Thoughts about Let The Old Dreams Die !!!SPOILERS!!!

[N.R. Gasan]

There really needs to be a proper sequel at some point that tells the entire story about Eli and Oskar and with a real ending.

No, no. This is great. Another open ending. Consider all the great fan fiction the ending of LTROI has been able to spawn. If anything, what I've read here at this thread has made me want to read LTODD even more. Way to go, JAL!

[rgh]

JAL is not stupid. He has given a proper answer to some important questions without boxing himself in a corner. Although it is probably not likely, he could, sometime in the future, decide that he still has more to tell us about them.

[TheVoxHumanus]

Yayyy! I can't really describe the feeling this gave me -- it feels like I'm watching some very close, very cared-about friends find happiness together. Not knowing was exciting, but knowing is satisfying. Thank you John! You've made me love this story and these characters even more. I can't wait to read it myself.

[drakkar]

So right after they've arrived and left the train... who would've thought that. No, I mean, really. Man, it was fast. John did it. He was able to surprise us, I think.
This dates Oskar's turning to Friday the 13th, November 1981, right?

Does the story list dates like LTROI did, anyway? And this isn't clear for me, is Stefan the narrator himself?

He sure did surprise me! The story doesn't list dates, but they are mentioned, and the timeline is an important part of the story. I don't think it is coincidental that Eli & Oskar was last spotted the same week LTROI was released, and the end of the story from the narrator is about the time when LMI was released.
The narrator is not Stefan, we never learns his name. He is living alone, was one of the first persons moving to Blackeberg ("before the concrete had dried"). He is a neighbour of Stefan & Karin and probably their only real friend. He works at Blackeberg subway station, and remembers Oskar from there, especially when he returned to Eli two weeks before he disappeared because he looked so happy (OK I think I've said that earlier). This story has so much cross-linking that I'm still pondering it.

Time of blood mixing: Yes. Eli and Oskar mixed blood ca 24 hours after pool showdown. And, imho Eli didn't turn him, THEY did. They just finished what Oskar started in the basement two weeks earlier. We can even find out when; The train was bound for Oslo, but they changed conductor in Karlstad. So Eli & Oskar andStefan left the train in Karlstad, Stefan was waiting about an hour for the train (from Oslo afair), on which he would be conductor back to Stockholm. Stefan was unwittingly disturbing the blood mixing, and he had a strange feeling "the little girl" was about to attack and kill him when he was called back to the station building because his return strain was arriving. So, find the train schedule from 1981, and we know pretty much on the minute when the blood mixing happened.
One thing amusing and annoying me is when I was in Karlstad a few months ago, I parked my car less than 20 metres from this very spot without knowing it!

Another small detail I noticed: In LTROI, two youngsters was killed in the pool massacre. In LTODD it is three...

[crazychristina]

This leaves no doubt in my mind that LTROI is a coming of age tale. Oskar had burnt his bridges, and made some big decisions.

[drakkar]

More heavy spoilers.
Yes, and I'm left with a strong sense of saying goodbye to them, and good luck! In LTROI we are very close to Eli and Oskar, in the epilogue we are distanced from them trough a narrator who knows very little about them. Eli is referred to as "a little girl with long dark hair", and Oskar as "Oskar Eriksson". So when the narrator says and thinks something, the (infected) reader sees a much deeper meaning and significance than he does. Strengthening the feeling of being shut out.

Imo LTODD is written in such a way that if you haven't read/watched LTROI you would not find much meaning in the epilogue. However if you know the story well, it is loaded with information, and I can easily see the parallel between Stefan/Karin and Eli/Oskar, long before the end when Stefan and Karin seems to go searching for them. Stefan get cancer, and suddenly he and Karin disappears. The narrator recieves a photo from them from the airport, on their way to Barcelona. The narrator visits Stefan and Karin's home, where they've left him a recent photo from Barcelona of Eli and Oskar (this is october 2008). This photo shows a (tourist?) family in Barcelona, with Eli and Oskar in the background. Since the picture did come from the police, an interpretation could be that the picture was taken just before Eli and Oskar attacked them.

So Karin and Stefan has apparently travelled to Barcelona to search for the vampires. And this is the last the narrator hears about them. The story ends two years later (about the time LMI was released), and he has not heard anything from or about them - they remain disappeared.
So the narrator - and we - are left behind by both couples which amplifies the feeling of a farewell.

[covenant6452]

Drakkar, you say only two died at the pool in the book? I am on the final leg of the trip home and don't have the book with me, but I didn't realize events were that different from the film and the end of the book.
In the film both Conny and his brother, AND Judas...I mean Micke (sp?) were all Eli-ified, leaving poor little Andreas alone and crying in his soggy britches.
Whom was spared the wrath of Eli in the book?

[drakkar]

In the book epilogue (not LTODD) we have this police inspector pondering the death of two youngsters in the pool, Jimmy and Jonny Forsberg, having their heads torn off. And one third (Oskar disappeared).

[Stangarlins]

Well, I didn't click the spoilers tags but for what I read here, people are not lunging for JAL's throat, and that's great! It kind of makes me relieved now that I know it's not a crappy ending . Too bad now I'm struggling with myself not to click the spoiler tags, hahaha.

[Microwave Jellyfish]

Whom was spared the wrath of Eli in the book?

Like drakkar said, only Jimmy and Jonny dies, and Eli leaves a bunch of eyewitnesses (not just one kid anyways) alive.

Eli and Oskar mixed blood ca 24 hours after pool showdown.

I love it. That it happens so fast, it's like giving the middle-finger for both LMI's view of Owen's future (unintentional by John, I'm sure, since he likes the movie), and also Twilight, the four book-long debate of wether Bella should become a vampire or not. This makes me grin like an idiot.

Also, this is my 666th post, I believe.