09. neverwhere
i think neil gaiman really is well suited to be the patron saint of good books. neverwhere isnt as good as stardust, but it's still an awesome & terrifying book. it's probably among the most important books somebody could ever read.
this is what it is about.
richard is a scottish boy living in london, leading a tidy, linear life when one night he plays the part of good samaritan & helps a bloodied homeless girl laying in the middle of the sidewalk. he barely notices her lying there, the way we all barely see homeless people, but he sees her nonetheless & his heart is all a burdened, so he helps her. the whole book is actually pretty sharp social commentary. neil gaiman shows the world of london-below, which is the world that belongs to bums & hobos, lots of them, & it's all magic & danger. london-above - london as we know it - is ignorant of london-below because it chooses to be. it chooses to ignore, dismiss, scoff at the inhabitants of london-below. it is the dull, grey world vacant of magic & majesty that we are supposedly pleased to live in.
richard becomes sort of prisoner to london-below after doing his good deed. then he gets to do stuff like this.
richard makes another entry in his mental diary. today i've survived walking the plank, the kiss of death, & a lecture on inflicting pain. right now i'm on my way through a labyrinth with a mad bastard who came back from the dead & a bodyguard who turned out to be...whatever the opposite of bodyguard is. i am so far out of my depth that... metaphors failed him, then. he had gone beyond the world of metaphor & simile into the place of things that are, & it was changing him.
i love adventure books, fantastical adventures that have the weight of something real, something powerfully humane that isn't fantasy at all. among all richard's frightful other-world adventures, the most scary thing he has to do is something so basic & fundamentally horrifying: he has to defeat his own demons, defeat the urge to kill himself when tormented by the reality of insanity. it's perfect! i sound psychotic.
there's something totally other-world about neil gaiman himself. he's so funny, & is so effortlessly engaging. i feel like a certain kind of person reads his writing & feels like they found what they've been looking for: the perfect book. i've never liked other fantasy-fiction - harry potters, lord of the rings, the golden compass - & i know all those writers have got to be excellent storytellers, but they just dont touch me right. he makes literature feel in line with the planets.
this is what it is about.
richard is a scottish boy living in london, leading a tidy, linear life when one night he plays the part of good samaritan & helps a bloodied homeless girl laying in the middle of the sidewalk. he barely notices her lying there, the way we all barely see homeless people, but he sees her nonetheless & his heart is all a burdened, so he helps her. the whole book is actually pretty sharp social commentary. neil gaiman shows the world of london-below, which is the world that belongs to bums & hobos, lots of them, & it's all magic & danger. london-above - london as we know it - is ignorant of london-below because it chooses to be. it chooses to ignore, dismiss, scoff at the inhabitants of london-below. it is the dull, grey world vacant of magic & majesty that we are supposedly pleased to live in.
richard becomes sort of prisoner to london-below after doing his good deed. then he gets to do stuff like this.
richard makes another entry in his mental diary. today i've survived walking the plank, the kiss of death, & a lecture on inflicting pain. right now i'm on my way through a labyrinth with a mad bastard who came back from the dead & a bodyguard who turned out to be...whatever the opposite of bodyguard is. i am so far out of my depth that... metaphors failed him, then. he had gone beyond the world of metaphor & simile into the place of things that are, & it was changing him.
i love adventure books, fantastical adventures that have the weight of something real, something powerfully humane that isn't fantasy at all. among all richard's frightful other-world adventures, the most scary thing he has to do is something so basic & fundamentally horrifying: he has to defeat his own demons, defeat the urge to kill himself when tormented by the reality of insanity. it's perfect! i sound psychotic.
there's something totally other-world about neil gaiman himself. he's so funny, & is so effortlessly engaging. i feel like a certain kind of person reads his writing & feels like they found what they've been looking for: the perfect book. i've never liked other fantasy-fiction - harry potters, lord of the rings, the golden compass - & i know all those writers have got to be excellent storytellers, but they just dont touch me right. he makes literature feel in line with the planets.