Neil Gaiman the next Rudyard Kipling?
I, like millions of fanboys and girls on this earth, love Neil Gaiman. His writing is concise, if not always its meaning, and his attraction to the macabre and bizarre makes for some fresh storytelling.
For tried and true fans, The Graveyard Book does not disappoint.
(I know, I know, I said I'd get started on the new Lippman collection. I was just cleansing my reading palate before jumping back in, I swear.)
I mentioned Gaiman last week, for his star status in the comic book world. But he doesn't pigeonhole his talents -- although we do have him to thank for the source material of that abysmal Stardust movie. Stardust has the distinction of being the first and only movie that I've walked out on, and I still don't care how it ends.
But please, don't judge him for that trainwreck. Instead, give this book a try.
The Graveyard Book premise borrows heavily from Kipling's The Jungle Book, as Gaiman is quick to point out himself. It opens with a mysterious man, known as Jack, murdering a family of four. Well, mostly. The baby boy of the family escapes, toddles into a graveyard and is adopted as one of its own. From there on, all the inhabitants, living, dead and in between, become the friends and mentors that guide the boy to adulthood.
The ensuing chapters tell the story of how the boy, named Nobody Owens, learns the mysteries of life, but mostly death. He has a mysterious guardian, Silas, a mysterious ghostly witch haunting him and a mission to discover more about his -- you guessed it -- mysterious origins as the only living boy who calls the cemetery home.
With a revolving cast of ghosts and ghouls, the story is full of whimsy. But the characters, their choices and the consequences in the story ring true. That, in my opinion, is the mark of truly great fiction, regardless of the plausibility of the world the author has created.
As a bonus, there are a few effective illustrations at the start of every chapter; just enough to add to the story, but not so many that you feel like you're reading a book written for a toddler.
So if you like your mysteries peppered with mythologies old and new, let Mr. Gaiman introduce you to the jungle that is life and death.
(Photo by Kimberly Butler, courtesy of neilgaiman.com)
