Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

For discussion of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel Lilla Stjärna
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drakkar
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by drakkar » Tue Aug 07, 2012 6:19 am

This is Interesting. I remember ACL's thread At What Point Did You Lose Sympathy for Theres and Teresa?, where none of the five Scandinavian members (including johnajvide :mrgreen: ) lost sympathy for (or identification with) T&T, while many others did.

Why is this? Is it just coincidal, or is it cultural differences, where cultural/sociological issues appearing in the book are percieved differently across the globe? Or could it even be translational issues, where the English edition differs slightly from the Swedish (and Norwegian, Intrige rooted for T&T too, I recall).

Some points that caught my attention:
lombano wrote:... LS is for me the polar opposite of LTROI in that it is a relationship that is ultimately wholly nihilistic. ...
... but Teresa is indeed as she perceives herself - empty, a creature without a soul.
This is about the very opposite of how I view LS, especially the characteristics of Teresa (from the top of my head, I believe John dedicated the book to all the teenager girls dropping out from society and ending on mental treatment - like Teresa did).
danielma wrote:...but in terms of their murderous ways, it really isn't driven by any motivation rather then "they can". Which is linked back to a certain sense of empowerment they get from it. That's where I would argue that it's rather nihlistic. Their motivations are completely nihlisitic and self serving.
I see far more profound reasons behind the killing. In my book there is also an issue about society failing to recognise and even rejecting the individual, and driven to the most bitter concequence, this is what you might get.
I saw a sort of religious connection between lost souls and Theres, ultimately ending in a tragedy. We see this a lot in real life.
(My definition of "religious" is rather wide, it includes religious ways of thinking where one jumps on and stick to a conclusion out of belief rather than out of rational thinking - e.g. I see strong religious tendencies among football supporters :mrgreen: ).
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by danielma » Tue Aug 07, 2012 10:15 am

I see far more profound reasons behind the killing. In my book there is also an issue about society failing to recognise and even rejecting the individual, and driven to the most bitter concequence, this is what you might get.
I did see this element as well Drakkar, so much so that I thought it was a Satiric Quality in the book (at least after my first read through I thought this)...When I was done with the book, I thought there was an element of satire towards the nature of manufacturing a pop idol. And the rejection shown by society towards pure talent, and how that can drive someone to the brink because of the lack of appreciation shown by society. I did see that quality Drakkar :)
I saw a sort of religious connection between lost souls and Theres, ultimately ending in a tragedy. We see this a lot in real life.
Again I saw this as well. As I pointed out in my first read through, I found it fascinating how these group of lost young teenage girls found a voice through Theres. The connection between Theres and Teresa I liken to a Singer and Songwriter. Teresa was the songwriter, Theres is the voice who can communicate those lyrics. I saw the quality within these girls that they all looked towards Theres and Theres kind of acted as a guiding figure for them. On my first read through, once again, I thought this all went back to the satircal idea involved with idol worship (of sorts)...I don't know if that's the case having re-read the novel, but that was my initial thought.

But skip to the end, I indeed see what your saying. Teresa does find a connection in Theres, as you said though, it ends very tragically.

As I said, when I say nihilistic, that doesn't mean I hate the characters. Far from it, I'm with you, I even said this in ACL's thread that it never quite got to the point where I hated these characters even when their actions went as low as they could go (Teresa killing Johannes) mainly because I did get the idea of why they are doing it, I felt compelled the entire way through by the character of Teresa. Sound like a broken record, but I thought it was the best Character JAL has written so far. But their motivations for why they kill do seem to be of a simplistic nature. They do gain a sense of empowerment from their actions. That's a little different to, say, killing someone to live. So in some ways, I do see them as being the polar opposite of Eli and Oskar in that regards.
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by lombano » Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:59 pm

drakkar wrote:
lombano wrote:... LS is for me the polar opposite of LTROI in that it is a relationship that is ultimately wholly nihilistic. ...
... but Teresa is indeed as she perceives herself - empty, a creature without a soul.
This is about the very opposite of how I view LS, especially the characteristics of Teresa (from the top of my head, I believe John dedicated the book to all the teenager girls dropping out from society and ending on mental treatment - like Teresa did).
To clarify, I meant that Teresa in the end becomes a creature without a soul, not that she was thus from the start. Yes, the story is also about a social milieu rejecting certain individuals and that having dire consequences by maing lost souls gravitate to Theres, but that does not really change my opinion of Teresa.
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by drakkar » Tue Aug 07, 2012 6:33 pm

danielma wrote:As I said, when I say nihilistic, that doesn't mean I hate the characters.
I didn't believe you mean that either. With the term "nihilistic" I understand "without meaning" or "pointless". In large I see much of the same core story in LS and LTROI, perhaps some difference in quantity here and there (I think I said LS balances on a razor edge), but still much of the same moods.

