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.

Paranormal Activity Film Review

Watched Paranormal Activity last night. I came to it with high expectations, based on a review I had read in the Guardian, recommending it highly for its subtlety. It is a film very much in the Blair Witch tradition - the unfolding action viewed through a camera set up by the protagonists.

Without spoiling too much, I think I can say that the basic premise was that a young couple, bothered by possible paranormal activity at night in their home have set up a camera in the hope of capturing concrete evidence. At first they are light hearted, perhaps only a little self-consciously displaying their affection for each other in front of the camera and before others. The intrusion of the camera is an amusing novelty in their lives. Inevitably things turn darker and escalate. I was left speculating how far the dark force that haunted them came from within or without, how far was it nourished or engendered by the tensions simmering beneath the surface of their happy relationship?

I must say I found  some of the action a little slow and repetitive, even inconsequential; perhaps the refusal to deliver resolution offers more in the way of verisimilitude than tidy plot development but half way through, I found myself becoming impatient. Yes there is something in the house and it moves things around, no, wandering around in your underwear shouting at it won't help.

The exorcism reference (cut from some versions of the film) was absurd with its hints about unfortunates chewing off their own arms.

On the other hand I was clearly sufficiently influenced by the film to be just a little disturbed when my laptop started inexplicably making noises on its own in the middle of the night...