So dark the night (novel)

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The title of a novel by the Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist is so dark the night . This was published in Sweden in 2004 as Låt den rara comma . In 2007 the German translation was published.

In his debut novel, Lindqvist combined elements from the development novel , crime and vampire stories and thematized prostitution , drugs and pedophilia . The novel was featured in the Stern and Spiegel bestseller lists for several months and has since been filmed twice.

content

The story begins in the early 1980s and takes place mainly in Stockholm - Blackeberg . The main character of this novel is the twelve year old Oskar Eriksson, who suffers from the divorce of his parents. Oskar is the bullying victim of Jonny Forsberg, a boy from his class, at school. Instead of defending himself, however, Oskar withdraws to his dream world or commits minor thefts in the neighborhood . The only boyfriend Oskar has is sixteen-year-old Tommy from the house next door. Tommy hates the police officer Staffan, his mother's partner, and commits minor break-ins and thefts himself . In order to supplement his pocket money , Oskar carries out advertising slips in his housing estate every week .

One evening Eli moves into Oskar's house with the former teacher Håkan Bentsson. However, the new neighbors share a dark secret: Håkan, a man in his mid-forties, is a pedophile and wanted murderer. He killed two people in Växjö (Småland) for his great love Eli and let them bleed to death. Eli was born over 220 years ago, needs human blood to live and is actually a neutered boy . After Håkan's third murder failed there, they both fled to Stockholm via Norrköping .

Oskar does not know anything about it when one night he meets Eli in the playground and thinks he is a girl. Eli lets him believe this and although Eli reacts reserved to Oskar, Oskar tries to establish a friendship. So Eli gradually gets involved with Oskar and encourages him to finally defend himself against the bullying in school. At Oskar's objection, Eli promises to help him if he needs it.

Mysterious murders have taken place in Stockholm since Håkan and Eli have lived in the neighborhood. Their victims, children and adolescents, are found bloodless and with their throats pierced. Oskar follows the events with interest because he is a big crime fanatic. Håkan finds - much to his displeasure - that Eli is slipping away from him more and more, and he sees Oskar, the boy next door, as a great competitor for Eli's feelings. In Oskar's presence, Eli developed again childlike desires and needs that had long been hidden. In addition, Eli slowly falls in love with Oskar. One evening, Håkan had bad luck in the municipal swimming pool and was surprised while attempting to murder a child. To protect Eli, he doused himself with acid . Håkan is admitted to a hospital . There he is visited by Eli, who drinks his blood. Håkan rushes out of the window and remains in a meadow with broken bones. Everyone now thinks he is dead, but Håkan survives the fall because Eli did not kill him. In the days that followed, Håkan, completely disfigured by acid, tried to separate his great love Eli from Oskar and to bind him to himself forever. However, he is later killed by Tommy in Oskar's basement corridor.

Oskar falls in love with Eli more and more. One morning Oskar defends himself against Jonny at a swimming lake and seriously injures his ear. On the same evening he offers Eli a blood brotherhood in the basement of the house . He cuts his hand with his knife, and to his horror Eli falls on his knees in front of him and licks his blood from the floor. Oskar realizes that Eli must be some kind of vampire . This also falls to a neighbor from the next house named Virginia; she dies of sunlight in the hospital a few days later after realizing what she has become. Oskar finally visits Eli in his apartment. Eli confesses that he needs blood to live, but denies being a vampire. When asked about his real age, Eli admits that she never got older than twelve and that he slept for a long time.

One evening later, Eli visits Oskar in his apartment. Since Oskar refuses a personal invitation, Eli enters the apartment and begins to bleed from all pores. Startled, Oskar utters the outstanding invitation. Eli now admits to Oskar that he is a boy named Elias and lets him share his memories on the same evening. Oskar experiences how Elias was castrated at the behest of a vampiric nobleman . After the castration, the nobleman drank blood from Elias and transformed him into a blood-drinking creature. Oskar is torn as far as Elias is concerned. He fears he's gay now , but realizes that he loves Eli. So Oskar decides a little later to continue to see the "girl Eli" in Elias and to continue to be her friend.

A few days later, Lacke, Virginia's friend, appears in Eli's apartment. He has found out who, or rather what, Eli really is and wants to kill him in revenge. But before that happens, Lacke is distracted by Oskar, who is also in the apartment, and in turn killed by Eli. Eli leaves the city that evening. One evening later, Oskar and his class are in the school's swimming pool. Jonny shows up with his brother. The latter now wants to punish Oskar for hurting his brother. So Oskar is pushed with his head under water for minutes by Jonny's brother and now threatens to drown. In this situation Eli intervenes and saves his friend Oskar at the last minute. One day later, Oskar leaves the city with Eli and is now his new companion.

filming

The novel was filmed in Sweden by Tomas Alfredson and was released in 2008 under the original title Låt den rätte komma in (German title So sinster die Nacht , international English title Let the Right One In ). An American remake directed by Matt Reeves was released in 2010 called Let Me In .

TV series

In March 2015 it was announced that the American TV broadcaster A&E was also working on a conversion of the novel. But not in the form of a movie, but as part of an ambitious horror series. Jeff Davis and Brandon Boyce were hired to adapt the novel.

literature

  • Niels Penke: Vampire sadness and socially building misery . Socially realistic storytelling in John Ajvide Lindqvist's So Dark the Night . In: Jörg van Bebber (Ed.): Dawn of an Evil Millennium. Horror and culture in the new millennium. Büchner, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-941310-22-3 .

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