I just finished Neil Gaiman's newest work, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and I must say that I was blown away by this short, but lyrically beautiful tale for adults. Neil Gaiman is a wonderful writer and he excels in creating modern fairy tales. When our story opens, the narrator (who is never named) is visiting his boyhood home in Sussex, England after attending a funeral. Fiftyish and looking for something he cannot pinpoint, he travels down to the end of the lane where he used to live. There he visits the Hempstock farm he thinks he remembers from when he was seven years old. It was there that he met his friend Lettie Hempstock, who, along with her mother and grandmother, tend the farm and its animals. The boy and his father walk down their lane to look for the family car that seems to have gone missing. In so doing, they find the body of their lodger slumped in the seat; an apparent suicide. So, the boy is shuffled off to the Hempstock farm so that the police can do their duty. Lettie shows the boy her "ocean"; a small duck pond behind the house. The boy cannot understand why Lettie calls it this, nor can he understand why she talks in riddles and seems to be wise beyond her years. The reason is that Gaiman has interwoven magic into this seemingly innocuous story about a young boy finding more adventure than he wants. Lettie and her family are not really human; they are ancient beings who look out for the world and raise cows and chickens and help little boys who get into trouble with monsters. Although the boy has great adventures and survives darkness and death, thanks to his friend Lettie, he doesn't remember any of it until he returns to contemplate his life beside the "ocean". And that is what this book is really about; how we alter our own memory as we age to gloss over painful and tragic times and to punctuate those glowing victories. If this all sounds a little confusing, it is. To tell you more would give away the ending and I wouldn't want to deprive you of the joy of reading this short, sweet tome.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Maleability of Memory
I just finished Neil Gaiman's newest work, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and I must say that I was blown away by this short, but lyrically beautiful tale for adults. Neil Gaiman is a wonderful writer and he excels in creating modern fairy tales. When our story opens, the narrator (who is never named) is visiting his boyhood home in Sussex, England after attending a funeral. Fiftyish and looking for something he cannot pinpoint, he travels down to the end of the lane where he used to live. There he visits the Hempstock farm he thinks he remembers from when he was seven years old. It was there that he met his friend Lettie Hempstock, who, along with her mother and grandmother, tend the farm and its animals. The boy and his father walk down their lane to look for the family car that seems to have gone missing. In so doing, they find the body of their lodger slumped in the seat; an apparent suicide. So, the boy is shuffled off to the Hempstock farm so that the police can do their duty. Lettie shows the boy her "ocean"; a small duck pond behind the house. The boy cannot understand why Lettie calls it this, nor can he understand why she talks in riddles and seems to be wise beyond her years. The reason is that Gaiman has interwoven magic into this seemingly innocuous story about a young boy finding more adventure than he wants. Lettie and her family are not really human; they are ancient beings who look out for the world and raise cows and chickens and help little boys who get into trouble with monsters. Although the boy has great adventures and survives darkness and death, thanks to his friend Lettie, he doesn't remember any of it until he returns to contemplate his life beside the "ocean". And that is what this book is really about; how we alter our own memory as we age to gloss over painful and tragic times and to punctuate those glowing victories. If this all sounds a little confusing, it is. To tell you more would give away the ending and I wouldn't want to deprive you of the joy of reading this short, sweet tome.
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