I was reading “Handling the Undead” (John Ajvide Lindqvist, Quercus, 384 pp, 1900, according to Amazon, also morans) and wondered what other people thought about it, and checked goodreads.com. And then I got curious whether anyone I knew had written anything about it there, so I created an account and checked to see if anyone I knew was there, and instead goodreads sent out invitations to everyone or something. Which is fine, I guess, except that it used made-up names for some reason. Which is funny.
[pause for canned laughter to abate]
Now if I could only get goodreads to stop posting to my twitter account every time I blow my nose. Guess I’ll go change permissions there if I remember to.
[more canned laughter]
Not sure what you think of Lindqvist. I loved “Let the Right One In,” not least because it was sort of detoxifying after Twilight.
[applause, and hooting]
And the p3d0 angle was way creepier than anything else I’ve ever read in any vampire story. So I had high hopes for “Handling the Undead”. Who are known as the “reliving” in the book, which I thought was a nice touch. And I was not disappointed with the book, although I did not think it was as excellent as “Let the Right One In”, I thought it was very good.
See, it’s my review-writing style that makes me hesitant to post to goodreads.
[canned laughter]
Lindqvist does interesting things with the rules of the genre.
I like how the zombies are nearly, but not entirely, blank. And how it is not clear, really, until the end, what is behind the event, what the evil thing in the book is.
And other stuff that would be spoilers if I described it.
Jesus, spoilers, gotta remember that if you write about stuff like this.
I am trying to do something zombie related, something involving words on paper, so this was interesting for me for that reason as well. My idea was more B-movieish, but this gives me more ambition.
For what, really, is the difference between “literature” and genre writing, but ambition and quality?
[canned laughter]
Is there any pattern to the made up names? The name Goodreads made up for me contains six letters (four, but two are repeated) that are in the name I use for my email address. I wonder that’s what it did – used names that contained as many letters as possible from your contacts email addressses.
“let the right one in” was…i really loved it. a lot.
Canned laughter is still better than crickets. Love, Tina.
Funny, I am in the middle of Handling… (or Hanteringen av odöda in Swedish). I find it kind of hard to read. Too gross and too sad for me to enjoy it. Not saying I dislike it, oh no, just not really a pleasure… You know what I am saying?
I thoroughly enjoyed Ajvide’s short story collection Pappersväggar (Paper Walls) which also include an epilogue to Handling… But then again, my attention span tends to favour short stories.
Kirsten wrote a Danish review: http://www.kirstenmarie.dk/bibliomani/?p=589. The conclusion: recommended, but not for the faint hearted” (see how well she knows me..?)
Old faint-hearted Jacob. Have you read “Let the Right One In”? I found that more disturbing, and grosser, although I liked both books. I think he does a good job reviving the genres, better than Twilight at least.
Haven’t read Let the Right One In, yet. It’s on the shelf. But damn I loved the movie.
Yes, absolutely. The mix of bleek everyday social realism and gore is briliant. He as a great and original writer, no doubt about it.