Kenny's Reviews > The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“I was not scared of anything, when I read my book...”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane ~~ Neil Gaiman



I loved retreating into the comfort of this book, like our young, unnamed hero in “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” often does. Gaiman sweeps through this book’s action breathlessly, without pause for long explanations or justifications. The boy’s point of view is a distinctive Gaiman touch; it is familiar from the way he handled people caught within dreams within The Sandman, but also hauntingly familiar from my own real-life childhood.



Most satisfying is the book’s color and tone, which largely comes from that distant but recognizable childhood place. Typical of Gaiman’s work, it is deeply colorful and imaginative, taking place in a world of unusual creatures and situations, described compellingly and convincingly in a way that makes them feel soundly logical. It solidly captures that old echo of memory, the feeling of being a kid again, in a world of infinite possibility. In the mental space the book inhabits, it’s no wonder the narrator never names himself: He has no sense of discrete identity, no sense of separation from the world around him.



“I’m going to tell you something important,” an 11-year-old named Lettie Hempstock tells the unnamed 7-year-old protagonist of “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” & she does. What is it you ask? Read the book …