Divine intervention

[Siggdalos]

Recently decided to rewatch one of JAL's more obscure interviews, a conversation he had with Dan-Erik Sahlberg at the 2016 literature festival in Sigtuna. This is one of several interviews Sahlberg has conducted with JAL, and since the former is a devout Christian, a large portion of the interviews are spent on discussing existential and religious themes in John's stories. The reason I rewatched this one is because of what JAL says about something that happens in the LTROI scene with Tommy and Zombie Håkan in the bomb shelter (and which will have some significance in a fanfic I'm working on). The relevant part starts at 36:46.

Transcript:

DES: Det här vet jag att vi pratade om sist också—i den kristna mystiska litteraturen så finns det ett begrepp som kallas för "det bländande mörkret", vilket jag tycker är ett otroligt vackert begrepp. "Det bländande mörkret", paradoxen i det. [...] Men om det nu finns nåt slags bländande mörker i dina berättelser så finns i alla fall ingen Gud, utan det känns mest hotfullt och förtärande. Är du nihilist?
JAL: Nej, det är jag verkligen inte. Jag är väl agnostiker som många andra. Det där går i vågor, hur starkt jag kan uppleva att det finns nånting annat som är välvilligt, även gentemot mig. Den berättelsen som jag håller på och skriver nu, den här X, där är jag precis vid en punkt där jag ska försöka framställa en nihilistisk predikan av en person, på ett sätt som ska kännas någorlunda trovärdigt. Det är grundat i den här nihilistiska filosofin, att det kanske är bättre att aldrig ha existerat, och det är ingenting jag tycker själv. Det är alltid en utmaning att försöka framställa en ståndpunkt som avviker från min egen, trovärdigt.
DES: Kommer det i den nya romanen finnas någon motbild till det där?
JAL: Nej!
[publiken skrattar]
JAL: Nej, egentligen inte. Den är rätt dyster på det viset.
DES: Inte ens kärleken, som jag tycker ändå alltid finns i dina böcker?
JAL: Ja, jo, det finns en slags kärleksrelation där, men den... Ja, nej. Jag har tänkt på det. Det är lustigt. Jag har ju aldrig några mirakel eller av Gud komna... utom vid EN punkt. Jag vet att jag tvekade så inför det här för det här är så avvikande. I min allra första bok, Låt den rätte komma in, så är det en person som är instängd i ett helt mörkt källarrum tillsammans med ett slags monster. Han försöker hitta sin tändare som han har tappat för att få nån slags ljus och kunna se. Och så vid något tillfälle så lyses rummet tillfälligt upp av ett oförklarligt ljus så att han kan hitta den här tändaren och döda monstret. Och det förklaras aldrig var det där ljuset kommer ifrån. Det är enda gången.

Translated:

DES: This is also something I know we talked about last time—in the Christian mystical literature there's an expression called "the blinding darkness", which I think is an incredibly beautiful expression. "The blinding darkness", the paradox in that. [...] But if there is some kind of blinding darkness in your stories, there's in any case no God, and it instead mostly feels threatening and consuming. Are you a nihilist?
JAL: No, I'm certainly not. I suppose I'm an agnostic like many others. That kind of thing comes and goes in waves, how strongly I can feel that there is something other that's benevolent, including towards me. In the story I'm writing currently, I Am the Tiger, I'm right at the point where I'm going to try to depict a nihilistic sermon by a character, in a way that should feel somewhat believable. It's based in the nihilistic philosophy, that it might be better to have never even existed, and that's not anything I personally believe. It's always a challenge to try and depict a point of view which differs from my own in a believable way.
DES: Is there, in the new novel, going to be any antithesis to that?
JAL: Nope!
[audience laughs]
JAL: No, not really. It's pretty somber in that way.
DES: Not even love, which I think always exists in your books no matter what?
JAL: Well, yes, there is a kind of romantic relationship there, but it... Yeah, no. I've thought about that. It's funny. I never have any miracles or things originating from God... except for ONE occasion. I know I hesitated a lot about including it because it's so divergent. In my very first book, Let the Right One In, there's a person who's locked into a completely dark cellar room alongside a kind of monster. He's trying to find his lighter that he's dropped so he can get some kind of light and be able to see. And then at some point the room is temporarily lit up by an unexplainable light so he can find the lighter and kill the monster. And it's never explained where that light comes from. That's the only time.

As a reminder, the LTROI scene in question (my translation):

God, help me. Let the light of your countenance … God … I'm sorry for that thing in the church, I'm sorry for … everything. God. I'll always believe in you, whichever way you like if you just … let me find the lighter … be my friend, dear God.
Something happened.
In the same moment that Tommy felt the creature's hand fumble over his foot, the room bathed for a fraction of a second in a blueish-white light, as if illuminated by a camera flash, and during that fraction Tommy really saw the toppled boxes, the uneven structure of the wall, the passage to the storage rooms.
And he saw the lighter.
It lay only a meter from his right hand, and when the darkness enveloped him again the lighter's position remained burned into his retina. He wrested his foot out of the creature's grip, shot out his arm and got hold of the lighter, held it tight in his fist, threw himself onto his feet.

Make of this what you will, I suppose.

[gkmoberg1]

I've always been so caught up in the scariness of that scene to have noticed that detail. I likely attributed it to some manner of how lighting systems for the basement level of older Swedish apartment buildings work and sometimes might be erratic ... I would never had suspected a divine intervention.

Had I been asked where, if anywhere, a bit of 'divine intervention' had been included in one of JAL's works, I would have suggested it there was in how the dad and daughter escape back to our world in Harbor.

[Siggdalos]

Had I been asked where, if anywhere, a bit of 'divine intervention' had been included in one of JAL's works, I would have suggested it there was in how the dad and daughter escape back to our world in Harbor.

The only clear example outside of LTROI that I can think of is in one of Peter's childhood memories in I Am Behind You, when his abusive father seemingly gets repelled by a crucifix held by Peter's mother, allowing her and Peter to escape and causing the latter to start believing in God (for a time). However, one could find natural explanations for that one too (for example, the father might simply have stumbled since he was very drunk at the time).

I should add that I'm not saying there can't be a natural explanation to the light that ends up saving Tommy, and I'm not sure what to personally make of it. I tend to think of it as an unexplainable anomaly, similar to the blood-tub, but IMO Tommy would probably interpret it as a sign from God.