There is a difference in that the mass murderer in LTROI is mentally twelve, while they in LS are teenagers, which make it more difficult to digest. But not impossible, and it hardly matters for the victims anyway.
lombano wrote:To clarify, I meant that Teresa in the end becomes a creature without a soul, not that she was thus from the start.
And this is where we differ, it just struck me that I regard Teresa a more soulful person than her father, even in the last pages of the book.
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by lombano » Tue Aug 07, 2012 9:07 pm

drakkar wrote:
danielma wrote:As I said, when I say nihilistic, that doesn't mean I hate the characters.
I didn't believe you mean that either. With the term "nihilistic" I understand "without meaning" or "pointless". In large I see much of the same core story in LS and LTROI, perhaps some difference in quantity here and there (I think I said LS balances on a razor edge), but still much of the same moods.

There is a difference in that the mass murderer in LTROI is mentally twelve, while they in LS are teenagers, which make it more difficult to digest. But not impossible, and it hardly matters for the victims anyway.
There are other differences, most notably that the Wolves kill 'Because!' and Eli kills for sheer survival. Plus, Eli's behaviour towards the woman with cancer shows some measure of kindness towards her victims that the Wolves lack entirely. But, if the difference between Eli and Theres is comparatively small, the difference between Oskar and Teresa is abysmal. Oskar shows spontaneous kindness several times, such as when he strokes Eli's cheek, when he offers Jonny his sock, very much in contrast to Teresa's casual viciousness. Oskar, at least up to the end of LTROI, is a good kid; Teresa is not. Oskar wants to be left alone by the bullies; Teresa wants to outbully the bullies.
drakkar wrote:
lombano wrote:To clarify, I meant that Teresa in the end becomes a creature without a soul, not that she was thus from the start.
And this is where we differ, it just struck me that I regard Teresa a more soulful person than her father, even in the last pages of the book.
This surprises me, as I found Göran to be one of the most sympathetic characters.

I'm not sure why the differences in how the Scandinavians view the Wolves and how many of the rest of us do, I'm guessing it's cutlural somehow.
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by intrige » Tue Aug 07, 2012 9:18 pm

I think I should re-read Little Star before I say anything.. :?
I remember the yellow pearl though,, somehow.. :P
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by gattoparde59 » Wed Aug 08, 2012 12:53 am

intrige wrote:I think I should re-read Little Star before I say anything..
lombano wrote:This surprises me, as I found Göran to be one of the most sympathetic characters.
At the risk of ignoring intrige's wise idea, if Teresa's father is Göran, he struck me as a weak character. He sympathized with Teresa's problems but when she needed him the most he was too distracted by his Alpha-male job at the state liquor store (which he was entirely unsuited for) to be there for her. I'm not sure on this, but he might have also have intervened more when his wife tried to "correct" Teresa's character flaws. Just a theory . . . :think:

So I would say, not a bad man, but maybe not suited to being a parent for a difficult child like Teresa.
Last edited by gattoparde59 on Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by lombano » Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:07 am

He was out of his depth, of course. But nevertheless soulful, despite his failures.
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by drakkar » Wed Aug 08, 2012 6:00 am

gattoparde59 wrote:At the risk of ignoring intrige's wise idea, if Teresa's father is Göran, he struck me as a weak character. He sympathized with Teresa's problems but when she needed him the most he was too distracted by his Alpha-male job at the state liquor store (which he was entirely unsuited for) to be there for her. I'm not sure on this, but he might have also have intervened more when his wife tried to "correct" Teresa's character flaws. Just a theory . . . :think:
Yes, something like that struck me too. I remember words like "zombie" popping up in my head when I thought about him :lol: .
lombano wrote:There are other differences, most notably that the Wolves kill 'Because!' and Eli kills for sheer survival. Plus, Eli's behaviour towards the woman with cancer shows some measure of kindness towards her victims that the Wolves lack entirely.
Yes, "because". I feel that "because" is an abyss I never manage to fully grasp, and that is part of the magic of LS. Eli knows perfectly well how to stop killing people, he just cannot make himself do it. No wonder, suicide among children is rare. OK, Eli is a "kind" mass murderer, but that doesn't do all the difference in the world to me. when I could root for a mass murder like Eli, I can also root for the wolf pack in LS.
lombano wrote:the difference between Oskar and Teresa is abysmal. Oskar shows spontaneous kindness several times, such as when he strokes Eli's cheek, when he offers Jonny his sock, very much in contrast to Teresa's casual viciousness. Oskar, at least up to the end of LTROI, is a good kid; Teresa is not. Oskar wants to be left alone by the bullies; Teresa wants to outbully the bullies.
In the end, Teresa fights back (hard), but it's a long process trhoughout the book before that happens. Which actually strengthen my perception of Teresa's soul. A deeply troubled soul. In LTROI, one of the possible endings (often considered the "happiest") involve Oskar being turned by Eli in order to be with him, thus choosing to become a mass murderer. Again, a "kind" mass murderer, but still a mass murderer.

