Did anybody feel that LTROI had too many tangents?

[InYourFaceNewYorker]

I enjoyed Let the Right One In, so don't get me wrong. However, as someone who hopes to be published one day, I feel that the book had too many tangental stories. It would have been just as effective-- perhaps MORE-- if it were about 250 instead of close to 500. I think it should have done what the movies did and focused heavily on Oskar and Eli instead of going into side stories so often.

What does everybody think?

Julie

[a_contemplative_life]

I kind of liked all the little side stories and characters. I think JAL was exploring different kinds of relationships and loves between people, making us compare and contrast them. So I wasn't unhappy with the length of the novel.

[daimonos]

I kind of liked all the little side stories and characters. I think JAL was exploring different kinds of relationships and loves between people, making us compare and contrast them. So I wasn't unhappy with the length of the novel.

I felt the same way. Plus I think the book would have been kinda bareif it didn't have all the side stories. The side plots helped create informed opinions on the characters involved, well in my opinion at least.

[drakkar]

From the top of my head, LTROI was intended to be a portrayal of JAL's old neighborhood also (often forgotten amidst the grand drama of the main characters), so yes, I think it's justified. And JAL uses the side stories to guide the reader's emotions (e.g. the zombie Håkan sub plot to make sure the reader sides with Eli before the pool carnage)

[wolfshadow]

From the top of my head, LTROI was intended to be a portrayal of JAL's old neighborhood also (often forgotten amidst the grand drama of the main characters), so yes, I think it's justified. And JAL uses the side stories to guide the reader's emotions (e.g. the zombie Håkan sub plot to make sure the reader sides with Eli before the pool carnage)

I think the story as a whole would lose something if it didn't branch out as it did. By seeing the community Oskar is in and how the "normal" people in it behave, you get a better understanding for Oskar's dismal situation and can see a bit of what is in store for him if things don't change. I'm pretty certain that had things not changed for him, he likely would have been in the basement huffing glue as Tommy is in the story or a serial killer "in 20 years."

[StefL]

I agree with those who think the story is good as it is, and that the side stories actually add to the main theme of Oskar and Eli. In my view it adds a better understanding of the neighborhood - and if you read JALs other works you'll see that multiple storylines is kind of part of his writing style, that's at least my impression. It's present in both Handling the Undead and Harbour at least. Not so much in The Final Handling but actually to some extent also in Lilla Stjärna.

[sauvin]

The novel isn't the movie, and the movie isn't the novel. This much seems true of almost any movie ever made that had been based on a novel.

Sometimes, when I read a novel and then go see the movie based on it, it's interesting and even fun watching a director's take of the novel, and I sometimes find myself getting lost in the actors' and actresses' interpretations. More often than not, it's a disappointment, but... not always. When I'm seeing a movie, though, I'm generally expecting to enjoy a story.

Most of the time, the novel is more enjoyable, but I don't necessarily read novels to be told a "story". One major example that sticks out in my mind are the Tolkien works - yes, there was very definitely a story, and it had lots of little stories (some of them apparently "tangential"), but what it also had was a whole world to get lost in. Lots of languages, lots of different customs, lots of different peoples. [deleted], it had atmosphere.

The LTROI novel had these things, even if not in the same degree or of the same quality, but that's OK: Blackeberg isn't Middle Earth. LTROI sucked me in, and I got lost wandering around in it, and 500 pages worth of getting lost was very well worth the money I spent buying it and the hours I spent consuming it. People who go "Eeww, who'd want to get lost in a Blackeberg!?", I say this: "Eeeww... who'd want to get lost in a high mountain lair getting eaten by a spider half the size of a house?"

My idea is, if you just want to get a "story", see the movie. If you want to get into a different reality, read the novel, partly because reality is often too complex and too fractious for a movie.

Edit: 5 Novembre 2011, replaced a "bad word" with [deleted] to comply with renewed restrictions on language.

[gattoparde59]

I have to agree with everyone here, that the subplots and all the characters added rather than subtracted from the story of Oskar and Eli.

Oh, and I like Julie's screen name.

[DMt.]

I think folks think not, on the whole, from this showing.

Hello IYFNY

[Aurora]

I'm going to agree with the OP, I too found the novel hard going in places and would've prefered a few less distractions along the way. I don't have anything against secondary characters and their lives, but personally I don't think that it added to the story and slowed it down too much.

Having said that I'm currently reading Harbour and enjoying all the characters stories