The Ocean At The End Of The Lanel is Neil Gaiman’s latest novel and it’s a melancholic little book about growing up, childhood, dreams and disappointments. It’s short but rich and reminds me of Coraline. Where Coraline was triumphant though, I’m not sure our unnamed narrator‚ a boy of 7‚ is. But I don’t want to spoil anything for you.

The epigraph from Maurice Sendak is a great 1-line summary of the novel: “I remember my own childhood vividly. I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn’t let adults know I knew. It would scare them.”

What the boy knows is that he is a bit of an underling, getting beat up at school and bossed around by his older sister at home, but he’s comfortable. He has a little black kitten and a small room with a little yellow washbasin just his size. But those comforts disappear with the arrival of a lodger who runs over the cat, uses the room, and ultimately dies himself in a most unfortunate way. But instead of that incident being forgotten, our boy gets caught up in the magic that’s unleashed by the death. And that’s when he meets the Hempstock women: Old Mrs Hempstock, Ginny Hempstock (middle aged) and Lettie Hempstock (11 years old, but she’s been 11 for a very, very long time).

Three is a magic number, isn’t it? And the Hempstock women certainly know their magic. It’s old magic. Old magic used to bind things from the old world that have come across the ocean with them. Old magic used to cut and restitch the fabric of time. But all that magic has a price and the novel leaves us wondering if it was worth it. I won’t tell you what it is because The Ocean at the End of the Lane is worth the reading.

Here’s my collage of thoughts about the book.

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CC collage images:
witch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bean_/9174094099/
kid: http://www.flickr.com/photos/iofoto/4320571280/
lightning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blitze_IMGP6376_wp.jpg
ocean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UpsilonAndromedae_D_moons.jpg
cat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blackcat-Lilith.jpg
fairy ring: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FairyRingSchoolField.jpg
moon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FullMoon2010.jpg
hand: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bambola_world/2998318175/
lane: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chemin_creux.JPG