The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel

Right up front I should admit, I'd never heard of Neil Gaiman before I read an enthusiastic newspaper review about this book and decided to preorder it a few days ago. Last night, it was wirelessly delivered to my Kindle and this morning, I picked it up and started reading. Almost instantly, I was so absorbed and lost in the storytelling experience that I didn't do anything else until I finished it a few hours later.It's a short book; it's enchanting; it's very well written...definitely top-quality fantasy literature. I'm not a fan of fantasy literature, but this book swept me away into such a delightful and fascinating series of incredible adventures--or should I say misadventures--that I could not pull myself away. The author is correct to warn that this is not a fable for children...the reality is far too stark and dark, and there are definitely some adult themes. "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" is a tale about a lonely bookish seven-year old whose life takes a terrifying turn into a dark and creepy reality. The child is never named, but in recent interviews, the author admits that this child is very much like he was at that age. The child lives in the lovely English countryside of Sussex--the same environment where the author grew up. And like Gaiman, the child is wise, responsible, and moral beyond his years. The parents are blithely confident that nothing bad could happen to their brilliant bookish son in such a bucolic setting. But of course, bad things can, and do happen, especially to the pure and innocent...The parents have no idea that the Hempstocks--an eleven-year-old girl, her mother, and grandmother--who live by a pond at the end of the lane, are really a group of immortals who play at being human. Our seven-year-old child makes friends with the girl, Lettie Hempstock, and she introduces him to the pond, which is really an ocean. Eventually, our narrator and Lettie take a trip into a higher plain of reality that is entered somehow through the property owned by the Hempstocks, and so begins a series of remarkable misadventures with unforeseen consequences.This novel is a heroic tale about the age-old battle between childhood innocence and mythic forces. The book will charm you, fill you with awe, make you feel on edge, surprise you, and make you want to keep on reading no mater what important obligations you might have waiting for you to accomplish.Since finishing the book this afternoon, I was so curious about this fine writer that I started doing research into his life, philosophy, and writing. It seems that in prepublication interviews, Gaiman says that he's prouder of this particular work than anything else he's ever written...and, as I learned today, this is an author who has had an insanely prolific career spanning blockbuster successes across a large number of different creative media. He says he's put an enormous amount of effort into writing and rewriting this book in order to get the tone, words, and dramatic focus just right. A number of critics have already said they consider this work to be as close to sterling literary fiction as Gaiman is ever likely to get.Indeed, I was very impressed. For me, this work is, without doubt, first-rate fantasy and escapist fiction...and very fine literature, as well. It delivers a highly imaginative, fabulous and fascinating fable that envelops, and attempts to explain, everything in the space-time continuum. Yes, it's that ambitious! It had me hooked from the first to the last page. Simply put: it is an incredible gem of a novel.

