematic.

Eli had just fed on Cancer Lady, unlike in the novel where she’d just killed Hakan, who is presently in policy custody at the hospital after the failed attempt to procure blood from a young man at the swimming pool. So far as I know, Eli is presently unaware of Hakan’s predicament or whereabouts. If the novel had followed the course the movies had taken, the following encounter might very well have had an element of overshadowing grief, and possibly guilt.

A cold hand crept over his stomach and found tis way to his chest, over his heart. he put both hands over it, warming her hand. Eli’s other hand worked its way under his armpit and then up over his chest and in between his hands. Eli turned her head and laid her cheek between his shoulder blades.

A new smell had entered the room. The faint smell of his dad’s moped when it was fully tanked. Gasoline. Oskar bent his head down and smelled her hands. Yes, the smell was coming from her hands.

They lay like that for a long time. When Oskar could tell from his mom’s breathing that she had fallen asleep again,when the lump of their hands was warmed through and starting to get sweaty, he whispered:

“Where have you been?”

“Getting some food.”

Light and dark, both at the same time. We can now be pretty sure that Eli used something like gasoline to accelerate and disguise the Cancer Lady’s demise. Eli herself is death, and she brought clues and reminders of it into her boyfriend’s bedroom.

Her lips tickled his shoulder. She loosened her hands from his, rolled over on her back. Oskar stayed in the same position for a moment and looked into Gene Simmon’s eyes. Then he turned onto his stomach. Behind her head he imagined the tiny figure in the wallpaper eyeing her with curiosity. Her eyes were wide open, blue-black in the moonlight. Oskar got goosepimples on his arms.

Her lips tickled his shoulder because she’d been grazing it, the way slow-handed lovers are apt to do? She’d already been kissing him, maybe. With affection, maybe already with love.

I wonder what the goosepimples are about? Lindqvist doesn’t commit the sin of giving out too much information or detail; if anything, he tends to be rather spare. Every single statement counts. What’s this about the goosepimples?

“What about your dad?”

“Gone.”

“Gone?” Oskar couldn’t help raising his voice.

“Shhh. It doesn’t matter.”

“But... what... is he--?”

“It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

Oskar nodded, signaling that he wasn’t going to ask her any more questions, and Eli put both her hands under her head, staring up at the ceiling.

He can ask anything he wants, but Eli won’t necessarily answer. We can’t be sure why she doesn’t, precisely, but we know Oskar knows nothing about her, her relationship with Hakan and what Hakan really is. Maybe she’s worried that Hakan had run off, and trying not to think about it. Maybe, too, she’s worried he’d been captured or killed, and still trying not to think about it. Mostly, though, I think Eli just doesn’t want to discuss it right now, partly because she’s not prepared to try to explain about her relationship to her “Dad” and partly because she just doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

Some indication of this last possibility:

“I was feeling lonely. So I came here. Was that OK?”

“Yes. But... you don’t have any clothes on.”

“I’m sorry. Is that disgusting?”

“No. But aren’t you freezing?”

“No, no.”

She very clearly admits here what I’d suspected in both movies. Together with the kind of snuggling she did just a few paragraphs earlier, what emerges (for me) is nothing more than one child reaching out to another for contact, solace and comfort. Eli wanted these things for Eli, true, but she’s showing awareness that Oskar could be experiencing some discomfort with her nudity, and I’d suspect that - boy or girl - she’d be pleased at his concern for her own possible discomfort.

“You didn’t happen to walk past the Lover’s Kiosk or anything?”

Eli laughed, then made her voice very serious and said with a ghostly voice:

“Yes, I did and you know what? He poked his head out and said: ‘Coooome... coooom... I have candy and... banaaaanas...’”

Oskar buried his face in the pillow. Eli turned her head toward his and whispered in his ear: “Cooome... jelly beans...”

