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A review by willmadden
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
4.0
The imagery of this novel gets under your skin and haunts you for days after you put it down. It's full of innocence and terror and wonder. It reminds you of the places of safety and the threatening places, and it makes you grateful to have inhabited both in your lifetime.
The seven year old boy who narrates this story lives down the lane from the Hempstock family farm where he retreats in times of distress. Here live three generations of women who are a enchanting blend of mythology, scientific meditation on the nature of the cosmos, and Platonic philosophy. They are human embodiments of the phases of the moon, but they are far older than the moon. They make the kind of delicious breakfast you'll remember decades later. Collectively their role in the book constitutes both a great comfort and a stubborn enigma.
This book's biggest fault, unfortunately, is that it invites comparison to another Neil Gaiman novel, Coraline, which also concerns a young child being menaced by a deranged substitute maternal figure. The Other Mother from Coraline is a supernatural creature, but she is driven by fears and neuroses relatable to someone in our world. For this reason, she is truly creepy. I can't say the same of Ursula Monkton, whose motivations are too obscure for me. We are told that she is a being who simply wants to make people happy but goes about it all wrong. I found myself feeling sorry for her, but I do not really understand what she is running from, or what she hopes to achieve by manipulating the boy's family.
Overall, the book leaves the impression of a story both at once remembered and forgotten, of time escaping and remaining static, of being at once vulnerable and truly protected. Afterward, you may feel the aura of The Ocean at the End of the Lane spilling over into your everyday life.
The seven year old boy who narrates this story lives down the lane from the Hempstock family farm where he retreats in times of distress. Here live three generations of women who are a enchanting blend of mythology, scientific meditation on the nature of the cosmos, and Platonic philosophy. They are human embodiments of the phases of the moon, but they are far older than the moon. They make the kind of delicious breakfast you'll remember decades later. Collectively their role in the book constitutes both a great comfort and a stubborn enigma.
This book's biggest fault, unfortunately, is that it invites comparison to another Neil Gaiman novel, Coraline, which also concerns a young child being menaced by a deranged substitute maternal figure. The Other Mother from Coraline is a supernatural creature, but she is driven by fears and neuroses relatable to someone in our world. For this reason, she is truly creepy. I can't say the same of Ursula Monkton, whose motivations are too obscure for me. We are told that she is a being who simply wants to make people happy but goes about it all wrong. I found myself feeling sorry for her, but I do not really understand what she is running from, or what she hopes to achieve by manipulating the boy's family.
Overall, the book leaves the impression of a story both at once remembered and forgotten, of time escaping and remaining static, of being at once vulnerable and truly protected. Afterward, you may feel the aura of The Ocean at the End of the Lane spilling over into your everyday life.