I had no idea, really, what to expect from this new novel. I had not "tripped the literary light fantastic" with one of Neil's works since the fine "Graveyard Book" and he had been so heavily immersed in the vortex of social media (from what I could tell) that I wondered if his output --or the quality of his output-- might be adversely affected. Indeed, after reading his prologue, (the protagonist is never named as a child or as an adult in this first-person narrative), I wondered if Gaiman had perhaps gone off the rails. The prologue was such a disoriented, rambling mess full of commas and clunks and stuttered sentences and so much disconnected atmosphere that I began to panic."We've lost the great Neil Gaiman!" I gasped to the wall in disbelief. I think I may have even started to sweat, for I have so enjoyed and treasured his work through the years -- its reliability and soulful craftsmanship.I need not have feared, and no Gaiman fan ought to fear, either. It soon became apparent that the aforementioned prologue was intended to introduce the reader to a man clearly mired in confusion and a haze of uncertain memories about his past as he attends a funeral and decides, on an inexplicable impulse, to take a drive down the country lane where he lived long ago as a child. He finds an astonishing-but-subtle magic waiting there for him beside a nondescript farmhouse pond and the sweeping truth of his lost youthful experiences in the neighborhood comes flooding back.Once Gaiman begins to weave the narrative of the story proper, he is in full command of his usual powers, duly unraveling for us a tapestry of imaginative brilliance, unforgettable imagery, poignant reflection on the nature of worldly (and otherworldly) reality and some of the most opulent, original characterizations of his entire career. The unnamed child at the heart of the tale is a book-loving, introverted, but never the less brave little fellow in his own way, and a series of events both mundane and disturbing lead him to visit the farm down at the bottom of the lane, where dwell the three Hempstock females -- eleven year-old Lettie, her mother Ginnie and Old Mrs. Hempstock, the matriarch. It becomes swiftly apparent that these women are not exactly "of this world," despite their homely and winsome ways. The imperative destiny of their existence in the boy's suddenly frightening and fast-changing life is never fully explained, but their relationship to him becomes crucial, for the child has stumbled upon a gateway between worlds, as if by accident, and he is soon to need the mystical and powerful help of the Hempstock women ... for other, less benevolent forces have found their way into this innocuous corner of the world, as well.At the symbolic heart of this novel is the barnyard pond, which Lettie Hempstock calls her "ocean," for it has apparently carried her and her mother and grandmother across vast expanses of time, space, and magic despite its seeming insignificance, its everyday plainness. The aching, almost heartbreaking simplicity and poignancy of Gaiman's use of the pond is one of the most subtly powerful devices he has ever employed in his works.I will reveal no spoilers, beyond the fact that Gaiman re-explores the themes of lost worlds, parallel worlds, doors between worlds, and the helpers and villains who journey to our sphere via those doors. Mythological themes are likewise evoked, in grand Gaiman tradition, but one of his finest strengths has always been the glorious economy of his writing style and the ability to resist telling the reader too much, thereby leaving us tantalized and struck with a sense of awe, wonder and mystery appropriate to this kind of fairy tale or fantasy. Some have noted that this book bears a great deal of similarity to "Coraline" but any similarities are incidental, at most, in my opinion. This book has the potency of a long-cherished fable and is rendered in the first-person (very beautifully, I might add) and, as mentioned, Gaiman's themes of primordial myth, god-like beings dwelling among modern humans, and interweaving worlds are hardly unique to "Coraline" or this new book; these leitmotifs are features of almost all of his books and the presence of a child protagonist and some decidedly adult themes make this book quite different from Coraline or Graveyard. In tone, "Ocean" stands wholly on its own while reminding me in some ways of the splendor, dark charm and radiant beauty of "Stardust," only the setting is more contemporary and thus perhaps a bit more accessible and relevant. It is also more daring in its insinuations about the very nature of the fabric that holds the universe(s) together.When I mention fabric, I do so with the warning that fabric might just instill a bit of the same terror that buttons managed to instill in Coraline, in an altogether different way.The book is indeed short, and in just a few places the dialogue gets a small, very tiny bit trite when it comes to certain characters seeking to explaining great mysteries of creation, but these factors are negligible only for the deduction of one half-star (I would have rated this a 4 and 1/2 read). With "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" Gaiman has delivered yet another work of completeness in its beauty, terror and affecting honesty. With the mountains of unreadable pulp and garbage heaping-up all around us and posing as "novels" in today's market, Gaiman's latest stands as a beacon and reminder that good books require good writers who have worked relentlessly to pay some dues, hone their skills and who pride themselves on their craftsmanship, along with the impeccable standards exacted by proper editors.Watch, read, learn and enjoy, book-lovers of the world -- we are fortunate to have Gaiman write so beautifully for us in this often undeserving age of compromised quality.

La edición en sí es hermosa, aunque hubiera deseado que fuese un libro cosido y no pegado, al ser un libro de la editorial Morrow no se podía esperar otra cosa, sin embargo he de reconocerles que el hecho de que esté impreso en papel couché, que la edición tenga un cuidado espectacular y que me recuerde tanto a la edición de A monster calls de Patrick Ness han hecho que se lleve las 5 estrellas, la ilustradora es una genio! Todo el libro tiene ilustraciones prácticamente no hay hoja que quede en blanco pues hasta las guardas del libro vienen con información.La historia es muy emotiva, nostálgica y conmovedora, ese realismo mágico que pasa de un sueño a la realidad y viceversa. Si saben inglés y quieren empezar con un libro de Neil Gaiman que no sea tan infantil como puede ser Coraline o Stardust les recomendaría a parte de El libro del cementerio, este sin lugar a dudas. Soy coleccionista y aunque está es una edición que normalmente no taeria en la calle leyendo es una edición que bien vale la pena tener en casa solo de lo hermosa que es.

Maravilhoso, sem sombra de dúvidas nenhuma um dos melhores livros que já li. Neil Gaiman te prende a história de uma forma única e cativante, sensacional. Recomendo.

Una gran historia de fantasía repleta de emoción y giros argumentales muy inesperados. Una trama para dejarte llevar. Lectura fácil y ligera para nivel de inglés C1.

Brilliant book. Mesmerizing storytelling. Magical.I liked the book so much, i finished it all in 1 day. The writing is flawless. Gaiman has a charming, unparalleled style of writing. The story is a fantasy and more of a children's book, this is. But this is listed under adult fiction, and I am sure people of all ages will love this book. I feel, everyone should read this book. I am going to recommend it to every friend!Fantasy was never my genre,until I read Neil Gaiman.

Received the book earlier than expected and was very happy to dive into it right away. I read the whole thing in one sitting. I absolutely loved it.