Oskar shouted: “No, no!” into the pillow. They kept doing this for a while. Then Eli looked at the books in his bookcase and Oskar gave a synopsis of his favorite: The Fog by James Herbert. Eli’s back glowed like a sheet of paper in the dark as she lay there on her stomach in bed and studied the bookcase.

If you don’t remember the novel, briefly, the scene at what I usually call “the candy store” didn’t include Eli bravely trying to choke down some candy and vomiting it back out. What it did include, though, that wasn’t in the movie was some hilariously childlike joking about the kiosk’s owner being a gorilla escaped from the zoo and locked up in the kiosk. That scene alone is worth looking for - I’d been rereading the novel out in my car during lunch breaks and had folks in neighbouring cars wondering if maybe I hadn’t finally lost the remainder of my mind, I was laughing so hard. The scene was as light-hearted, carefree and companionable as any child could ask for.

He held his hand so close to her skin that he could feel the warmth from it. Then he contracted his fingers and walked them slowly down her back whispering “Bulleribulleribock. How many horns are sticking... up?”

“Mmm. Eight?”

“Eight you say and eight there are, bulleribulleribock.”

The Eli did the same to him, but he was not at all as good at telling how many fingers there were as she was. On the other hand, he was much better at rock, paper, scissors. Seven to three. then they played again. He won nine to one. Eli started to get a little irritated.

“Do you *know* what I am going to pick?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I just know, that’s all. It happens all the time. I get a picture in my head.”

“One more time. I won’t think this time, just choose.”

“You can try.”

They played again. Oskar won easily with eight-two. Eli pretended to be enraged, turned to the wall.

“I”m not playing with you. You cheat.”

The lightheartedness continues. For these few moments, I’d almost be willing to bet anything Eli forgot who and what she was. This was Oskar’s unwitting gift to her, to make her feel human again. This is what Eli is like when the darkness is driven away.

I’m not sure what to make of these “pictures” Oskar gets in his head. Do these pictures happen with other people, or is it just with Eli? If the latter, does this imply that Eli has some kind of broadcast capability to which only Oskar is sensitive? In any event, it does seem to reinforce the idea that Oskar and Eli have already begun sharing a bond whose depth eclipses any shared between any other completely human couple.

But now, Oskar has a surprise:

Oskar looked at her white back. Did he dare? Yes, now that she wasn’t looking at her he could do it.

“Eli. Will you go out with me?”

She turned around, pulled the covers up to her chin.

“What does that mean?”

Any takers on what the first thought to cross her mind might have been? She pulled the covers all the way up to her chin, literally to cover her nakedness (that doesn’t in and of itself necessarily mean anything to her, but she knows it very well might mean something to him) and metaphorically to hide her emotional vulnerability.

Oskar stared at the spines of the books in front of him, shrugged.

“That... you would want to be together with me.”

“What do you mean ‘together’?”

Her voice sounded suspicious, hard.

Suspicious and hard, indeed. She's already had a term of cohabitation with a paedophile, and the novel contains at least one hint that Hakan hadn’t been the first.

Oskar hurriedly said: “Maybe you already have a guy at your school.”

“No, I don’t.... but Oskar, I can’t. I’m not a girl.”

Maybe she already has another guy at her school. Well, another guy, at any rate. Oskar is communicating that he’s willing to respect any prior commitments Eli might have made, and it’s this that began allaying her suspicions.

As for “can’t”, well... why? Much deeper speculation on this particular point can be found elsewhere on the boards; if your google-fu isn’t up to it, bug me and I’ll see if I can dig up some relevant posts. What they boil down to, as far as I can remember, is that she doesn’t really feel equal to a truly human relationship. In addition to the following remarks, she could also be terrified at what Oskar’s reaction might be like once he finds out she’s not kidding.

Oskar snorted. “What do you mean? You’re a guy?”

“No, no.”

“Then what are you?

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

“I’m nothing. Not a child. Not old. Not a boy. Not a girl. Nothing.”

