REVIEW: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
DISCLAIMER: I will state now that I’m one of the biggest Neil Gaiman fans I know, but I will try to remain impartial to a point.
As soon as I discovered Gaiman was releasing another novel, I wasted no time pre-ordering it. After just completing the latest book in G.R.R.M’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, a 1300-page leviathan, this tiny under-200 page novel was easily conquered in one evening.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is about an unnamed seven-year-old boy who just moved in the English countryside after his father runs into financial trouble. What starts off as an ordinary story through a child’s eyes quickly takes a fanciful turn after he meets Lettie Hempstock on her farm, a farm girl wise beyond her years, and her mother and grandmother.
A novel geared towards adults, this story isn’t a simple fairytale. Gaiman’s engrossing tale also speaks volumes of how adults view children and their sometimes wild, imaginative claims; and also, on the nature of “grown-ups” and age themselves. Told from the perspective of the seven-year-old, now aged and remembering, it gives the reader a dual perspective of the same boy in two vastly different stages of his life.
Fantasy comes easy for Gaiman, and reminds me especially as a writer of an important rule: in your book, anything goes. Things don’t necessarily have to connect for it to be a good story. In the case of Ocean, it makes it all the better. This novel asks of the reader to believe and accept as a child would and does, which allows him or her to enjoy the story on another level. A lot is packed into these 159-page book, which was originally a short story written for a friend, according to Gaiman’s acknowledgements. Another jewel to add to a Gaiman-lover’s shelf, it may take a certain kind of reader to be repelled from this little magical, surreal novella.
The book is now available in stores and online.
Till next time xx,
Sierra
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