Neverwhere

[poliphilo]

Always late to hop onto a moving trend, I'm reading Gaiman's Neverwhere.

It says punk on the cover. But I'm blowed if I can see how Gaiman is punky. Do his characters gob at one another? No; they are perfectly behaved and their hearts are pure. OK, so the villains are pretty gross. But so is Gollum. Does that make Tolkien a punk? I don't think so.

All good fantasy is rooted in Victorian values and a Victorian aesthetic. This is because the Victorian century is a bridge between the old world and the new. To my left the blessed damozel, to my right the 4.10 from Euston. The gothic coexists with the mechanical. It's no accident that Dr Who, in all his incarnations, is a Victorian gent or that the Hogwarts express is powered by steam.

Gaiman is in a long line of writers who have explored and expanded the myth of London. On his title page he acknowledges his debt to one of the greatest of them- G.K. Chesterton. Behind Chesterton lie Blake and Lamb and Dickens and after him come Woolf and Eliot and Moorcock. London is the ultimate city of fantasy. Paris? New York? No I'm sorry, but no other city has inspired such a wealth of fantastical poetry and fiction.

So back to Neverwhere. Door and Richard have just encountered the Angel Islington in the British Museum and the Marquis of Carabas (the rotter) is conferring with Croup and Vandemar in the cellar of the abandoned hospital among a litter of razor blades and half-eaten kittens. I can't begin to imagine what happens next...

Comments

Ah, Neverwhere. . . .

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

I was given Neverwhere as a gift from a dear friend, or else I would never have picked it up on my own. It's become a favorite of mine.

Croup and Vandemere are two of the "best" villains ever.

If you like Neverwhere, you might also like Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green. That too is set in a dark-fantasy alternate London, although this one deliberately blends noir with fantasy. In the Nightside, it's always 3am, and the narrator/protagonist is a private eye whose "private eye" can find anyone or anything. It's light, fast reading, and I keep wanting to grab people and say, "Listen to this. . ."

Interesting observation about the Victorian ethos, Dr. Who and the Hogwarts express.

Re: Ah, Neverwhere. . . .

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's not a book I'd have picked up either left to my own devices- but I kept noticing Gaiman's name cropping up on LJ and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I'm glad I did.

Thanks for the tip about Simon R Green. I'll check him out.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

i really didn't dig neverwhere. it was kind of cool that he has all these london things in it- but the story is just coincedence after coincedence, trawling him through the gamut of a london underground map. you know he was just looking at one and going- 'hmmm, how can i fit THAT into the 'story' '.
same with american gods. lots of bouncy bouncy round the pantheons, no story.
when i finished both i THREW them down in disgust. could have been better.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't mind the thinness of the story. It's a ride, a trip, a blast- and that's good enough for me.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

did u finish? i think i was so angry cos he never really delivered on the promise of it. even more so with american gods cos it is so long.
very similar to michael marshall smith in that respect. lot of big ideas early on, no follow through. and like charlie kaufman. no third act.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not quite at the end. Hunter has been squashed by the Beast of London and Richard has killed it. Now he's moving to confront the Angel. I'll probably finish tonight.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, I've finished it now. And I like the ambiguity of the ending. Is Richard choosing reality or fantasy? Is it a happy ending or a sad one? It seems to me that such an ending is right for our profoundly agnostic age.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

i was at judy's in NY when i finished that and i remember throwing it down on the wooden floor and hoping she wouldn't notice it so i could just leave it there and not have to take it with me.
maybe it is still there?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

O right. I was talking to Judy about Gaiman and she said she hadn't read him. I'll have to tell her that she owns a copy of Neverwhere she didn't know she had.