Good, quick meeting on
Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" with the Blackstone Library's Fantasy & Science Fiction club on Monday. Some new (to me faces) at group, including occasional group-attender and author
Shane Holbach, who actually is sharing a table of contents with Gaiman (and a slew of other fantastic authors) in a
YA Speculative Fiction Anthology from Twelfth Planet.
For a surprising number of folks at the table, this was their first time with Gaiman, which is kind of interesting. "Ocean" is really good, lyrical, but it's an unusual starting place: not the
tour de force of "American Gods" (2001), not a "Now A Feature Film!" like "Coraline" (2002) or "Stardust" (1999); at least in the circles I run in, the "Sandman" comics (1989-1996) are almost universally the entry-point.
I really,
really like Gaiman's work at shorter lengths--"Smoke & Mirrors" (1998) and "Fragile Things" (2006) are highly recommended, and his latest collection, "Trigger Warning", just hit shelves. Additionally, his children's/YA-ish lit game is very strong, whether that's dark fairy-tales like "Coraline" (illustrated by Dave McKean) or playful illustrated works like "Fortunately, The Milk" (2013, ill. Skottie Young). "The Ocean at the End of the Lane", while not necessarily
for younger readers, is told primarily from a child's perspective, has a sort of childish straight-forward prose style, and is quite short--close to the novella range, really--thus combining some of Gaiman's strengths. Indeed, despite the child's perspective, I think this is one of the most mature and measured I've seen Gaiman--there is a big dose of autobiographical material here, and the fantastic, alternating terrifying/comforting world of the child's story resonates very nicely with the larger framing narrative, the grown man remembering with some amount of melancholy.
The group had lots of praise for the style of the book, calling it a "prose poem" and noting how it's both "utter simplicity, but tremendously atmospheric".
