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Loading... The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)by Neil Gaiman
  
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 Kim.Sasso | Aug 27, 2023 |  I'm glad I moved this up to the top of my reading list. Neil Gaiman is an enchanting weaver of worlds and the stories within those worlds. He is somehow able to draw upon ancient knowledge that never was and make it seem present, potent, universal and real. It would be foolish of me to try to describe this story. You can read the cover blurb and other reviews to get a flavor of that. But those descriptions are only shadows of the experience of getting lost in these pages of lost childhood and magic. What is real? What is memory? What is imagination? What is time? These are all questions that swirl through this book and are never directly addressed or answered. Or maybe they are. (  ) zot79 | Aug 20, 2023 | There were a lot of books this could have been and I think my opinion of it suffered from having heard so much about it and wanting it to have been those other books. I wanted this to be a book about the unreliable memory of childhood and how age gives a mundane tint and banal explanations for the remembered magic, both awesome and awful. I wanted this to be a book about the adult that we become and how that holds up to the children that we were and the continuous source of identity. Instead, it's a modern fairy tale. I love modern fairy tales and this is a great one, but I can't forgive it for not being the book I wanted it to be. ( ) settingshadow | Aug 19, 2023 | Loaded with the surprising, oft forgotten, gravity and noir that shadow childhood if you're seven, bookish, and open to magic and mystery such as Narnia and Batman. I'm a slow word for word reader, so I savored this slim volume over a couple of days. The beauty of the writing combined with the matter-of-fact and heartbreaking horror of feeling responsible for tragedy kept me turning the pages. I was also reminded me why, as a child, I longed to grow up. I had a yen for fiction after a long sojourn in non-fiction. Thank you, Neil Gaiman. (  ) rebwaring | Aug 14, 2023 | A beautiful, beautiful fairy tale. I feel like I could have lived in these pages forever. ( ) beentsy | Aug 12, 2023 |
 The Ocean at the End of the Lane arouses, and satisfies, the expectations of the skilled reader of fairytales, and stories which draw on fairytales. Fairytales, of course, were not invented for children, and deal ferociously with the grim and the bad and the dangerous. But they promise a kind of resolution, and Gaiman keeps this promise. [Gaiman's] mind is a dark fathomless ocean, and every time I sink into it, this world fades, replaced by one far more terrible and beautiful in which I will happily drown. The story is tightly plotted and exciting. Reading it feels a lot like diving into an extremely smart, morally ambiguous fairy tale. And indeed, Gaiman's adult protagonist observes at one point that fairy tales aren't for kids or grownups — they're just stories. In Gaiman's version of the fairy tale, his protagonist's adult and child perspectives are interwoven seamlessly, giving us a sense of how he experienced his past at that time, as well as how it affected him for the rest of his life. Reading Gaiman's new novel, his first for adults since 2005's The Anansi Boys, is like listening to that rare friend whose dreams you actually want to hear about at breakfast. The narrator, an unnamed Brit, has returned to his hometown for a funeral. Drawn to a farm he dimly recalls from his youth, he's flooded with strange memories: of a suicide, the malign forces it unleashed and the three otherworldly females who helped him survive a terrifying odyssey. Gaiman's at his fantasy-master best here—the struggle between a boy and a shape-shifter with "rotting-cloth eyes" moves at a speedy, chilling clip. What distinguishes the book, though, is its evocation of the powerlessness and wonder of childhood, a time when magic seems as likely as any other answer and good stories help us through. "Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and ... dangerous fairies?" the hero wonders. Sometimes, they do. AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang. No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.07)
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Chat about... The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Wikipedia in English (2)
1
Funny thing, though. Every time I caught an interview, read a quote or a tweet, or heard about something he did, I'd think... Neil Gaiman seems like a really cool guy!
So, I listened to Anansi Boys on audio. I won't say it was the greatest book ever, but, oh! his writing was just so damn fluid. Listening to Lenny Henry's reading Anansi, it was like the words just rolled off his lips and carried me along on the story.
And this one? Well...just...wow! Listening to Neil himself read The Ocean at the End of the Lane was practically a religious experience for me.
It wasn't just the story itself - which this time made my spirit dance - but again, the mastery of words and grammar. In truth, he employs rather mundane words and structure, but somehow the result is as lyrical and magical as the most lovely of poetry. I rarely re-read or re-listen to books, but this one will be revisited - maybe next time in print!
So, uh...yeah...that Neil Gaiman is a pretty cool guy.... (