The Ocean at the End of the Lane -
Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettiemagical, comforting, wise beyond her yearspromised to protect him, no matter what.A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.
Published: 2013-06-18 (William Morrow Books)
ISBN: 9780062255655
Language: English
Format: Hardcover, 181 pages
Goodreads' rating: -
Reviews
Whoopsie daisy, it's unpopular opinion time again. As I scroll through the Goodreads page of this book, I only find raving reviews. Four and five stars aplently, a rare three stars at the least. And here I am, positively convinced that Neil Gaiman is a terrific author, yet the two books I've read of him were completely underwhelming.Thing is, I have no idea what the hell I just read. It was bizarre and weird and, quite frankly, not in a good way.But I am not giving up. I will find a Neil Gaiman book to love. I will.
This is my favorite of Neil Gaimans books so fara haunting novel about sacrifice, boundaries, and things remembered. So many twisted and tattered new characters to get into our heads and under our skin. Once again, Neil does what he does so well: he takes us by the hand and introduces us to a dark, tangled corner of the universe full of things that make us shiver and hold our breath in the dark. Authentic and compelling, theres much beneath the surface of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Like a secret whispered in the shadows by a trusted friend, it gets inside of us, and it lingers.
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.This book is childhood.Are all Neil Gaiman books like this? So beautifully, hauntingly nostalgic? I confess, this is my first; but right now I am logging into amazon to make sure it isn't my last. I have one criticism, which is that this book isn't really an adult book. The few adult scenes felt added as an afterthought to try and convince us little people that this is actually a very grown-up kinda story. But, take out that dodgy sex scene, and I would have been mesmerised and terrified by this book as a kid, perhaps even more than I was reading it today. It has everything that we could possibly ask for in childhood: magic, adventure, overcoming fears, those things that children know and adults no longer understand or remember, and it's all wrapped up in a tidy 180 pages. There's an almost dreamlike quality to the story and there are many reasons it's hard to know what's real and what is not. The book opens with a middle-aged man revisiting the place where he used to live with his parents and sister when he was a young boy of seven. He visits his old house before wandering down to the farm at the end of the lane, a place that starts to bring back a strange sequence of memories as seen through the eyes of a young boy. How real are the magic and monsters of our childhood? When we look back and see ignorant youths believing in the impossible, are we enlightened adults? Or are we the ignorant ones, blinded by years dedicated to being sensible and not believing? Are the villains we remember monsters from another world? Or is that just how children make sense of the people who brought upheaval into their lives?I found it truly fascinating.The creepy yet beautiful setting in the English countryside was fantastic. A little lonely, somewhat isolated... like a world entirely of its own in which anything could be possible. This book held all the charm and beauty of the world portrayed in Cider With Rosie, but was ten times more compelling and addictive. And there were the characters, of course. Lettie Hempstock, an eleven year old who might just have been eleven for a very long time, and her quirky mother and grandmother. Also, the narrator had my sympathy throughout; his seven year old lack of understanding and fear of the adult world that he saw as separate from his own was easily believable, for me. I think we do create a world of our own when we're kids, one that adults aren't a part of, that's how we're able to believe in things like magic and wizards and Santa. To put it plainly, I really enjoyed my first trip into the world of Gaiman. The ending is perfect. A little sad. But mostly perfect.Blog | Leafmarks | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
It is the first book I read by Neil Gaiman but I am sure it will not be the last. It is creepy and beautiful and hopeful and melancholic.It is a book about the innocence and helplessness of childhood, about memories and also about so much more as it contains a lot of universal truths so beautifully written.It is an adult story even if most of it is narrated through the eyes of a seven years old boy. I loved the definition of adults from the book: 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. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.The book is also a horror novel, with monsters, terror, pain and suffering that seems too much for a child. However, in the real world you find monsters everywhere and we need to learn how to deal with them from early age. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometime monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren't. I could probably cite from this book forever but I will stop now. I recommend it to everyone that was once a child.
I really, really wanted to like this book...but like so many others, it fell flat. Maybe it's because we follow the least-interesting character in the entire book. Honestly, I couldn't be the only one who would've preferred to get the perspectives of the witches or the worm-creature? Or even the spiteful cat. I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid, unshakeably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. Perhaps it's because while there were many parts that caught my attention, nothing was fleshed out enough to hold me to this book. Sure...there's a hint of this, a dash of that but nothing really comes to fruition, only frustration.Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters. Possibly it's because after nearly 200 pages...nothing is explained. While there's many hints given about the mystical world and it's otherworldly characteristics ... yet nothing concrete is explained. EVER. Sometimes a little mystery is needed and sometimes, just explain it already.Neil Gaiman always has the craziest, wildest, awesomest ideas...and 4/5 times they just absolutely fall flat to me. It's like...I like the idea/concept better than actually reading the book. That being said, I do enjoy how much his main character loved to read. Every time he talked about books, I was like preach!I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else. Audiobook CommentsDespite all my whining and complaining, the one thing I cannot fault is this audiobook. Neil Gaiman read it himself and wow. Stunning audio. He could read a Walgreen receipt (heck, even a CVS/Pharmacy receipt) and I'd listen with rapt attention.Blog | Instagram