[Review] The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman

Sunday, March 09, 2014 K.Z. Freeman 0 Comments

It is perhaps a wondrous thing that we cannot always understand why we like something. It's this 'not knowing', I think, that gives a certain added sense of wonder to most things.

It is like this with The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I really can't say why I liked it so much, nor why I could not stop reading it. The nearest I can come in describing how I felt while reading is that I became lost in it. Much like one can get lost in a woman's eyes, or in a sound or smell. The sensation this book cocoons you in is magical, which is apt, since the book itself and its happenings are nothing else but magical.

There are certain existential fears the tome pries upon, but more than that, it somehow grabs your inner child by the throat with meaty hands and kinda rapes him. But in a good way. 

The introspective and childlike nature of it is addicting. It kept on reminding me of the fact that one never really gets old, you're still all the ages you were since you were born, it is merely the layers that kept piling on and masking the fact that we are still that child. We are given the sense of maturity and "deeper understanding", while forgetting the value of innocence. Yet our primal fears remain the same. Neil knows this, we all know this, feel this, and that's why this book has an impact.

Death and what lurks in the infinite recesses between worlds seems a theme that runs rampart through the spaces where words are missing, but also the will to live and hope and the power of friendship.

10/10  

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