REVIEW - THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE
The quality of a story can usually be gauged by how quickly one feels
compelled to read it. If this is true then Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at
the End of the Lane is a very good story indeed - I read almost the entire book in about five hours on the same day that I bought it. This book is so disimillar to any other fantasy I've ever read that it is difficult to explain the basic premise. The plot follows the remenisence of a middle-aged man returned to the village of his childhood to attend a funeral. Fleeing from this unpleasant social gathering he is drawn, almost magically, to a pond at the back of his friend Lettie Hempstock's house - a pond she referred to as her 'Ocean' - where he reminisces about the time he spent knowing Lettie. The bulk of the story is a recount from the perspective of the seven year old protagonist of his adventures with Lettie, whose family is revealed to have some kind of magical-keeping-balance-of-earth responsibility, which, naturally, also means the possession of ancient magical powers. The story is not just an insight into the naivety and unique perspectives of childhood, it somehow manages to capture the focus of a child's imagination. Things are not just described from the perspective of a seven-year-old, the story is told only in the bits and pieces that a seven-year-old would consider worthy of recounting.
At first, upon seeing how short this book is I was a little disappointed (the more Gaiman, the better!) however it's brevity was actually really refreshing. I have recently been reading Robin Hobb, Raymond E. Feist and a lot of other 'epic fantasy' novelists, and while I love this genre, the scope and scale of it can become overwhelming. The brevity of The Ocean at the End of the Lane is uplifting because a shortcoming of much epic fantasy is an excess of explanations and self justification. The writer seems so ready for the reader to take issue with their world that they spend many pages explaining it in unnecessary amounts of detail, which can detract from the quality of the storytelling. The reality of The Ocean at the End of the Lane however, constructs itself effortlessly thanks to the bold, simple and honest assertions of its child narrator.
Interwoven into this tale of childhood adventure are some interesting assertions on Gaiman's part about the strange and largely illogical way that children are treated in society, the way their opinions and concerns are often quashed, and the way their unique ideas and perspective are not valued as perhaps they should be. The message at the heart of this book seems to be that Children are clever, Children are uncannily observant and that Children know things adults cannot and will not. Gaiman seems to be encouraging us to listen not only to children but to listen to ourselves as children - remember what it was like to see the world in such a way, because experiencing the world as child does will lead us to revelations and happiness we would not otherwise be capable of.
At first, upon seeing how short this book is I was a little disappointed (the more Gaiman, the better!) however it's brevity was actually really refreshing. I have recently been reading Robin Hobb, Raymond E. Feist and a lot of other 'epic fantasy' novelists, and while I love this genre, the scope and scale of it can become overwhelming. The brevity of The Ocean at the End of the Lane is uplifting because a shortcoming of much epic fantasy is an excess of explanations and self justification. The writer seems so ready for the reader to take issue with their world that they spend many pages explaining it in unnecessary amounts of detail, which can detract from the quality of the storytelling. The reality of The Ocean at the End of the Lane however, constructs itself effortlessly thanks to the bold, simple and honest assertions of its child narrator.
Interwoven into this tale of childhood adventure are some interesting assertions on Gaiman's part about the strange and largely illogical way that children are treated in society, the way their opinions and concerns are often quashed, and the way their unique ideas and perspective are not valued as perhaps they should be. The message at the heart of this book seems to be that Children are clever, Children are uncannily observant and that Children know things adults cannot and will not. Gaiman seems to be encouraging us to listen not only to children but to listen to ourselves as children - remember what it was like to see the world in such a way, because experiencing the world as child does will lead us to revelations and happiness we would not otherwise be capable of.
