The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
(Audio)

Last year, Neil Gaiman was honored by George Mason University & the Northern VA community at the annual Fall for the Book Festival. Some of my friends and I went to hear him speak (I brought BookCrossing friends, and then found a small group of my Harry Potter friends were seated down at the end of the same row in the giant auditorium; then, in front of me, sat a whole bunch of Nerdfighters escorted by one of my LEGO friends). Neil was wonderful. He gave a talk, two readings, and answered questions. The Ocean at the End of the Lane was one of the things he read. And, since then, my friends and I have been wondering what happens to poor little burnt toast boy.

Now I know! The book started out NOT as Neil read it to us at the event, so that threw me off for a few minutes. The sad tragedy that befalls the kitten at the very beginning of the story also was not something I remembered from Neil's reading. But then the little boy is given burnt toast and it all fell into place, suddenly familiar to me and drawing me in.

It's written like fairy tale, staring a young boy of about 7 years, but it's a story for adults, not for children or teens. It's not that children or teens couldn't read it--there is no adult content of that sort to be concerned about. But what it does have is lessons for adults that we can only learn by reading this story about a child. Does that make sense? There's something books like Stephen King's It or this book by Neil Gaiman that show us the wisdom and insight children have. We can learn a lot about the way they see the world, a way we've forgotten as we grow up. Maybe we learn more and become more as we grow up... but we lose a lot as well. So this is a fairy tale to help us remember, and to help the main character remember as well.

It scared me, this book. There were some incredibly creepy images, just perfect for me to be reading around Halloween time! It's a book filled with old magic, deep magic, real-feeling magic that isn't a spectacle--it's just part of the world. And it's a book with scary foes that could absolutely be coming after me any second now as I write this.

I loved the characters, even when some of them frightened or angered me, because they all felt perfectly real doing everything they were doing. It was an absolute delight and pleasure to get to hear Neil read some of this in person. And it was so worth waiting for to get to hear him read the rest of it to me on audiobook. There's just something about his voice as he told me about Lettie Hempstock and Ursula Munkton and all the rest that made it feel less like he was telling me a strange, unbelievable fairy tale and more like he was telling me a real, cautionary tale that just happened to be entertaining and terrifying at the same time.