Andrew K. (kuligowskiandrewt) -
Now I've just gotten older, I've just gotten taller
And the little ones call me a grownup.
Carly Simon, Grownup
Neil Gaiman. If I see Neil's name on a book cover, I expect that I'll get some sort of fantasy with an onion-like layer upon layer of possible messages and themes and hidden meanings. Whether it is a new fantasy realm like I encountered in Stardust, or the juxtaposition of silver-age comics characters into history, as re-imagined in Marvel 1602, or or his most recent offering, of mystical realms bordering on a rural English farm in The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
How old ARE you?
11.
And for how long have you been 11?
Neil Gaiman (paraphrased from memory), The Ocean at the End of the Lane
On the surface, we're dealing with a boy, growing up with his family in rural Britain, facing changes to his life and lifestyle. These are magnified when he meets the 3 generations of Hempstock women who live down at the end of the lane, next to the pond or is it an ocean? and they all face the mystical forces that are stirred up when a tenant commits suicide in the family car.
The message that I took from this book was that adulthood is an illusion. We THINK we have learned from experiences, but underneath the larger (and hairy, or curvier, or ) exterior, we're the same uncertain, questioning people we were back in grade school. EXCEPT we've allowed ourselves to surrender the ability to accept the unusual at face value, and have allowed cynicism to replace wonder in our hearts. I THINK this is a message that Neil intentionally seeded in his prose, BUT the beauty of the piece is that every reader can pick out their own message whether or not the author meant to leave it there for you to find.
If you are the type of person who wants your fiction grounded in reality, and do not enjoy stories that include fanciful characters and settings of both good and evil or is it misunderstood? - then this is not the book for you. BUT you probably should have already known that when you saw the name of Neil Gaiman on the cover, and shouldn't have even wasted the effort in bending over to pick it up. Otherwise open your mind, open your heart, and enjoy.
RATING: 4 ½ stars, rounding up to 5 stars on the basis of his noteworthy career.
And the little ones call me a grownup.
Carly Simon, Grownup
Neil Gaiman. If I see Neil's name on a book cover, I expect that I'll get some sort of fantasy with an onion-like layer upon layer of possible messages and themes and hidden meanings. Whether it is a new fantasy realm like I encountered in Stardust, or the juxtaposition of silver-age comics characters into history, as re-imagined in Marvel 1602, or or his most recent offering, of mystical realms bordering on a rural English farm in The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
How old ARE you?
11.
And for how long have you been 11?
Neil Gaiman (paraphrased from memory), The Ocean at the End of the Lane
On the surface, we're dealing with a boy, growing up with his family in rural Britain, facing changes to his life and lifestyle. These are magnified when he meets the 3 generations of Hempstock women who live down at the end of the lane, next to the pond or is it an ocean? and they all face the mystical forces that are stirred up when a tenant commits suicide in the family car.
The message that I took from this book was that adulthood is an illusion. We THINK we have learned from experiences, but underneath the larger (and hairy, or curvier, or ) exterior, we're the same uncertain, questioning people we were back in grade school. EXCEPT we've allowed ourselves to surrender the ability to accept the unusual at face value, and have allowed cynicism to replace wonder in our hearts. I THINK this is a message that Neil intentionally seeded in his prose, BUT the beauty of the piece is that every reader can pick out their own message whether or not the author meant to leave it there for you to find.
If you are the type of person who wants your fiction grounded in reality, and do not enjoy stories that include fanciful characters and settings of both good and evil or is it misunderstood? - then this is not the book for you. BUT you probably should have already known that when you saw the name of Neil Gaiman on the cover, and shouldn't have even wasted the effort in bending over to pick it up. Otherwise open your mind, open your heart, and enjoy.
RATING: 4 ½ stars, rounding up to 5 stars on the basis of his noteworthy career.
