Once upon a time
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home and is drawn to the farm where, when he was seven, he encountered a remarkable girl and her mother and grandmother. As he sits by the pond behind the ramshackle old house, the unremembered past comes flooding back-a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is not an easy book to characterize and review-and I’d like to think I’ve read and reviewed a decent variety of books. This is because Gaiman largely succeeds at blending different styles into one story: At times, there are elements of horror, magical realism, and traditional fairy tales all present in this slim novel. Although it begins in the present with a middle-aged man returning home for a funeral, it quickly transitions into his past and focuses on a peculiar, almost unaccountable episode in his life when he not only meets a strange girl and her family, but also is plagued by supernatural forces he never knew existed. As a darker twist on a traditional fairy tale, the story is at its best: For all its otherworldly creatures and magical beings, it’s about a boy who learns the serious impact of his actions on others, and the true meaning of friendship and sacrifice. Gaiman in particular captures the sense of security and innocence of childhood from the perspective of an adolescent who is beginning to realize the enormity of what he is leaving behind.
My only “complaint,” if you will, about the book is that it’s more of a novella or short story than a novel, in my opinion. Since it focuses almost exclusively on this particular episode in the past, the main character as he is in the present comes across as deliberate remote and opaque: One has only a sketch of an impression of who he is now, and whether the events of his past have made him worthy of who he is today. I wish I had learned more about this current character, but that’s perhaps for another time.
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home and is drawn to the farm where, when he was seven, he encountered a remarkable girl and her mother and grandmother. As he sits by the pond behind the ramshackle old house, the unremembered past comes flooding back-a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is not an easy book to characterize and review-and I’d like to think I’ve read and reviewed a decent variety of books. This is because Gaiman largely succeeds at blending different styles into one story: At times, there are elements of horror, magical realism, and traditional fairy tales all present in this slim novel. Although it begins in the present with a middle-aged man returning home for a funeral, it quickly transitions into his past and focuses on a peculiar, almost unaccountable episode in his life when he not only meets a strange girl and her family, but also is plagued by supernatural forces he never knew existed. As a darker twist on a traditional fairy tale, the story is at its best: For all its otherworldly creatures and magical beings, it’s about a boy who learns the serious impact of his actions on others, and the true meaning of friendship and sacrifice. Gaiman in particular captures the sense of security and innocence of childhood from the perspective of an adolescent who is beginning to realize the enormity of what he is leaving behind.
My only “complaint,” if you will, about the book is that it’s more of a novella or short story than a novel, in my opinion. Since it focuses almost exclusively on this particular episode in the past, the main character as he is in the present comes across as deliberate remote and opaque: One has only a sketch of an impression of who he is now, and whether the events of his past have made him worthy of who he is today. I wish I had learned more about this current character, but that’s perhaps for another time.