The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Nov. 11th, 2008 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead.
There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the City of Ghouls; friendship with a witch, and so much more.
But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, for it is there that the Man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod's family.
The Graveyard Book is a wonderfully entertaining and original children's novel. Structured so that each chapter works as a short story in its own right while also contributing to the overriding story arc of the novel, it includes all the wit, subtlety and bittersweet touches that you expect from a Gaiman book.
The novel itself begins with the murder of Bod's family and his 'escape' (he's only a toddler) to a nearby graveyard, where he is adopted by the ghostly inhabitants and Silas, a vampire in all but name, agrees to serve as his guardian. From there, the chapters pick out different incidents of his life - one for each year as he grows older, including his friendship with a little girl called Scarlett, a centennial dance involving the living and the dead, Bod's accidental visit to the Land of the Ghouls and his encounter with the ghost of a young woman murdered for being a witch. Throughout it all, Gaiman weaves in the pervading threat from The Man Jack who murdered Bod's parents and who, together with his allies, is still searching for Bod.
Characterisation is great (as you would expect). In particular, Silas and Miss Lupescu (an East European woman who looks after Bod when Silas is on his travels) are superb and utterly credible, even though neither is on the page for more than 30 pages. Bod himself is likeable, and the incidents that Gaiman highlights from his life are interesting and believable - the chapter where Bod tries to go to a school for living children is particularly moving. I particularly liked Gaiman's habit with the ghost characters of noting what was written on their headstones.
The skill of a good writer is to leave you wanting more and I would have definitely liked to have seen more of Silas and Miss Lupescu's adventures as the Hounds of God, which Gaiman gives tantalising details of without ever really expanding. What's he does provide works well, but I definitely wouldn't have minded another 10000 words on the subject. I have to say that I also wasn't totally enamoured of the way a prophecy element is introduced towards the end of the book - for me it came far too late and I really needed to see it developed more and earlier for it to work and I couldn't help but wish that The Jacks had some other motive for hunting down Bod instead.
That said, I really admire Gaiman for not going for the easy happy ending here. Without going into spoilers, it would have been very easy for him to give the readers what they want and expect and wrap up his novel in a neat little bow. Although he doesn't do this, the ending he does provide is satisfying and fits in well with the characters and hopefully, will set up the possibility of their returning in future novels.
All in all, this is one of those books that will become a children's classic and deservedly so.
The Verdict:
Everything you'd expect from a Neil Gaiman novel and a must-read for adults and children from age 9 up.
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead.
There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the City of Ghouls; friendship with a witch, and so much more.
But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, for it is there that the Man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod's family.
The Graveyard Book is a wonderfully entertaining and original children's novel. Structured so that each chapter works as a short story in its own right while also contributing to the overriding story arc of the novel, it includes all the wit, subtlety and bittersweet touches that you expect from a Gaiman book.
The novel itself begins with the murder of Bod's family and his 'escape' (he's only a toddler) to a nearby graveyard, where he is adopted by the ghostly inhabitants and Silas, a vampire in all but name, agrees to serve as his guardian. From there, the chapters pick out different incidents of his life - one for each year as he grows older, including his friendship with a little girl called Scarlett, a centennial dance involving the living and the dead, Bod's accidental visit to the Land of the Ghouls and his encounter with the ghost of a young woman murdered for being a witch. Throughout it all, Gaiman weaves in the pervading threat from The Man Jack who murdered Bod's parents and who, together with his allies, is still searching for Bod.
Characterisation is great (as you would expect). In particular, Silas and Miss Lupescu (an East European woman who looks after Bod when Silas is on his travels) are superb and utterly credible, even though neither is on the page for more than 30 pages. Bod himself is likeable, and the incidents that Gaiman highlights from his life are interesting and believable - the chapter where Bod tries to go to a school for living children is particularly moving. I particularly liked Gaiman's habit with the ghost characters of noting what was written on their headstones.
The skill of a good writer is to leave you wanting more and I would have definitely liked to have seen more of Silas and Miss Lupescu's adventures as the Hounds of God, which Gaiman gives tantalising details of without ever really expanding. What's he does provide works well, but I definitely wouldn't have minded another 10000 words on the subject. I have to say that I also wasn't totally enamoured of the way a prophecy element is introduced towards the end of the book - for me it came far too late and I really needed to see it developed more and earlier for it to work and I couldn't help but wish that The Jacks had some other motive for hunting down Bod instead.
That said, I really admire Gaiman for not going for the easy happy ending here. Without going into spoilers, it would have been very easy for him to give the readers what they want and expect and wrap up his novel in a neat little bow. Although he doesn't do this, the ending he does provide is satisfying and fits in well with the characters and hopefully, will set up the possibility of their returning in future novels.
All in all, this is one of those books that will become a children's classic and deservedly so.
The Verdict:
Everything you'd expect from a Neil Gaiman novel and a must-read for adults and children from age 9 up.
