It's always a joy to read a Neil Gaiman book! The world he creates for the reader is just exhilarating.
In this book, The Graveyard Book, the world he creates is this graveyard somewhere in Glasgow, Scotland - and the characters you meet are just the ones you'd expect to meet in a cemetery - but in this interesting plot twist - it will take this graveyard to raise a living breathing baby.
Many interesting things happen to the baby as it grows up to be a young man - and that I will leave for you to read - as this is a children's book - and something that you should finish in a day or two.
Every chapter in the book brings you to a different world - as the graveyard is filled with many supernatural beings - from ghosts, to ghouls, to witches - and of course, bad human beings.
There are several quotable quotes in this book - and I admit that some of them even inspired me and gave me zest again in life.
I will try to buy my own copy of the book so I can highlight the words that mean to me the most!
It's stupid of me to miss both visits of Neil Gaiman to Manila due mainly to the fact that I did not know of his work yet! Isn't that crazy?
I was not really into that kind of genre, until of course, I received his book, Neverwhere, as a Christmas gift two years ago, which I only read this year. I should have read it much much earlier!!
Gaiman also wrote the screenplay for "Stardust", a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, not only because of Robert De Niro's camp performance, or that guy from The Office, who was infernally funny here, or the presence of my own personal goddess, Michelle Pfeiffer - but because it was simply an enjoyable adventure of a movie.
Neverwhere is very much like it. Set in my favorite city, London, it is a London I do not know and haven't been to because it's set under the streets of the city. It's a parallel world where the underground world never meets the world of the working man.
The Tube stations, the wharf, the thin line that divides one universe from another - all these are inhabited by beings from two different dimensions which coexist but which none from both sides can physically see or interact with.
Unlike the two protagonists here. I should really open my reading choices more and try to read more alternative fiction stuff like Gaiman's work, because the characters are not only quite interesting, it allows my brain to go on overdrive, since I have to imagine an alternative universe different to ours. I was like being sucked into a Pan's Labyrinth type of world. It's simply genius. I recommend that if you have a 13-year old kid or cousin, let them read this. This should stimulate their facebook-youtube-friendster-katrinahalilihaydenkhovideodeadenedbrains.
It's easy to read, the main protagonists are endearing and there's enough evil beings thrown in to make their lives miserable. Of course, it helps if they've been to London, since it would be easier to evoke the dank, dark, putrid underground (which may be the Tube to all of us commuters). I am now a Gaiman fan (that did sound right, didn't it?) and I wish someone would give me another book of his for Christmas. To my employee who gave me this, I am eternally grateful for introducing me to your world.
