Trigger warning: discussion of bullying, child abduction, and various forms of sexual abuse.
Well, after such a fantastic and horrifying book as
Let The Right One In, I came into this novel with some expectations. Among them, being pants soiling horrified. While it did not quite deliver on that particular count for me, it was still
really good and the tension was off the metaphorical
hook. And, well, considering how instrumental the building of tension is to horror stories of all kinds, it's the biggest compliment. I'm going to divide this review into clearly labeled sections, it makes things easier when talking about the sprawl of this novel.
The Tension, By The Gods, The Tension!
Even in the flashbacks to tense situations that featured the primary characters in the present, I wound up worrying about their outcomes. The best example of this is a scene set during the end of Simon's first marriage and the beginning of his long relationship with Anna-Greta, in which his then wife, Marita, brought the dangers of her life of illicit drug abuse to the seemingly idyllic island of Domarö. In the end, Simon, Anna-Greta, and her son Johan end up saving one another from the violence of Marita and Rolf, which solidifies their closeness.
(What can I say, I love it when people become closer after overcoming a danger together. See, the main trio from the
Harry Potter series. EVERYTHING LOOPS BACK AROUND TO HP. EVERYTHING.
)
That's not only true of the flashbacks specific to the central characters, the flashbacks explaining what lead up to the disappearance of Anders' peers Henrik and Björn are rife with it. The flashbacks show the reader that, despite being on the bottom of the social pile, being bullied, and loving The Smiths, the two aren't as sympathetic as they would like to be. Of course, most of their peer group aren't exempt from that either, sort of barring Anders and Cecilia. The unmentioned tension lies in the group's precarious hierarchical structure, which emphasizes the various societal divides of the time period and eventually leads to some intense conflict.
That conflict being, are Björn and Henrik truly a part of the group and should they even be treated as such? Unfortunately, for all of them, this conflict came to a head one night after they all got
severely drunk and started playing strip poker. (Oh, so classically ~youthful~.) Due to all of the nudity and near nudity, things got hot rather quickly, leading to things getting out of hand.
It starts when Elin, a character who defined almost solely by her attractiveness, has to step outside to cool off. (While it's not explicitly stated, it's heavily implied that Henrik was already out there when she left the building.) Both being naked already, things quickly get out of hand when it looks as though Henrik is going to rape Elin and she starts screaming for help. And then things really go downhill from there. Joel, Elin's sorta-boyfriend, starts
beating Henrik, while everyone else looks on except for Björn who puts himself in the middle of the fray to end it. From there it escalates into Joel and Martin trying to use Henrik's arousal to violate Björn, which doesn't quite happen thanks to Anders attempt to intervene allowing Henrik to become flaccid. After that, Joel's urge to fight in such a manner diminishes and he and Elin leave the group to go have sex in the woods.
After that night the group is never quite the same. Then, several years later, Henrik and Björn are taken by the sea, only to be its conduits to the outside world when its power fluctuates enough to allow for characters not in the know about it to figure out that something is
wrong with the situation.
See what I mean, even writing this summary of events made me all antsy.
The Death of Eurydice and Orpheus' Journey to the Underworld retold as the primary plot of Anders and his missing daughter Maja.
Gåvasten and its lighthouse are the physical focal point in their story of grief, loss, and the ability to regain hope and control. It's there at the start and end of their story, which places it almost higher in importance than the island of Domarö itself. Other than the underworld itself, I don't remember there being any specific locations featured as strongly in that myth about Orpheus and the death of his newly wedded bride. That and the missing/dead person is now his daughter, not his wife.
Other than those two key details, the two stories are incredibly similar. Of course, one character being an ordinary man having to deal with an extraordinary situation and the other being a mythic (and musical) hero leads to a number of differences in how the events play out. The sea, being a powerful entity with its own agenda despite something being wrong with its functioning, acts in the place of parts of the Greek pantheon. Under the sea, in a setting that mashes aspects together aspects of the Greek underworld, wander those that were taken by the sea in various ways. Some drowned, naturally or through possession/murder. Others still just simply
disappeared, spirited away to a land where they are alone and not quite dead.
