The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

by Neil Gaiman

★★★★★

I have been so hesitant to write this review because of the absolute deluge of reviews I’ve already seen and also because I felt like I still needed to process it. It’s been a few weeks now and I think I can put my reaction into words. It’s funny that this book is so hard to review considering it’s less than 200 pages long.

We begin with our narrator, a forty-something adult returning home for a funeral. Soon he is bombarded with long-forgotten details from his childhood. When he was seven a series of odd events happened to him. An opal miner who was a lodger in his home commits suicide. Then his path crosses with the incredible Hempstock women, particularly the 11-year-old Lettie and around the same time he gains a new nanny, Ursula Monkton.

This fantastical walk down one boy’s memory lane brings up so many thoughts about our own childhood memories. How much is fact, how much is the fiction we tell ourselves? Can we trust our memories or have they become distorted with time and our worldview as a child?

“Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences.”

Many of my favorite scenes in the book take place in the Hempstock women’s kitchen. It seems our young narrator is always eating. He describes the dishes in detail, mounds of shepherd’s pie, pancakes, etc. It paints such a picture of comfort and warmth and reminds me how food is such a strong trigger for memory.

I’m going to avoid sharing any major plot points, because the apprehension of not knowing what’s next is what makes the book impossible to put down. It is entirely a Gaiman novel in every sense of the word. So expect it to be a bit dark, include some fantasy elements and gorgeous writing. If you already love his work you won’t be disappointed.

BOTTOM LINE: For me it was a beautiful and strange novel. It was short, but it’s been a few weeks since I read it and I keep thinking about different aspects of the story. It raises questions and answers others. Gaiman’s writing brought all these elements together to create something I know I’ll return to again and again.

 “That’s the trouble with living things. Don’t last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together…”

“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”

For anyone who is new to Gaiman’s work but would like to try more I’ll refer you to a previous post of mine. I recommend books based on his work, but you can use the list in reverse, picking your next book by him based on work by other authors.

There have already been some beautiful reviews written about the bigger issues in this deceptively simple novel, memory, female portrayal in literature, fantasy elements in coming-of-age, etc.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

Things Mean a Lot

Estella’s Revenge

A post on the strength of female characters in the book. 

The Marriage Plot

The Marriage Plot

by Jeffrey Eugenides

★★★★☆

When I read summaries of The Marriage Plot it doesn’t sound that interesting to me. Three Ivy League college kids in the ‘80s graduate and try to figure out what to do with their lives. First there’s Madeleine, a clever girl, except when it comes to love. Then there’s Leonard, the passionate, but troubled man she falls for. Finally we have Mitchell, the intellectual who struggles with the question of faith and his unrequited love for Madeleine. It just doesn’t sound to original. Then I remember who the author is: Jeffrey Eugenides, who wrote Middlesex, which I loved! Suddenly the book is a must read and I know that however simple the plot sounds on the surface, they’ll be a whole different level of depth reached by the end. I’m so glad I Brenna at Literary Musings sent her copy my way!!!

So here’s the things about the summary, it doesn’t capture anything about why the book is good. It misses all of the nuances when you smack a “troubled twenty-somethings” label on it or reduce it to another love triangle book. Sure, there’s a love triangle, but the reason it is interesting is because it’s not really about the love or the triangle, it’s about the people caught up in it and what they’re thinking about life in general, not just love. You’re doing the book a huge disservice if you try to put a simple label on something so complicated. Imagine calling Middlesex a coming-of-age story and thinking that covered it!

The book rotates between all three characters’ lives. I particularly loved Mitchell's parts, where he's traveling and trying to figure out what he believes. I’ve found that when I travel on my own I learn a lot about myself. You have so much more time for internal dialogue and you’re put in situations outside of your comfort zone that test you in different ways. His experiences rang true for me. I also loved reading about Madeleine’s literary pursuits. Eugenides manages to weave dozens of references to classic books and to make those century old plots relevant in the story.

I didn’t love this one as much as Middlesex, but I loved so many aspects of it. I also love reading a book that gives me something to chew on. There were a few parts that became repetitive or lagged a bit, but the amount of literary eye candy I got was enough to balance it out for me. After just reading Middlemarch and The Portrait of a Lady this year, I loved reading a book that paralleled those in some ways.

The book doesn’t have the same epic scale or sense of humor as Middlesex, but it also doesn’t have the same disconnected aloof style of The Virgin Suicides. It feels like a book written by an author who may have found his groove. He can capture characters beautifully and lay them out in a way that is both interesting and accessible. In The Marriage Plot he has created a world that is easy to connect to, but also gives you so much to ponder. His story is about trying to figure out who you are, both in relation to other people and to the world at large. It’s about the unexpected paths your life can take and the people who you didn’t know would one day be important. I know that I’ll be reading whatever he writes next, even if it takes another decade.

"She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it."

“There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.”

p.s. On a side note, I wish the book had a different title or cover because I read this on vacation and it looked like I was reading a marriage self help book. I was reading it while we were waiting to be seated at a restaurant and a waiter came up and asked what I was reading. I told him and he said the title made it sound like a Disney movie about kids trying to keep their parents together.

For some other great thoughts on this one, check out A Thousand Books With Quotes, Literary Musings, Things Mean A Lot, Nomadreader, and Farm Lane Book Blog