Neverwhere: A Novel by Neil Gaiman
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Book Reviews of Neverwhere: A Novel
Book Review: Alice and Dorothy's modern-day love child
Summary: 5 Stars
I am fairly new to the worlds of Neil Gaiman. In the past few months I have picked up and read a few of his Sandman collections, Mr. Punch, the script for "MirrorMask", "American Gods", "Good Omens" (co-written by Terry Pratchett), "Coraline", "Stardust", and most recently "Neverwhere".
In brief, "Neverwhere" tells the story of a good samaritan, Richard Mayhew, that rescues a girl, named Door, who looks to be a junky on the street. In actuality she is a very important person (a princess, in fact) in the "between", a world that exists below and sort of "parallel" to the streets of London. By helping this girl, Richard Mayhew enters this "between" world. Unfortunately, when someone falls into the "Neverwhere", the world above doesn't know they ever existed, which makes Richard's life rather difficult, to say the least.
The entire story takes place in and around London as Richard and Door, joined by a motley cast of characters, race to discover why Door's family was killed all the while dodging two extremely well written and scary evil henchmen, Croup and Vandemar. These two enjoy maiming and murder most foul and have honed their skills like martial arts masters.
Throughout this wonderful adventure, Richard and crew will cross paths with almost every fantastical creature imaginable, including an Angel.
The story moves at a brisk pace and all of the characters are exceptionally realized. Each character has been made very three-dimensional thanks to Neil Gaiman's deft writing skills.
The streets (and underside) of London are given a life of their own. Medieval and Modern England collide in unusual and interesting ways. Imagine waiting for your train in the Tube and when it opens, instead of stepping into the boxy, hard plastic, metal and rubber capsule you are used to, you are greeted to a room with velvety drapes, thrones, emperors, magistrates, jugglers, magicians, party-goers, tables of food. Of course, you may not be able to see such a thing, if you live in London above. That train car would look broken and unused ...the doors wouldn't open, the lights wouldn't work......But this is the world of "Neverwhere". Things aren't always what they seem. For instance, that beggar on the street corner you see every day on your way to work, could very well be a king.
Written with a lot of wit and a lot of heart, Neil Gaiman has crafted a modern-day fairy tale that's melded the best pieces of popular fantasy and turned it upside-down, inside-out, and back again. I highly recommend this book to everyone especially if you've enjoyed works like "Alice In Wonderland", "The Wizard of Oz", or any fantasy novel, for that matter.
Book Review: A Story for Those Wandering in Our Own Subways
Summary: 5 Stars
Most novelists would describe themselves as storytellers of some kind, arguably the function of the Novel is to tell a story while conveying certain themes to the reader. However, the large population of today's novelists are more concerned with rehashing well-worn thematic storytelling instead of pushing the envelop of creativity to take the reader on paths they haven't seen, and experience things from angles they never comprehended. Luckily for us, Neil Gaiman has asserted his role firmly in the latter. Neverwhere can be best described as an amalgamation of elements derived from many facets of fantasy and science fiction. What makes the story successful is the ideal blend of the fantastical and the real, the contrast fuels the narrative and makes the novel a cohesive piece of great fiction.
The story follows Richard Mayhew, a typical Londoner of little regard. On his way to a dinner function with his fiancee he stumbles upon a bleeding young woman on the street. He takes her home and his life changes forever. The young woman, aptly named Door, takes him on a journey to a world standing in the shadows, full of people who can talk to rats, traveling markets, and assassins of the most ruthless sort. Richard ends up traveling with Door trying to uncover the mysteries of her past, and desperately trying to find a way back to his world, London Above.
Gaiman has a knack for creating memorable characters and Neverwhere isn't any different. Richard is every bit the forlorn traveler that the reader would expect, and he plays the role beautifully. He is both endearing and funny, and his knack for macabre humor brings needed levity to the novel. Door is the weakest character in my mind, she is fairly generic, but their are certain points, especially towards the beginning and end, that make her shine. My favorite character, however, is the Marquis. For me, he ties the novel together. He takes Door, the protagonist Richard, and the many ancillary characters and weaves them into the narrative in precisely the right way. He makes the novel move.
Good storytelling is not an easy business. In an era where genre's are hashed and re-hashed, Neil Gaiman has carved out his niche as a gifted storyteller amongst a sea of hacks. He doesn't dazzle you with the ideas he conveys, but rather the method for their illustration. He's comfortable in his style and confident in his execution. It is easy to write a story about a man trying to find his way home. It is immensely more difficult, however, to take that idea and create something powerful, relatable, and memorable, and at this, Gaiman succeeds absolutely.
Book Review: New Twists on Old Archtypes
Summary: 5 Stars
On the face of it, Neverwhere is merely the millionth re-telling of the unwitting hero cum fish-out-of-water story, complete with all the necessary plot points and character types to make any lover of a good fantasy tale feel right at home.