There has been some brief discussions about the Utøya massacre in Norway last summer, where Anders Behring Breivik shot and killed 69 people during a good hour. That is about the same number Eli kills in a year, add in Oskar and the number is doubled. There is of course a substantial difference between Oskar/Eli and ABB, but perhaps not so much for the victims.
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Re: Parallels Between Little Star and LTROI - Spoilers

Post by drakkar » Wed Aug 08, 2012 11:20 am

I like this discussion in that it is getting rather profound about how we go about the killikng of other people. So I thought I should share some thoughts I have about it. I have been reluctant to do this, because it involves introducing a real life mass murderer and a rather fresh massacre: Anders Behring Breivik (ABB) from the Utøya massacre 22 July 2011, where he shot and killed 69 unarmed and defenseless persons trapped on a small island with him during a one hour and twelve minutes long operation.

Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård gave a speech at the One Year Memory Event after the massacre, and he also published an article in Swedish Dagens Nyheter and German Der Spiegel where he discusses the background for the attacks.

In the paper, he also touches upon how killing another person is against man's true nature, and how that resistance must be overcome in order to do it. Among other things, he refers to US Army Forces in Europe during WWII, where it was discovered that only 15-20% of the soldiers firing at the enemy actually tried to kill, the majority only pretended to. They deliberately aimed past enemy soldiers because the resistance towards killing another person was too strong. This problem was much less prominent in the navy and air force, and other situation where you kill from a distance, because then you don't recognise the enemy as single persons.

After the war, a Govermental program developed a highly successful training program against this, which in short involves creating a necessary distance to the opponent through mental training. The other person becomes reduced to a target in the soldier's mind, and must not be thought about as a fellow human being. This is of course old knowledge, Hitler used it when he imprinted his entire people that the enemy is an "Untermensch". Religious fundamentalists/extremists also use this technique regularly when they firmly believe some Deity has chosen them to deal with said Deity's enemies, which then effectively becomes distant and impersonal, reduced to someone without faith and hence without any real value.

There are two way of doing this, either you separate the human beings you are going kill from your world, or YOU choose to leave THEIR world. Anders Behring Breivik (and most school mass killers, I guess) ended up with the second option. Knausgård concludes that ABB must have left our world to be able to massacre 69 people, because it is very unlikely that a person present in our world can bring him/herself to actually do it. In ABB's world, and only there, his actions at Utøya was perfectly logical, even imperative.

Now, metoo, having read Knausgårds paper, mailed me, because in LTROI Oskar also leaves the world. He leaves it order to go with Eli, which also happens to be a mass murderer, and Eli is already separated from the world. Hence there is a possible parallel between Oskar and real life ABB, making FF writing a highly unpleasant task.

My reply to metoo (from the top of my head) was that Oskar leaves our world to enter Eli's. He doesn't choose to kill, he chooses Eli, another person. But still, in his new world he might be turned and becoming part of the perpetual massacre himself, or remain unturned as a close part of it without actually doing it himself (or what do you think, sauvin ;) ).

I have realised that Knausgård actually put words on my own thoughts about LTROI and LS. The stories are not part of our world, they are fiction, part of our imagination and phantasy world. Which is a very different thing. Only if we fail to separate them, things are starting to get dangerous. JAL will of course never kill another person, even if he has an extremely competent imagination about how to do it. On the contrary; his reflections on the topic only serve to strengthen his contact with the real world, since he has reflected so deeply around it.
Knausgård also kills people in his books, he even kills God in one of them (now we are talking nihilism! :)), and now his reflections on the topic suddenly serves to strengthen an entire nation's connection to the real world, through pointing out the profound aspects of the differences between the real world and our imagination.

So when people here are able to root for Eli, Theres and Teresa, I believe it's the same thing, people will grown from their reflections. I remember TA's last words in the dvd comments: "If you ever spot Eli, keep her at a distance. She is dangerous."
For the heart life is simple. It beats as long as it can.
- Karl Ove Knausgård

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