LTROI in Gay Horror Stories and Poems

[Nightrider]

http://unspeakablehorror.com/journal/20 ... ne-in.html
This is an interesting dissection of the novel and both movies from unspeakablehorror.com
http://unspeakablehorror.com/journal/20 ... ne-in.html
Multi part analysis blog of Let The Right One In from the same website.

[drakkar]

Really amusing read - the author has a keen eye for details, but doesnt seem to spot the elephant in the room IIRC there isnt a single gay in the whole story.
A child asking his teacher about gay love doesnt qualify, IMO (here the author is wrong - Oskar doesnt ask the teacher about gay sex - he doesnt know what sex is).

[Petris]

I just read the title of this post and didn't even bother to click the links.

[Ash]

Some nice observations, but the writer approached his analysis with a predetermined agenda and drew some very long bows to supposedly "prove" his point.
The articles are "gay", in the way my 15 year old would use the term. Very gay.
(Is "gay" a profanity on the board these days?)

[drakkar]

..the writer approached his analysis with a predetermined agenda

Agreed, and it interests me greatly how people takes on this story from their personal POV. He isnt necessarily trying to prove any points, he might just be telling us what he sees.

[Ash]

...he might just be telling us what he sees.

If he sees a shimmering oasis in the desert, someone needs to tap him on the shoulder and say, "It ain't real mate." That's being a friend.
But I'm not so sure about Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges, they did spend a lot of time together.

[a_contemplative_life]

I think his observations about Hakan were accurate.

EDIT: I would add a couple of other thoughts.

Hakan's sexual feelings toward boys and his ability to commit murder do seem intertwined. In the forest, he passes up a little girl in favor of a young boy. And he does experience a sexual climax in the novel during the scene immediately preceding his attack upon the boy there. It makes me wonder whether he has always had this tendency, or whether the connection was triggered by an event in his past, such as the firebombing of his house.

I thought it was odd that this fellow did not spend much time talking about how Eli's gender ambiguity manifested itself during the story. The subject has been covered in this forum in innumerable posts.

Reading what he said about Tommy, I wonder now how much of Tommy's story is autobiographical. Dealing with his father's death, etc.

[ofelia]

Hold on a minute everyone, I think we're being a little unfair.

Really amusing read - the author has a keen eye for details, but doesnt seem to spot the elephant in the room IIRC there isnt a single gay in the whole story.
A child asking his teacher about gay love doesnt qualify, IMO (here the author is wrong - Oskar doesnt ask the teacher about gay sex - he doesnt know what sex is).

Håkan isn't gay in the generalized use of the word, but he is attracted to his own sex. Or is that somehow different because he's attracted to children? I thought the points made about him were correct. I don't think Eli and Oskar can be classified as gay because it's just way more complicated than that, and that it's less about sex or sexual attraction than friendship, love and protection. But it's still valid to bring up the presence of sexuality because it's definitely there and Oskar does have some brief concerns over the concepts of gender and romantic partnering that he's seen in adults.

I just read the title of this post and didn't even bother to click the links.

Why? I thought it was interesting. I wouldn't agree that LTROI has a real 'gay' theme because I see the love story as transcending any preconceived notions we have of sexuality and gender roles, but at the same time those are some really bigs topics only faintly touched on in the novel: sexuality, the importance of sex in relationships, gender roles, etc. One of the things I really loved about this book is that it doesn't take a clear stance on anything, really, it just brings up some disturbing or puzzling ideas and asks us to think about them. That's what makes us keep coming back to it and rereading and discussing, the fact that so much of the novel and even the characters are still mysterious after it's done.

The articles are "gay", in the way my 15 year old would use the term. Very gay.
(Is "gay" a profanity on the board these days?)

I don't think that was a fair comment. In the way a 15 year old would use that, it would mean the articles were lame, uninteresting, slightly distasteful or something you wouldn't bother looking at, or want to look at. I thought they were at least well written, concise, and had some interesting ideas, regardless of whether or not I agree with this person's take on the story. We all think of it a little differently.

I thought it was odd that this fellow did not spend much time talking about how Eli's gender ambiguity manifested itself during the story. The subject has been covered in this forum in innumerable posts.

