The Graveyard Book
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Paul
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/30
date added: 2011/10/30
shelves: childrens, fantasy, novel, horror
review:
Nobody Owens lives in a graveyard. When he was very young, the man Jack killed his family and he narrowly escaped his fate by falling under the protection of the kindly ghosts of the graveyard on top of the hill who have taken on the task of raising Nobody in spite of their limitations—namely, incorporeality and death. The Graveyard Book chronicles the youth and adventures of Nobody as he makes unlikely friends, gets into trouble, gets rescued, attends school, and tries to learn the truth of where he came from and who he is.
Neil Gaiman is incredibly imaginative and fills this book with the often dark, quirky twists that are kind of his signature. As a children’s book it can be fairly grim, though I suppose for this day and age no more so than, say, The Wizard of Oz was at the time of its release. The book flies by quickly and Bod (as he is known) rapidly becomes a lovable protagonist, head-strong, adventurous, resourceful and prone to dreaming. The book is structured kind of like a handful of smaller stories tied together somewhat loosely—one could see this being almost a comic book mini-series (perhaps unsurprisingly given Gaiman’s background) though Bod ages naturally throughout.
It does seem as though there were perhaps more adventures at earlier ages that could have been included, perhaps to keep the book at a manageable length some side plots and sub-stories were cut out or intentionally left unexplored; the final chapters however do draw the tale to a satisfying conclusion. I wonder if an imaginary sequel would go back and fill in the gaps of Bod’s upbringing or focus on events that happen chronologically following The Graveyard Book’s end.
My favorite part of the book is the section/chapter titled “Danse Macabre” which is kind of a small, almost throwaway tale of a unique sort of irregular holiday that is described in a particular way as to be mysterious and yet so full of joy and humanity (the significance of which is only relatable once you understand what it is), it left me with an uncontrolled grin. I’ve read several of Gaiman’s adult novels (American Gods, Anasazi Boys, Neverwhere) and often Gaiman’s biggest failing is that his wild imagination outpaces his descriptive abilities which occasionally—sometimes in regrettably pivotal scenes—don’t quite convey a ready vision of what he sees in his head. In The Graveyard Book this is never the case and especially in the closing paragraphs of Danse Macabre, it felt as though I were right there with Bod and all the others.
That descriptive image transfer actually leads to my chief complaint about the book other than that it feels like it could have contained more, which is Dave McKean’s illustrations. I like McKean’s art, quite a bit, but I’m not sure his style suits this book. There is an abstractness, a kind of hazy dark quality in McKean’s work and I felt like it lent too much of an ominous maturity to the feel of the book which didn’t match the unexpectedly breezy tone of Gaiman’s writing. Don’t get me wrong, the tone of the prose is spot-on, clear and crisp as one would expect for a book meant to be read by middle-schoolers, dark in just the right amounts but also full of vibrancy. But McKean’s art plays a big part in setting that tone and it draws it to a much more melancholy place than might otherwise be found in an unillustrated edition.
Overall, this is a delightful book and one which I hope to share with my daughter, seven or eight years from now, an example of modern classic children’s literature that is just perfect for reading around Halloween.