The movies leave us wondering if she’s talking about being a vampire rather than being a girl; in Abby’s case, she could also be denying being a boy. Either girl could be talking about not being human or vampire - she could be flatly denying being anything, just anything at all.

This single quote from the novel is the most memorable in the entire novel, at least for me, and the most disturbing. When the Cancer Lady asked her who she was as she was entering her home, she said “I don’t know”. My fear is that Eli is being dead serious and completely candid, that she really does think of herself as being “nothing”, of not knowing who she is.

It’s a crime that people feel this way about themselves, but no child should ever feel compelled to answer such questions in this way. This is true obscenity.

Oskar pulled his finger down the spine of The Rats, pinched his lips together and shook his head. “Will you go out with me or not?”

“Oskar, I’d really like to but... can’t we just be together like we already are?”

The novel leaves me with the same feeling I’d had from the movies, that one of the things Eli objected to was the possibility of change. She wouldn’t particularly care for any fundamental change in her relationship with Oskar, even knowing as she must that it’s almost necessarily only for a short while before she’ll be forced again to move. Change is bad enough when you’re young and full of energy and don’t have much to worry about, but for Eli, any change is very likely bad change, and she already contends with enough of it on a monthly or weekly basis.

Here, change implies the risk of loss.

“...yes.”

“Are you sad? We can kiss, if you like.”

“No!”

“You don’t want to?”

“No, I don’t!”

Eli frowned.

OK, so he isn’t looking for some kind of label to put on their relationship in order to justify trying to take from her something she doesn’t really want to give. In fact, she’s not really sure she understands what’s happening here at all.

So, instead of resisting giving something she doesn’t want to give, she’s turning around and trying to push it, trying to appease her boyfriend by putting a band-aid on her reticence to agree to something whose terms she doesn’t understand. She’s made a choice between private inner space and the need to do her part to keep their relationship alive.

Make a careful note that we’re not sure what she understands as “kissing”. I’m guessing her lips tickling Oskar’s shoulder earlier might have been her kissing it lightly, or it might have just been her lips being too close while she was trying to whisper discreetly into his ear so as not to awaken his sleeping mother. If she’d actually been kissing him, though, this offer for more kissing might have meant precisely that.

It might have also meant more, and she’s coyly offering him anything Oskar’s twelve year old self might want. With this is the suggestion that she’s ready and able to do quite a bit more than another “normal” twelve year old might.

With Eli’s very firm and curt refusal to talk about her father, though, we can be very sure that Eli has limits, and she’s more than able to say “STOP” if she feels a need, and expect to be obeyed. What Eli herself is still in the process of learning is that she can also just indicate somehow that she’s started to exceed her comfort zone, and Oskar will show appropriate concern - respect, that is - just as he did when he expressed concern that she might be cold.

His blunt refusal must have been comforting. It must also have been confusing, if we’re correct in what some of us fear her past may have been like.

“Do you do anything in particular with someone you’re going out with?”

“No.”

“It’s just like normal?”

“Yes.”

Eli looked suddenly happy., folded her arms over her stomach, and gazed at Oskar.

It’s official, now. He’s not looking for anything except a confirmation that they have something together. He hardly needed bother, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell him that. Son of an alcoholic, often home alone as his mother works, isolated and bullied at school, and with just about nobody to really listen to him, it’s not much of a wonder he sought this confirmation.

Eli can’t have known about any of this, of course, but if nothing else is clear to her now, it’s plainly evident that his need may well be as great as her own.

“The we can go out. We can be together.”

“We can?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

With a quiet happiness in his belly, Oskar kept studying the titles of the books. Eli lay still, waiting. After a while she said:

“Is there anything else?”

“No.”

“Can’t we lie down together again like we did before?”

But it wouldn’t be “like we did before”, would it? He’s gotten his indication of commitment, and she’s gotten to know where Oskar’s head is a lot more fully. He needs her in a way she might never before have experienced.