From what I recall, the story about Orpheus and Eurydice takes place over
maybe the course of a fortnight, a month if I am feeling generous. The main plot of this novel takes place over the course nearly three years, since Anders spent the vast majority of it in an increasingly drunken stupor in an attempt to numb his grief. Which I totally understand, especially since Maja's disappearance wasn't a garden variety abduction that usually ends in finding the dead body of a child after they have been abused in some manner. Obviously, that's
supremely awful and upsetting, but at least there's a measure of closure in those situations if only because there's a
body. As someone who has dealt with death for the vast majority of their life, I can say with some certainty that having a body to perform funerary rites with is far more comforting than only having something as a stand in for it.
However, despite being in that place for such a long period of time, Maja is not quite dead and shows that via the pseudo-possession of her father. At first I thought it was just one of Anders' unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with his palpable grief, like the alcohol abuse, but when more and more of her behaviors and thought patterns emerge in Anders I WAS SO EXCITED. Mostly because I had thought her a ghost, rather than a still living girl taking advantage of all the weaknesses she can find to get back to reality, BECAUSE GHOST STORIES ARE THE VERY BEST. Which was part of why I gobbled stories featuring Ancient Greece's underworld, most of the people that are there are simply echos of their living selves, which I find SO FASCINATING.
Maja is not the only one to do this, Henrik and Björn come back to further torment Elin and end up killing her simply because they can. (She was being possessed by one of their own, as well, which muddies things a bit.) Anders, after witnessing her death while Maja had more control over his body, takes this information and uses it in a more positive manner: if they can come back and forth that means that he can find a way to follow them and
maybe, just
maybe come back with Maja. Of course, it's a bit more difficult than that, but he does not expect to survive it.
Thankfully, with the aid of Simon's spiritus (a being the size and vague shape of an earthworm that can manipulate water), which echos the pity the gods felt for Orpheus when he played his lute (or lyre, that's not a clear memory), Anders is able to put aside his grief and alcoholism to regain enough control to pull off a poorly planned rescue mission with no back up (Simon and his grandmother Anna-Greta are off on their honeymoon cruise). But at least the rescue mission ends well, if only in the form of Maja survived and not many people were on the island when it was
deluged with water.
Simon and Anna-Greta are flawless, any argument against them is invalid.
I adore these two and their side plots/subplots, so much. They provide both much needed levity and the back-story of the island and the surrounding sea's tendency to eat people that are deemed to be "horrible". Which, of course, is such a strong word when one considers that everyone is at least a little awful, even if only to themselves. They not only do that, but they also give Anders the power to wrest back control from the sea in the form of the spiritus. Which is quite powerful as a representation of hope, especially to those who constantly feel controlled by their grief.
In any case, on to the levity! Their nearly lifelong devotion to one another is so
powerfully adorable. Not only that, but their independence! It's not often that characters learn to be independent and self-reliant outside of a romantic relationship and still grow as people within it. So, of course, their story culminates in marriage. Not only that, but one of the most adorable quickie marriages that I have ever seen in fiction and the only marriage I've seen in fiction between two people old enough to have great grandchildren. SO CUTE.
The Ending.
The ending is not one of the strongest I've read, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, the emotional climax and denouement of Anders finding Maja in the "underworld" near Gåvasten and returning with her to the land of the truly living is fantastic and one of the most heartwarming things I have read, but it does not feel as though the story is wholly told. I mean, despite the sea once more claiming ownership of Domarö and some of the surrounding islands, Anna-Greta and Simon being married and on relative equal footing, etc. it feels like leaving Cecilia's potential reaction to the relative safe return of her daughter is quite the oversight. What could Anders tell her? How will this be explained to the authorities?
How will it be explained to Maja when she grows up?
Essentially, the abruptness of the end has left me with questions that I feel are important enough to at least warrant a decent epilogue that could wrap up the few loose strings. This isn't new for Lindqvist,
Let the Right One In left me wondering some similar things, but that ending wasn't abrupt in the least and some of the answers to my questions are already there in the text. But that's my own issue, dutifully ignore it and focus on the next two sentences.
In short, this book is fantastic and layered, but still flawed, giving one all the more reason to read and analyze it. It also toys with expectations and familiar stories, which is always the biggest advantage to me.
