Dusty's review

Neverwhere: A Novel
by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads author!)

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14497.Neverwhere_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Neverwhere: A Novel" border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41EJ07XP7SL._SL160_.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14497.Neverwhere_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Neverwhere: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1221698.Neil_Gaiman">Neil Gaiman</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9866953?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars Neverwhere was Neil Gaiman's first solo novel, which he wrote after who-knows-how-many years as an author of graphic novels. I haven't read any of Gaiman's graphic novels (yet), but I have read -- and loved -- three of his other novels: Stardust, American Gods & Good Omens. That Neverwhere is a transition between genres is obvious; the book has almost an excess of visual description -- colors, textures, clothes, all details that would make easy Neverwhere's adaptation into a comic or, better, a movie.
 
 Gaiman's hyper-visual prose made me question, at first, his decision write a novel at all when the story, about a man who "falls through the cracks," like Alice fell through the rabbit hole, into a subterranean society he never knew existed, is, really, material better suited for a visual medium than for prose. But, within the first fifty pages, my critical initial impression disappeared. Neverwhere, first novel or not, is masterful. As in American Gods and Good Omens, Gaiman entwines mythological figures with his own supernatural inventions, and, in doing so, provides genius societal commentary.
 
 Like Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Neverwhere is, to an extent, an author's lamentation for an idealized, simpler, earlier world in which people addressed unfairness with swords, in which good and evil were distinguishable opposites, in which good always triumphed. The further he plunges us into his imagined underworld, the deeper Gaiman plunges into London history. At one point, near the end, his characters drop into a London completely unblemished by humans, by constructions, even by divinities. It is a lush, green space between bodies of water, no different than any other piece of land in all Creation.
 
 It was at that moment, about thirty pages before the nevel ended, that I decided Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere was more than a fun romp through a fantastical universe, more than a great author's first novel. It is a modern-day Heart of Darkness, a meditation upon good and evil and the subjectivity of history, a story about a man who can discern the good and evil within himself only by traveling far, very far, away from his home, where he realizes that he never really left home in the first place.
 
 Highly recommended.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/655483?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Dusty's review
rating:

bookshelves: personal-canon, read-in-2007
status: Read in December, 2007 — I have a copy to sell/swap

Neverwhere was Neil Gaiman's first solo novel, which he wrote after who-knows-how-many years as an author of graphic novels. I haven't read any of Gaiman's graphic novels (yet), but I have read -- and loved -- three of his other novels: Stardust, American Gods & Good Omens. That Neverwhere is a transition between genres is obvious; the book has almost an excess of visual description -- colors, textures, clothes, all details that would make easy Neverwhere's adaptation into a comic or, better, a movie.

Gaiman's hyper-visual prose made me question, at first, his decision write a novel at all when the story, about a man who "falls through the cracks," like Alice fell through the rabbit hole, into a subterranean society he never knew existed, is, really, material better suited for a visual medium than for prose. But, within the first fifty pages, my critical initial impression disappeared. Neverwhere, first novel or not, is ...more Neverwhere was Neil Gaiman's first solo novel, which he wrote after who-knows-how-many years as an author of graphic novels. I haven't read any of Gaiman's graphic novels (yet), but I have read -- and loved -- three of his other novels: Stardust, American Gods & Good Omens. That Neverwhere is a transition between genres is obvious; the book has almost an excess of visual description -- colors, textures, clothes, all details that would make easy Neverwhere's adaptation into a comic or, better, a movie.

Gaiman's hyper-visual prose made me question, at first, his decision write a novel at all when the story, about a man who "falls through the cracks," like Alice fell through the rabbit hole, into a subterranean society he never knew existed, is, really, material better suited for a visual medium than for prose. But, within the first fifty pages, my critical initial impression disappeared. Neverwhere, first novel or not, is masterful. As in American Gods and Good Omens, Gaiman entwines mythological figures with his own supernatural inventions, and, in doing so, provides genius societal commentary.

Like Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Neverwhere is, to an extent, an author's lamentation for an idealized, simpler, earlier world in which people addressed unfairness with swords, in which good and evil were distinguishable opposites, in which good always triumphed. The further he plunges us into his imagined underworld, the deeper Gaiman plunges into London history. At one point, near the end, his characters drop into a London completely unblemished by humans, by constructions, even by divinities. It is a lush, green space between bodies of water, no different than any other piece of land in all Creation.

It was at that moment, about thirty pages before the nevel ended, that I decided Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere was more than a fun romp through a fantastical universe, more than a great author's first novel. It is a modern-day Heart of Darkness, a meditation upon good and evil and the subjectivity of history, a story about a man who can discern the good and evil within himself only by traveling far, very far, away from his home, where he realizes that he never really left home in the first place.

Highly recommended....less

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