Neverwhere | ||||||||
Neil Gaiman | ||||||||
Avon Books, 388 pages | ||||||||
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A review by S. Kay Elmore
So begins this fairy tale by Sandman author Neil Gaiman.
It isn't often that modern writers can approach a fairy tale
with such originality and fresh wit, but this is a different
story. Neverwhere is a fairy tale for grown ups. It's a gothic
novel in the vein of the early 80s London music scene rather
than in the literary sense.
The layers of grime and sewer filth that coat the characters can't
mask their allegorical identities. They fade between the underground
torches and rooftops of London, each one a piece out of place in
time. They are like the characters from your nursery rhymes all
grown up, and time has made them more sinister, more terrifying
and brutal. In the classic children's fairy tale, the stories are
more often than not about coming of age, passing the Baba Yaga's
test, remembering to refuse the Elven wine, breaking the spell,
freeing the princess, and waking up as an adult. This is a story
of leaving the facade of the adult world of work and duty and dull
repetition behind and becoming a child again.
Because this is a fairy tale, it suffers from more than a little
predictability. The bad guys will always be evil, the minute
someone says "Trust me," you can't, and if you have a knack for
names, you'll discover some heavy-handed foreshadowing during the
introductions. But this by no means detracts from the story. It's
a good page-turner; entertaining with more than a little wit and
the darkly comic relief of a pair of truly nasty assassins who
get testy if they aren't allowed to kill something every day or two.
S. Kay Elmore is a graphic artist, writer and corporate wage slave. She edits The Orphic Chronicle, an online magazine, and tries to make ends meet by writing and developing corporate newsletters and web sites. |
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