[Book Review] 'The Ocean at The End of the Lane' by Neil Gaiman

Fine, I admit, it's been ages since I last finished a novel, with real life and social commitments and laziness getting in the way.

My current "reads-in-progress" are Haruki Murakami's "1Q84" (still not coming any closer to finishing, considering it's massive) and the Pacific Rim novelization (just so I can live in the Pacific Rim universe a bit longer and fangirl post-movie), which have been sitting neglected on my new bookshelves, gathering dust.

But it took me only about 2-and-a-half-days to finish Neil Gaiman's newest release, 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane', and would have taken even less time if I had the stamina or insomnia to read through the night. :P

Speaking of my new bookshelves, have you seen them~? *v* Hehe~

[Book Review: Minor spoilers ahead!]

I had been anticipating this novel ever since it was announced earlier this year, and I kind of regret not reading it sooner ... it's classic Gaiman, a story exactly up my alley, and it's been a long time since a book made me feel like finishing up my day as fast as possible so I could spend my evening reading.

Plot Summary:
The story begins with our protagonist, who is forty years old, and whom has returned to his childhood home to attend a funeral. After fulfilling all the necessary funerary obligations, he drives aimlessly around the countryside where he had spent his childhood, eventually finding his way back to a farm he visited often when he was seven.

As he sits by the duckpond at the edge of the farm, long-suppressed memories of his childhood come flooding back -- beginning with the memory of a boarder who stayed in his family's house, who eventually stole his father's car and committed suicide in it after losing all his savings in an unfortunate gambling disaster.

This morbid incident awakens dark forces in the area, which then begin to invade the protagonist's daily life. Soon, he is hostage in his own home, having unknowingly brought back a monster back to this world, which had infiltrated his family as a young, pretty caretaker named Ursula Monkton.

However, the Hempstock family is on his side, and it becomes quite apparent they are not what they seem: Lettie Hempstock is spirited eleven year-old girl, and is the first Hempstock the protagonist meets. She claims the duckpond on their farm is an ocean, which her family had crossed when she was a baby. Then there's her mother Ginnie Hempstock, and grandmother Old Mrs Hempstock, who in turn reveal that the family possesses powers as old and ancient as existence itself, that they call upon to fight the terrifying things that had entered their world.

Review:
'Ocean' reminds me of Gaiman's previous dark fairytale, Coraline, or even his first screenplay, Mirrormask: It has simple storytelling that reminds you of children's fiction, but stirs a suppressed childhood terror in you, making you want to check under the bed and in the closet for monsters before you go to sleep at night.

What I loved most about the novel -- and this applies to a lot of British authors, for some reason! -- was how it appealed to my inner foodie with the delicious descriptions of food~ *v* In one scene, the protagonist was eating a breakfast of porridge, honeycomb and cream, and it was described in such a wholesome, delicious way that I was craving porridge with honeycomb and cream for breakfast too~ >w<

(Another similar incident happened when I was reading a passage in Coraline, where the 'Other Mother' was preparing Coraline a cheese omelette and hot chocolate for breakfast. The cooking process sounded so good, my idea of a perfect breakfast was cheese omelette and hot chocolate for a long time after that, eheheh ... =w=;;)

'Ocean' is also similar to 'Coraline' in a way that the protagonist is a young child, who has to deal with very frightening things without the support of adults. I like how the story addressed the idea that grown-ups are, underneath all our arrogant masks and different guises, just little children still figuring things out and needing help from time to time, despite supposed worldliness and power (Gaiman used the metaphor of adults being like children's books with adult-novel dust-jackets, which I think was quite clever).

There are also dozens of little things that I loved about the novel, like how the protagonist and his family were never actually named throughout the whole novel (making you suspect that the protagonist is Gaiman himself, lending the story an, 'almost-could-be-true' quality), and how the identities of the Hempstock family were never completely revealed, but alludes to Greek mythology and even more ancient legends.

And of course, a Neil Gaiman dark fairytale isn't complete without ancient powers and hidden worlds and a good, healthy dose of magic, which this book is full of. :) There were elements that felt inspired from Studio Ghibli movies like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. It really brought me back to the modern fantasies I devoured as a teenager -- there wasn't a moment where I was bored, and the pages kept turning. :)

In summary, 'Ocean' is a great read for those days when you want something light to wind down the day with .. but heavy enough to give you late-night thoughts and perspectives on the world that will leave you never looking at duckponds and starry skies the same way again. OwO

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