That is the one thing I would bring up too. There's more about gender ambiguity than there is about homosexuality. I think the title of this topic and of the blog are probably a little misleading, and that the issues in question are just too big to label broadly. This isn't a simple book in any respect.
Sorry about the rant I wasn't really offended or bothered, I just think that whoever writes that blog should have their opinions accepted as well, even if you didn't see the same thing in the book/film that they did.

[sauvin]

I read the blogs, too. Well, I tried to.

Ofelia, the opinions and feelings you expressed in this matter more nearly resemble my own than anybody else's in this forum I've seen to date.

I also reject the notion that either Eli or Oskar are openly or willingly sexual in the time frames presented in the novel, except where any possible "sexuality" shown by either child would be commensurate with the kinds of "sexuality" one could expect of "normal" kids of the same age. It'd be a bit early to say that Oskar is or isn't potentially homosexual or bisexual when he himself obviously has never considered any such possibility seriously before looking to a teacher for information and guidance.

I have an impression that Eli's sexuality is artificial (I literally do mean "contrived" here). A couple of the scenes in the novel where Eli has to plead and barter with Hakan to go hunting are what make me think this - left to her own devices and without need for someone to procure for her, I doubt this kind of thing would normally occur to her.

My own thinking into their sexual relationship goes a bit further downstream from the novel's setting, as an unturned Oskar continues to mature.

Even with recent re-reading and an imminent reading again, I don't recall that Hakan had any particular feelings towards girls. As I understand it, truly homosexual men respond to the idea of sexual contact with women with reactions ranging from mild distaste or discomfort to outright antipathy. Hakan's passing up a girl in favour (as I recall) of a larger and apparently healthier boy may have been more a practical matter (stronger, healthier blood and in greater quantity) or had a chivalrous element (women and children must be guarded and preserved) rather than sexual. There may even have been a recognition that murdering a young girl would garner more police attention that murdering a young boy. He does very definitely react to boys and very young men sexually, but it's not clear that he can't and doesn't occasionally experience similar reaction towards girls or very young women.

Hakan's sexuality isn't completely unamiguous. We just have a strong impression that Hakan is a homosexual pedophile.

Ofelia is also correct in pointing out that sexual elements in the novel are mentioned, briefly and matter-of-fact, and in the movies are hinted at rather than actually mentioned. A great many other things are also mentioned in the novel without expansion; I get the impression a great deal of JAL's compact and often terse writing style includes simply noting that such elements are present and leaving it to us to connect the dots to form our own pictures. Any sexuality contained in the novel simply forms part of a larger mosaic and is not a central theme by itself unless we can engineer a retrofit blood symbolism into it.

I am myself neither gay, bisexual nor homophobic; I'm sometimes not even aware of who's gay and who isn't, but I often will pick up on homosexual subtext. Where I sometimes wind up glossing over blogs like the ones that are the topic of this discussion is where people sometimes seem to have a penchant for making Eli and/or Oskar poster children for this kind of sexuality or that. The support for such positions is just too thin in the source material.

Hold on a minute everyone, I think we're being a little unfair.
(snip!)
I don't think Eli and Oskar can be classified as gay because it's just way more complicated than that, and that it's less about sex or sexual attraction than friendship, love and protection. But it's still valid to bring up the presence of sexuality because it's definitely there and Oskar does have some brief concerns over the concepts of gender and romantic partnering that he's seen in adults.

It's about another thing, too: acceptance.

[drakkar]

Håkan isn't gay in the generalized use of the word, but he is attracted to his own sex. Or is that somehow different because he's attracted to children?

That was my thoughts, that paedophilia and homosexuality are two very different things. Which IMO also is a (the) point in the story - it is there to tell me something about the departure point of Eli's emotional journey towards Oskar/humanity. How long that journey actually is. I miss more emphasis on that.

Reading what he said about Tommy, I wonder now how much of Tommy's story is autobiographical. Dealing with his father's death, etc.

In a radio program, John said he had fear of zombies a while after seeing his drowned father's body - so this part of Tommy's story might be called autobiographical. In other aspects, Oskar's father fits - he also lives where Johns father lived.