And then Gaiman spins the world 17 degrees right and 149 degrees over and tells the same old story with a different name in a brand new, compelling, and super-entertaining way. Sure, we get Richard from "normal world" who unwittingly enters "abnormal world" where he will take much of the story coming to grips with the unknown-only-to-him fact that he is the "hero" of the story. And there's Door, the girl on a quest who needs his help, and the marquis (the wizard), and Hunter (the bodyguard) and a variety of bad guys, kinda bad guys, probably bad guys and just general unknown quantities.
But the simple and hugely pleasant fact that the story is not set in some medieval fantasy world nor involves the normal medieval fantasy world button pushing to move the story forward makes this story an incredible delight to read. Okay: page-turner. Gaiman re-invents London by burying it in its living history and then making the history live rather than fade away. Not gone are the times of London past, as time/space has a way of folding in on itself in this world just below the surface of our world. You still can't go home, again, but you can get a look at some of the stuff you missed out on the first time around. Sort of.
The story is a race to the finish. Gaiman doesn't - indeed, with this story, he probably can't - let you ponder on some of the weirdness of his landscape. You get fleeting glimpses of the weirdest things, and then overhear snippets of conversations about things you'll never encounter, all of which builds in a more complex world than the simple cat-and-mouse, race-for-your-life story at the center of the novel.
The story is also beautifully and elegantly written. Gaiman ignores the fiction writer's guild-required "fantasy prose construct" and writes easy, flowing sentences. His writing matches the descriptions the words convey, always smoothing the story along or butting you into a brand-new totally-unexpected scene in just the right way: you'll understand when you follow the main character and the marquis on their first up-and-over and down-and-through journey of London, which takes you from the muck of the sewers to the roofs of skyscrapers, all without blinking an eye.
Stand back from the fantasy shelf of wizards, thieves, warriors and clerics and pick up this intelligent, quirky and unique take on the genre.
Book Review: A Magical Journey
Summary: 5 Stars
Richard Mayhew was a young man in London. He had a rather ordinary life.....a job in securities, a fiancee that dragged him to lots of galleries, a rather plain little flat. Everything was remarkably ordinary. Until the night he found the girl lying on a sidewalk....bleeding. He was supposed to be having dinner with his fiance's boss, but the good Samaritan in him took over. He couldn't just leave this young girl. So against Jessica's wishes, he picked up the girl and took her home with him. And so began his troubles.....
The girl's name was Door, and she was an "Opener". She could open anything that was locked, open doors to anywhere, and travel to different places through them. And she was being hunted by a pair of assassins. Door's family was murdered and she was on the run, trying to not only stay alive, but find out why her family was killed. But because Richard helped her, his life was turned upside-down. He ceased to exist in London. People looked by him and didn't see him. His job was gone, his apartment rented to other people. He had become part of London Below....the part of London where people who have "fallen through the cracks" go. A magical place that is filled with murderers, beasts, hunters, and angels. A place where your friend can be your enemy and a favor owed is priceless. A place where people talk to rats and the darkness is deadly. And Richard has to navigate through the Underground to help Door in the hopes that he can get his old life back.
What more can I say than I loved this book!! Neil Gaiman is truly a master at what he does. And that is weaving a story. I don't seem to be able to write about him without gushing! Each page I read brought me one step closer to this magical world. The cast of characters was long, but truly unique. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar were a couple of the scariest assassins ever to grace the pages of any novel. The Marquis de Carabas was arrogant and cunning....a shyster that traded favors, mostly to his own benefit. He was an enigma through most of the story and it was hard to see which team he was really playing for. The Angel Islington was beautiful and scary. And Richard. Richard grew up in this story and learned that he could do mighty things....for an ordinary kind of guy.
If you haven't read Neverwhere, I highly recommend it. It's funny, scary, fantastical and just an all-around exceptional read! It will probably go down as one of my favorite books!!
Book Review: A Lovely Read
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very absorbing read. It's the kind of book where you suddenly realize that you are already on page 70 but you feel like you've only been reading for fifteen minutes. The next time you notice the page number, you're on 230 and, the time after that, you see that you have only 20 pages to go to the end!
So, the only bad thing I can about "Neverwhere" is that it wasn't long enough.
I do think, though, that there is enough meat on the bone for a decent sequel. Door still has to look for someone significant to her and there is also still some possibility concerning the rat-speaker girl.
I would say that this book and Tad Williams' "War of the Flowers" are the two best examples of modern urban fantasy out there today. Read both of these and you won't go wrong.
"Neverwhere" isn't original. I have read a lot of Neil Gaiman and he basically begs, borrows and steals everything he does in terms of plot, both for his novels and his short stories. But, I don't mean that in a bad way. It's not that he's a plagiarizer, it's that he taps into the universal stories and myths of Western culture. So, the tropes he uses are very familiar. He's more of a folklorist than a SF or F writer.
Gaiman's strength is as a writer, period. Although he farms well-worn ground, he paints such vivid characters and settings that you get swept away and simply get the chance to enjoy a really good book.
I'll conclude by saying that parts of this book are truly scary and chilling. Gaiman has the power, which is rare, to create real terror. The villains here are people (I use that term loosely) that you would NEVER want to meet. So, start this book early in the day so that if you read it all the way through in one sitting (and you probably will) you'll be finished by nightfall.
Then, lock your front door anyway.