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A review by thelizabeth
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
5.0
Well, this one surprised me completely. I did not expect to love it, but I entirely did. Somehow, Gaiman's books and I are matching up so much better in recent years than we used to. He's an exciting guy — being so prolific and so varied in his mediums, maybe he will be one of those creators with several marked eras to his life's work. I like watching that happen, even if it seems like he's going to take over everything in the world, sometimes.
Anyway, I also feel like this book's description gets everything dead wrong, somehow, and gave me a completely off expectation for what the book is like. Partially this is due to the frame story, which really doesn't matter much at all to the premise. The man is sort of just the vessel for the story to happen around. His narration sets the scene and the tone (he is only seven during the real story, so there is a lot of plain speaking and innocence to the viewpoint in his memories) but what's important is what happens to him, with these women.
The actual story is of his befriending his neighbor Lettie as a kid, after she helps him with a couple of problems. She is eleven, cool as a cucumber, and her family turns out to know far, far more than they should. They know what unseen suicide notes in strangers' pockets say, and what electrons look like, and how to stitch pieces out of the literal fabric of time. They know things immortal people know. But because he's just a little boy, it's all fine with our narrator, and he just loves it at their house because they're nice to him and give him food and there's cats. One day, Lettie brings him along on an errand, and they walk deep enough into the woods that the sky changes color, and Lettie sorts out a monster who's giving them trouble. Only she doesn't quite, and it follows them home to the boy's house, and it takes the whole rest of the book (and a ton of Lettie's help) to make it gone.
There must be a term for this type of story, because this is one of those tropes where the trouble the young boy gets into is only made worse by the adults, and his parents cannot (do not) help him. They don't believe him and misunderstand him and punish him, and only complicate the things he already has to do to fix everything. He knows what's really going on, but being seven, he can't get them to trust him. This matters, because the thing he is fighting takes the form of a woman living with his family, and "when adults fight children, adults always win." Adults themselves are intimidating enough to seem like the monsters, sometimes.
The writing is what's really beautiful here, and that's not something I usually feel about Gaiman, who has a really straightforward style. But the sentences inhabit this tone that is gentle and simple and bittersweetly blunt, which has a gorgeous flow and is completely fitting for the point of view of a small child. The style is trustworthy, somehow: you just want to follow it along its way, a quick trip down a brisk stream, without stopping to ask questions until you're delivered at the very end. It doesn't need to be any longer than it is. There's also a gauze of nostalgia around the whole thing — it seems to take place in the 1960's, but the atmosphere and lifestyle of rural Britain ends up feeling quite a bit older. I loved the details of their time-capsule farm life, the handbasins and candles and old books, and how the TV looks when it can't get the picture right. Sometimes it feels like we'll forget.
Gaiman definitely is one of those writers who seems to have his ideas on a constant "tumble" cycle, and story elements reappear in his work a lot. This isn't a bad thing by definition, but there's a little bit of buyer-beware to it. I'm not even familiar with half of his work, but I spotted repetition here from The Graveyard Book and Coraline (a sinister mirror world lurks right outside your childhood house), Neverwhere (the child is a door), Sandman (the fates/witches), and actually quite a lot of Doctor Who. It reminded me of an extra-long episode set in the country, only The Doctor is a little girl.
This book is too creepy to give to a young child, but it doesn't feel like an adults-only book either. (There are two vague descriptions of sex and nudity, as understood from a little kid's eyes.) The style is so clear and inviting to read that I could see an older pre-teen kid liking it, though.
I got this book from the library, but I am definitely going to buy it sometime so I can have it around. It's awesome.
Anyway, I also feel like this book's description gets everything dead wrong, somehow, and gave me a completely off expectation for what the book is like. Partially this is due to the frame story, which really doesn't matter much at all to the premise. The man is sort of just the vessel for the story to happen around. His narration sets the scene and the tone (he is only seven during the real story, so there is a lot of plain speaking and innocence to the viewpoint in his memories) but what's important is what happens to him, with these women.
The actual story is of his befriending his neighbor Lettie as a kid, after she helps him with a couple of problems. She is eleven, cool as a cucumber, and her family turns out to know far, far more than they should. They know what unseen suicide notes in strangers' pockets say, and what electrons look like, and how to stitch pieces out of the literal fabric of time. They know things immortal people know. But because he's just a little boy, it's all fine with our narrator, and he just loves it at their house because they're nice to him and give him food and there's cats. One day, Lettie brings him along on an errand, and they walk deep enough into the woods that the sky changes color, and Lettie sorts out a monster who's giving them trouble. Only she doesn't quite, and it follows them home to the boy's house, and it takes the whole rest of the book (and a ton of Lettie's help) to make it gone.
There must be a term for this type of story, because this is one of those tropes where the trouble the young boy gets into is only made worse by the adults, and his parents cannot (do not) help him. They don't believe him and misunderstand him and punish him, and only complicate the things he already has to do to fix everything. He knows what's really going on, but being seven, he can't get them to trust him. This matters, because the thing he is fighting takes the form of a woman living with his family, and "when adults fight children, adults always win." Adults themselves are intimidating enough to seem like the monsters, sometimes.
The writing is what's really beautiful here, and that's not something I usually feel about Gaiman, who has a really straightforward style. But the sentences inhabit this tone that is gentle and simple and bittersweetly blunt, which has a gorgeous flow and is completely fitting for the point of view of a small child. The style is trustworthy, somehow: you just want to follow it along its way, a quick trip down a brisk stream, without stopping to ask questions until you're delivered at the very end. It doesn't need to be any longer than it is. There's also a gauze of nostalgia around the whole thing — it seems to take place in the 1960's, but the atmosphere and lifestyle of rural Britain ends up feeling quite a bit older. I loved the details of their time-capsule farm life, the handbasins and candles and old books, and how the TV looks when it can't get the picture right. Sometimes it feels like we'll forget.
Gaiman definitely is one of those writers who seems to have his ideas on a constant "tumble" cycle, and story elements reappear in his work a lot. This isn't a bad thing by definition, but there's a little bit of buyer-beware to it. I'm not even familiar with half of his work, but I spotted repetition here from The Graveyard Book and Coraline (a sinister mirror world lurks right outside your childhood house), Neverwhere (the child is a door), Sandman (the fates/witches), and actually quite a lot of Doctor Who. It reminded me of an extra-long episode set in the country, only The Doctor is a little girl.
This book is too creepy to give to a young child, but it doesn't feel like an adults-only book either. (There are two vague descriptions of sex and nudity, as understood from a little kid's eyes.) The style is so clear and inviting to read that I could see an older pre-teen kid liking it, though.
I got this book from the library, but I am definitely going to buy it sometime so I can have it around. It's awesome.