Fantasy fiction

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE
By Neil Gaiman
Headline. 248 pages. £6.99
ISBN 978 1 472 208 668

I’d not heard of Neil Gaiman before I heard him being interviewed in June.

He writes fantasy, a genre I left behind aged 13. That interview reminded me what a significant chunk of fiction I had been ignoring for 30 years, and so I duly bought the book.

In The Ocean at the End of the Lane the narrator returns to the countryside of his Sussex childhood for a funeral and in his distress he drives aimlessly around the lanes he half remembers. As he starts to recognise where he is, he arrives at a farmhouse and, sitting by a pond his friend Lettie Hempstock liked to call ‘The Ocean’, he recalls the events of his seventh summer. It all began with the suicide of a lodger who had money troubles.

Gripping and whimsical

From that point on we are immersed in a world of fantasy which is at times gripping and at other points whimsical. Gaiman conjures a significant sense of supernatural menace, but also develops the homely character of old Mrs. Hempstock for whom spells are too common. The most vivid writing, however, is found in real world descriptions: the pleasures of reading, sibling relationships, the distance between adults and children.

Reflecting spiritual reality

Gaiman says that this is definitely not a children’s book, although it has a seven-year-old protagonist. But in many ways the heart of the book reminded me of the authors I loved when I was ten: Susan Cooper, Alan Garner and John Masefield. We find a slippery mythic framework with no gods but with ‘old ones’ — powerful and comforting forces of good who will eventually, we are always sure, triumph over evil. Beyond that we find the nirvana-like power of the Ocean itself hinted at. But the central themes of the book written loud and clear (as in so much of writing for children) are loyalty, courage and the quest for truth. Above all else, the plot hangs on loving sacrifice. And maybe, then, that is the heart of the attraction of fantasy. Here is an alternative reality which seems compelling because it actually corresponds to the spiritual reality around us. A reality in which courage and love and sacrifice are more significant than the details of circumstance.

To read or not...?

So, readers, should you read this book? I think the answer is yes, perhaps. Read it first and then, perhaps, pass it on to a high school age child. It is a fun adventure, a reminder of the strangeness of a child’s experience, and for me a good reintroduction to the strange world of fantasy writing.