Handling the Undead John Ajvide Lindquist Book Review

This book, by the author of the acclaimed Let the Right One In presupposes a scenario in which the recent dead of Stockholm revivify, one excruciatingly hot day. As we might expect from this author however, the novel offers far more than the standard zombie entrails-fest, instead it is, in part, an eloquent meditation on human responses to loss and grief.

We observe events unfolding through a range of perspectives; the first sign of what is to come is relayed to us from the viewpoint of a chance observer whom we never meet again. A larger scale perspective is offered by several bulletin style summaries of what has been happening across the city as the dead begin to awaken and the authorities and ordinary people struggle to formulate their responses. There is an underlying fear that the unprecedented crisis will prompt the state to take sinister and unaccountable measures - where are the dead being taken? Why are their relatives being discouraged from visiting? Should the reliving be classified as corpses or people with rights? There seems to be a thin line between ruthless authoritarianism and well-meaning bureaucratic bungling by human beings who don't really have a clue what to do next.

The primary focus however is on three families who have all suffered recent bereavements and have to deal with very mixed feelings as they discover that their dead have returned to a (sort of) life. It is one thing to long for your beloved to return from the grave, quite another when they actually do. Among those whom we meet are Flora, a teenage Marilyn Manson fan blighted (rather stereotypically) with self-harming tendencies and her devout Christian grandmother. David, a stand-up comedian and his young son Magnus and retired reporter strangely named Gustav Mahler and his daughter Anna. These characters are convincingly drawn, in particular David and Flora are brought to vivid life for us.

The ‘zombies’ themselves are virtual blanks; although sometimes frightening, they are more subtle than the crazed brain-devouring monsters beloved of film, but the living characters struggle to find in them the person they once knew and loved. They are essentially alien, exiled, non-functional.

In a sense their presence is like the dreams one has of those dead in which they are somehow both with us and yet not with us, we are glad to see them again yet sense that all is not right, cannot be right.

There is much in the book that remains mysterious and unexplained (though I think it is a book that would well repay rereading) but it delivers its own strangely beautiful redemption.

Being Human, Some (slightly obsessive?) thoughts

I've been really enjoying the series of Being Human since it started. By chance I got to see the original pilot and long after G and I would say wistfully 'if only they would bring back that programme with the vampire and the werewolf and the ghost!' It quite escaped our attention, of course, that there actually was a massive online campaign to get the show put back on - we thought it was just us who had noticed and liked it.

It was a delightful surprise then when it did come back, although it took me a while to get used to the new Annie - she seemed slightly too posh and bland compared to the small Northern woman who had played her before, but I'm used to her now.

What is so good about it? Partly that vampires in general just are good. Werewolves of course are inherently less charming but George's pained humanity ably contrasts with and compensates for his bestial condition. Annie the ghost, I do have reservations about, but we'll come to that, at any rate as a female third, she balances out the household dynamics.The combination of these beings with their flat in Bristol, their hospital jobs the ordinary life that surrounds them is particularly satisfying. I like Trueblood very much but it is so much within a tradition of Southern Gothic that it seems quite natural that there should be vampires, just as there are alligators which seem equally unlikely (I haven't travelled much). I think some of my favourite episodes were in the first series for example when they tried to integrate with the local community and Mitchel befriended a small child - only for the household to be branded as paedophiles.

In this second series I have found the whole concept of the vampires and how they operate problematic. There seem to be an awful lot of vampires in Bristol and if they had all previously been in the habit of killing at whim, it is hard to see how this could possibly have been covered up, however skilled their network of support - we're potentially talking about hundreds of people a month found dead and exsanguinated. There would be an outcry!

 Mitchell's authoritarian attempts to impose total abstinence on all the vampires also seems absurd when the possible compromises seem so obvious. Vampires apparently don't need blood to live - they're capable of living off normal food, though in an impaired condition. (Vampires that don't really need blood is another concept I'm not too happy with.) If they have this marvellous network that seems to enable them to get away with practically anything why don't they simply enjoy moderate amounts of the blood of the willing? - like that poor Emo girl that Mitchell appears to have quite gratuitously chained and terrified, despite her initial willingness. Then Mitchell could legitimately crack down on those who wantonly attacked and killed members of the general public. Alright, then, arguably, there would be no story, but it bothers me, possibly because I am in the midst of writing a vampire novel and trying to cover all angles of how it could and couldn't work, I'm sure I've left logic gaps.

The ghost is just too solid, it would be better if she flickered a bit or moved around in a sort of jerky stop motion way. Sometimes it's easy to forget she's a ghost - at least now they've stopped the whole thing with her being able to interact with the general public - I've liked her better these last couple of episodes.

The sinister man who appears to just like bursting werewolves is good, I'm afraid I have to hide my eyes when werewolves get put in the werewolf bursting machine.