The Ocean at the End of the Lane
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Currently Reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane
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Nostalgia. Triggered by a funeral, the narrator wanders the neighborhood of his youth, and revels in reliving memories.Gaiman artfully relays the sort of life that would make one yearn for the excitement and mystery of youth. Things forgotten at the bottom of a closet, and waiting at the edge of things, obscured by cobwebs blown away by the re-discovery of a single memory.
And so the story begins. Gaiman is a hell of a storyteller.
"Books were safer than other people anyway."This is one sad, scared kid. "The kitten slept on my pillow, and it even waited for me to come home from school, sitting on the driveway in front of my house, by the fence, until, a month later, it was run over by the taxi that brought the opal miner to stay at my house."
One travesty after another. The story of one sad child's wretched existence.
Sure enough, chapter two starts, "I was not a happy child,..."Gaiman excels at using words and phrases that don't normally fit the context, but make the picture form that much more clearly: "Nothing I had drunk had ever tasted like that before: rich and warm and perfectly happy in my mouth."
Lettie's mom is more than meets the eye, if she can parse that tale of greed from such a short suicide note. It didn't fall far from the tree, considering what Lettie's grandma said in O... but how does Lettie know what was written?
@#@#%% is this another story with a no-name narrator? Why, yes it is. A no-name narrator who loses his kitten, his comic, his car, and maybe his sanity, before the story has even really begun.
Narrator's parents kicked him out of his room to sublet it, but they can afford a gardener and a housecleaner. What's up with that?In chapter two, Lettie opens up a fish and takes a coin from it, saying the coin killed it. Now Narrator wakes up with one in his throat, and his sister's had coins thrown at her. And Lettie knows what's going on.
Lettie's grandmother tested the coin with all five senses and reported that it didn't exist the day before, even if it was labeled 1912. She claims she remembers when the moon was made.
I'm beginning to think the Hempstock ladies are the Furies. I know, it's a bit meta at this point.
Off to adventure...
Chapter 4. A wand to seek out trouble. Finding trouble. Binding trouble.
"I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were."Gaiman speaking, or the narrator?
We meet Ursula Monkton, who reminds Narrator of his little escapade with Lettie. Ursula has a freakish ability to know where Narrator is. Maybe there really is something wrong with her. The fact that she admits giving people money in the context he's asking, seals the deal. If she weren't described as attractive in this case, she'd remind me of a waddling, fat, annoying villain from the Potter series.
Bizarre. She was the worm. It's not as if Narrator's life didn't suck badly enough as it is, but now the witch is seducing his dad?
Chapter VII, in which Dad is a dick.
Escape! Even bad things get distracted when daddy's doing the deed, I suppose...Either Mr. Gaiman has grabbed a live wire, or he's talked to someone who has.
Ursula is a real piece of work. Lettie saves the day, for now.
Lettie's grandmother keeps part of the house bathed in the light of the full moon, because she likes it that way.
"Will these things make her go away?""No."
"Then what are they for?"
"To stop her going away."
"But we want her to go away."
"No. We want her to go home."
Finished last night.
Great comments! I can't wait to buy this book!
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the thread. I've been pondering doing this sort of thing for a while, and couldn't resist with this book.
Very excited to get this book!
I was just wondering why the main character's name is never revealed?
It's sometimes called the 'Everyman' device. Since the story is done in 1rst Person, it's easier for the reader to slip into the story themselves as they read it. Gaiman does this in American Gods and I think he did it in Neverwhere.
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"She said the really old country had blown up."
Spoiler alert: this is a live read.