Handling the Undead, John Ajvide Lindqvist

[brigid]

Handling the Undead, by John Ajvide Lindqvist, is advertised as a zombie novel. But it’s not about zombies, not really. I mean, there are people who died who become animated again, who imitate life, but the book isn’t really about them. And they aren’t the zombies popularly portrayed in media. They don’t hunger for brains, for instance.

The book opens with a bit about the weather. It’s been unusually hot in Sweden. Everyone has headaches. And then the electricity goes on and stays on, all appliances coming to life (so to speak), unable to be turned off. There’s a fantastic bit where a character is running, and his cellphone’s battery gains an extra bar of power as the battery refuels itself without being connected to anything. The weather breaks, the headaches ease off, and the dead start coming back to life.

Well. They animate. They imitate life. But they aren’t alive.

Handling the Undead isn’t really a story about zombies. It’s a story about death and dying and grief, about the human condition and souls, about letting go and moving on. It follows 3.5 story lines: David and his young son and the death of his wife Eva, the love of his life; Gustav Mahler and his daughter and dead grandson; Psychic grandmother and -daughter Elvy and Flora (whose storyline involves them separating then reuniting, hence 3.5 story lines). The book starts off with a bang and keeps the pace up consistently until the end, when it slows down and becomes more contemplative. It’s an emotionally difficult book to read, diving deep into emotionally troubling waters. The characters go through events that are both unusual and specific to them (I mean, there are ‘reliving,’ the formerly dead walking around, that is not an everyday occurrence) but also universal. Death. Loss. Pain. I cried several times while reading this book, and then kept going.

I highly recommend this book. It’s not at all the standard gory zombie fare, and most of the bits I as a reader flinched from were emotional bits, not visceral ones. There’s horror elements in it, well crafted, but it’s primarily an emotional journey, and a very well written one at that.

Mirrored from Thoughtful Consumption.

Comments

[marshtide]

That guy is our local horror writer. He lives on an island near here. *laughs* And I think that his latest book, Little Star, is set in and around my town. I keep meaning to read him but he has a reputation for being really... psychologically powerful, I think, so I'm, uh, waiting for some extra stability. But he's basically the guy for Swedish horror right now, and I suspect for good reason. (It's not like Sweden has a shortage of horror writers, either.)

[brigid]

I had to keep putting the book down so I could, like, walk way and hold myself and rock back and forth and sob. OH GOD. But in a good way, if that makes sense.

In a lot of horror, really terrible stuff happens and it feels like the terrible stuff is happening just to manipulate the reader. This happens in non-horror too, I guess. Anyway, this book doesn't feel like that at all. It feels very raw and true and honest and not manipulative. And it's like a thousand barbs puncturing your soul.

I don't think "Little Star" has been translated into English yet. I hope it does soon! I'm going to work on "Let me in/Let the Right One In" when I've recovered from this one... and there's also an element of "when I read THIS book, I'll have read ALL my books by him! OH NOES."