The Ocean at the End of the Lane

A wonderful book! Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller. There is a rhythm to his prose that feels good.

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Then I realized what he was going to do, and I kicked out, and I flailed at him, neither of which actions had any effect of any kind as he plunged me down into the cold water.

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I was horrified, but it was initially the horror of something happening against the established order of things. I was fully dressed. That was wrong. I had my sandals on. That was wrong. The bathwater was cold, so cold and so wrong. That was what I thought, initially, as he pushed me into the water, and then he pushed further, pushing my head and shoulders beneath the chilly water, and the horror changed its nature. I thought, I’m going to die.

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Trying to put my finger on what makes that rhythm feel good, what comes to mind is that he puts the period in the right place. With a single sentence, I’m pulled into the rhythm and want to keep it going.

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We picked some pea pods, opened them and ate the peas inside. Peas baffled me. I could not understand why grown-ups would take things that tasted so good when they were freshly-picked and raw, and put them in tin cans, and make them revolting.

Too, I appreciate how he laid down the context of the story in an indirect way. He spoke around the facts without hitting us over the head with them.

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“That’s the moon,” I said.

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“Gran likes it like that,” said Lettie Hempstock.

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“But it was a crescent moon yesterday. And now it’s full. And it was raining. It is raining. But now it’s not.”

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“Gran always likes the full moon to shine on this side of the house. She says it’s restful, and it reminds her of when she was a girl,” said Lettie. “And it means you don’t trip on the stairs.”

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Even though the main characters of this story are children, the story is not for children. I was actually scared during bits of it.

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“Now,” she said, “you step into the bucket. You don’t have to take your shoes off or anything. Just step in.”

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It did not even seem a strange request. She let go of one of my hands, kept hold of the other. I thought, I will never let go of your hand, not unless you tell me to.

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I put one foot into the glimmering water of the bucket, raising the water level almost to the edge. My foot rested on the tin floor of the bucket. The water was cool on my foot, not cold. I put the other foot into the water and I went down with it, down like a marble statue, and the waves of Lettie Hempstock’s ocean closed over my head.

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It’s a surreal tale that involves other realms and other-worldly beings. The way the boy reintegrates into his life afterwards is byway of… forgetting. It’s like using the “..and then she woke up!” bit. I was a bit surprised by that.

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Regardless, it’s a well-written tale that takes the reader on an adventure. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed thinking about it while I wasn’t reading it. He drops so much knowledge in this. It is a delightful read.

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I did not want to die. My parents had told me that I would not really die, not the real me: that nobody really died, when they died; that my kitten and the opal miner had just taken new bodies and would be back again, soon enough. I did not know if this was true or not. I knew only that I was used to being me, and I liked my books and my grandparents and Lettie Hempstock, and that death would take all these things from me.

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