I am not accustomed to doing book reviews, and unless I have
something really serious to say about an issue, I think it's more fun to
read a discussion of themes and greater connections rather than a
review, so I am going to attempt to do that. There will be minor
spoilers. You may not have the same definition of "minor" that I do, so
proceed with caution. (If you want to know what I think quality-wise,
it's this: read it. I loved it.)
[I should also note that this has been saved as a draft for a while, and since then I've read more Sandman and
American Gods.]
Before this, the only Neil Gaiman book I had read was
The Graveyard Book
several years ago, though I also had read the first few issues of
Sandman at this point and see his Doctor Who episodes. I was interested
in beginning to delve more into his work with this book because it
appeared to be a nice childhood tale of nostalgia...and boy, how was I
wrong. It morphed into something all the more terrifying and thrilling.
The
plot began to sound mystic, and suddenly it was full-blown, gloriously
unexplained fantasy. Perhaps only Gaiman can get away with it, but I
envy how he leaves so much vague and unexplained, really allowing it to
be magical and imaginative. It's a balance I've struggled with my own
writing, as I feel like I should explain how everything works with the
Internet's tendency to scrutinize everything, but this ends up being
fruitless for fantasy.
Anyway, perhaps the most memorable and
disturbing part in the book for me was when the protagonist notices
there is a hole in his foot, decides it's not worth his parents'
attention, and grabs tweezers and pulls out a worm and washes it down
the bathtub drain. I'm not sure what bothered me more: the fact that
there was a worm in his foot, or that he was completely unphased by it. I
know my brother would have been screaming when he was seven.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
is full of childhood but timeless horror, and in addition to the genre I
find the target age range interesting. Despite being through the eyes
of a seven-year-old, Gaiman
stated
he decided to not market it toward younger readers because there is not
enough hope, and I suppose I would have to agree, though there is
hardly anything adult, never mind on the scale of
American Gods. Ultimately, though, this decision resulted in the novel being more sophisticated in writing style (
Coraline
seemed to me to be very obviously written for kids) and deal with some
dark themes, and there are many of those. The first chapter sees his cat
being run over; the second, a man committing suicide; and the third,
nearly choking to death. Rather than a child's story, it's a child in
the adult world.
Something else that intrigued me was that the
narrator is never given a name. But it's not just him, it's all the
human characters: there's just "my sister," "the opal miner," etc. It's
the otherworldly characters that have names, and appropriately unique
and mythological ones at that. This seems to be a theme in Gaiman's work
(just look at Shadow!): names are nebulous things, especially for
ordinary people, but can be used to great effect in displaying the scope
and size of fantastical characters.
The ending is a twist and a
little bit ambiguous. It may be tragic, but it's the kind I prefer:
[SPOILERS] memory issues. Not a definitive wipe, but something quieter,
and it's exactly the kind of thing I love.
Blending childhood adventure with horror, mystery, and darkness,
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
is a treat, clocking in at just under 200 pages...but one that I
devoured slowly, wishing to stay immersed in its grand scope for longer.