I’m guessing this “quiet happiness” in his belly is an unfamiliar but very welcome feeling.

Oskar rolled around so his back was against her. She put her arms around him and he took her hands. They lay like that until Oskar started to get sleepy. His eyes felt sandy; it was hard to keep them open. Before he slid off into sleep he said:

“Eli?”

“Mmmm?”

“I’m glad you came over.”

“Yes.”

“Why... do you smell like gasoline?”

Eli’s hands gripped more tightly around his hands, against his heart. Hugged. The room grew larger all around Oskar, the walls and ceiling softened, the floor fell away, and when he felt the whole bed floating in the air he knew he was asleep.

He knew he was asleep? I never know when I’m asleep! Could this be another example of Gattoparde’s “vampire glamour”, that she didn’t want to answer his question and so decided to zap him?

And again, light and dark. Oskar can’t yet know what we’re never allowed to forget.

[PeteMork]

Perfect analysis! I have absolutely nothing to add to this.

[DavidZahir]

Sauvin, I'm with you.

Apart from the fact that the films themselves are separate entities in and of themselves, even if adaptations of the same story, the literary (as opposed to dramatic) form cannot help but be fundamentally different. Got into this argument over and over again with folks at a LOTR forum back in the day. A book by its very nature flows at a pace determined by the reader. Going back over a paragraph or sentence or even chapter is easy, and interrupts the experience not at all. Huge numbers of details are left open to the individual to fill out. At the same time the size of a book can easily be gigantic yet work wonderfully. To be perfectly crude, you can read and go to the bathroom at the same time.

Movies on the other hand set the pace. The story rushes toward you at 25 frames per second, an integrated whole with each detail of the visual and audio experience chosen by someone else. By its nature, film is much more something physically tiring to go through, which is another reason why length is far more of an issue (quite apart from bladder capacity) in film as opposed to literature.

Comparing the different versions of Lindqvist's great novel (oh, and wouldn't we love to be able to talk about the stage play adaptation from first hand experience? I'm just sayin'...) seems worthwhile. But they really are different things. Unique things. Which is how it should be.

Sauvin, I'm not adding to your extremely (as usual) fine analysis of the above parts of the book. Superb. You re-introduce me to the wonder that is LTROI with your words. Thank you.

[SPiN]

Oh it's OK, see this isn't my blood. It's my dad's blood. Who I had to kill after he was caught murdering people so I could drink their blood. But I'm totally full now, even though I'm a vampire. And my dad isn't really my dad, he was my boyfriend from 30 years ago, and he was jealous of you, but he's dead now, unless he comes back as a zombie because I didn't kill him properly. But that almost never happens. Probably. Hey it feels so good to let it out, you know? Wait, where are you going? And why are you clutching that crucifix?

pure comedy.

[varamiglite]

I like the candy kiosk scene in the novel better than Eli/Abby trying to eat the candies in the movies. Upon my second reading I kept going back to that part and laughing wildly!That was really just two children having a good time and I loved it. For that part I kinda forgot Eli was a vampire and Oskar was a killer-in-training, I just saw two kids being kids. It's easily one of my favorite scenes in the whole book.

I agree with Sauvin that it would be difficult to completely link the novel back to the movies because the movies are just too hurried with some of the most important scenes. I loved both movies but I would have been perfectly fine with them slapping on however much time it took to really capture the necessary moments. Most of my favorite movies are well over 2 hours anyway so I would've been okay with another hour or so to really get the feel the book had. After reading the book I kinda felt the movies were too "cute." Does that make any sense? The book had some really hard to swallow stuff that I know probably wouldn't be acceptable even by R rating standards but to completely avoid some of the truly ugly parts of the novel is an injustice. I hate the ugly parts of the novel but its those parts that make me appreciate the "pretty" parts even more.

BAAAAANNNNNNAAAAAANNNNAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!!

[EEA]

I agree too. In the candy scene from the book is also one of my favorite parts because they are being kids and having fun!