The ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman
Good
I went to see Neil Gaiman talk about his new book The ocean
at the end of the lane so this is both a review of the evnt and a review of
the book. Toppings, who organised the event, got a coup as the book isn’t
officially on sale until the 18th. 1000 people gathered together to
greet the author with thunderous applause once we’d all queued to a) get into
the venue and b) buy our copies of the book (queuing was a feature of the
evening). Neil was interviewed, did two readings and fielded about 20 questions
from the audience and then people queued, some more than 3 hours, to get the
book signed, which Neil did graciously and with good humour. He managed to compliment me
on my t-shirt, which was nice. Since we queued for around 2 hours I got a good
head start on reading the book, surprisingly few people were reading it in the
queue though. I was over half way through by the time I got to the head of the
queue. What did I learn? That novel length is 40,000 words (thanks to an
audience prompt), that lot of companies went bust when Neil started working
with them, that things are moving up the chain of command with the adaption of
American gods (still my favourite Gaiman) and that Neil Gaiman has a loyal,
vocal, dedicated fan base. It’s a very different story to when I went to a
signing of Anansi boys in Bath and there were perhaps 20 people in the
bookshop!
Nobody looks like they really are on the inside.
You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of
everybody….. And as for grown-ups…..I’m going to tell you something important.
Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big
and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside they look just
like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is
there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one in the whole wide world….. Except for
Granny of course
We are in familiar territory with the book, there are fates
(maiden, mother, crone) type characters (although not outright called so), cats
(that move the plot along), children struggling with adult themes and a bit of
horror. Gaiman said that this started as a short story, that grew into a
novellete, that grew into a novella, that grew into a novel at 56,000 words. It
is peculiarly of the author, no-one quite like him although there are shades of
Chesterton there. It has the usual Gaimanesque themes of the mythic in ordinary
objects, the ocean of the title and the Hempstock's, yet this time it is a
glimpse of Neil’s private mythology as the book has an autobiographical
genesis. The story is suitably horrific, told as reminiscence and therefore
through the eyes of a child, yet we adults can interpret things the child
narrator doesn’t understand. The plot (no spoilers here – go get your own copy,
you won’t regret it) romps along and before you know it you have reached the
end of the book closing the last page with a satisfied sigh.
Overall – Great for fans new or old, one of his better
novels, recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment