gkmoberg1 wrote:Perhaps you can help with a confusion I've had about this. Could Eli & Oskar have taken this train to Karlstad directly from Blackeberg? Or would they have to take transport first to Stockholm and then board the train? Or perhaps there is/was a stop coming out of Stockholm where they could have met the train? I am curious. The answer may help explain the late departure time, although it may have been intentional so that Oskar would have Eli's assistance when exiting the train in Karlstad. The risk, though, would be Oskar's lengthened presence at the station awaiting the train with Eli helpless, pinned by the daytime sunlight, within the large trunk.
Blackeberg is part of Greater Stockholm, it's a suburb, not a separate town. Oskar would have had to go by underground from Blackeberg to downtown Stockholm, a trip of half an hour. The Underground Central (T-Centralen) in Stockholm is connected to the railway Central Station by a pedestrian tunnel. All in all it might take as much as an hour to go from Oskar's home in Blackeberg to Stockholm Central.
The train from Stockholm to Karlstad passes Södertälje, a town south of Stockholm and the lake Mälaren. Blackeberg is to the north of Mälaren, thus the closest station for Oskar to catch the train would be Stockholm Central.
Oskar and Eli could have gone to Oskar's home to fetch the cardboard boxes, and then further on to some other place where they spent the night. Or they could have spent the night somewhere else, and Oskar could have gone home to fetch the boxes before continuing. Or they could have waited for the train at the Central Station all night and morning, just to catch that train. But Oskar being on the train would necessarily mean he started the trip at noon.
Actually, there were no direct trains (as prescribed by the novel) between Stockholm and Karlstad that started at noon in 1981. There were just two departures, one at 7 am, arriving in Karlstad at 10.13, and one in the evening at 4 pm arriving at 7 pm. So the novel train trip is fictional, but possible. However, a train trip starting in the morning and arriving after dusk would be impossible, the distance is too short.
There is a hint in the novel that Oskar had deliberately chosen that trip, in order to arrive after sunset. But then the question arises why Oskar and Eli went to Karlstad at all, since plenty of other destinations would have been less problematic. If they had chosen to go to northern Sweden, they could have caught a train already in the night of November 12, and arrived well before sunrise to someplace far away.
There is a clue to the choice of Karlstad: Håkan originally was from Karlstad, and might have left something there that Eli wanted, or he might have told Eli something that made Eli want to go there. But what would that be? Nothing that I can think of. My conclusion is that the connection is coincidental. Maybe John just liked the place, and had forgotten about Håkan's origins when writing the epilogue.
Welcome back, and let's hope you sat