The Graveyard Book

Looking through past postings, I came across Robert’s reference to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.

Gaiman’s novels are strange disconcerting affairs. Stardust, Neverwhere, Coraline, and American Gods all create a sort of magical realism in which the everyday world exists adjacent to a magical, darkly beautiful world. His works offer us an alternative to our world, which has become too big and too small all at once.

The Graveyard Book is slightly different. It follows the first half of an orphaned boy’s life. The Gaiman twist is the adoptive family. The boy—Nobody, an Everyman—is raised by the inhabitants of a graveyard—ghosts and a vampire (perhaps).

The tale is filled with drama, romance, adventure, fantasy, and villains.

At times the book slows to a crawl. And at times it skips, alluding to battles and histories we do not get to see. All of this may be what Tolkien terms “sub-creation,” the extension of the fantasy world beyond the boundaries of the narrative. Literary terms and analysis, though, need to be put on the shelf—as do the comparisons with Kipling.

Gaiman moves beyond the macabre and beyond the storybook trick. He ventures into the realm of fable and fairy tale. We learn with Nobody what it means to be a part of a community, to be a part of a family, to be human. We watch him grow. And as he does, we love him. That is Gaiman’s trick on us.

I reread the ending twice—telling myself that I could be the father that Silas was.

Buy The Graveyard Book and read it knowing you are going to be heartbroken.

Bayard

(A movie?)