“Today I will write a blog post!”
That’s what I said to myself for five out of seven days this week. Much of it was spent in a drunken stupor.
Today I will actually write said post. It will be about my love for Neil Gaiman. More so, the book I first picked up of his. I had a friend who randomly mentioned him, and when I was in the book store the name popped out and I picked up a book called “Neverwhere”. This was a very good idea, and one I have never regretted.
It starts out with a character named Richard Mayhew and his going away party to good ole London. After said moment, we meet him as his life has normalized to the grind of life; work, relationship, etc. Yet another path we follow is that of Door. No not a door, but a woman named Door. She is hurt and on the run, from who? We don’t quite know yet. Door has a special ability, a family trait. She can open up doors, locks of any kind, and in her rush to escape she opens up a door to someone who can help her. In a date about to go very badly, Richard walks into Door, and noticing her state can’t leave her.
This starts a very lovely tale. A tale that brings you into a new land, yet not entirely so. The way that Neil Gaiman weaves his magic of our world and a world of other things, unnatural, mystical, magical, is truly wonderful. He makes you question every homeless person and wonder if there is something more there, what the story behind that person might be. Through this particular story you come along to meet many interesting people; liars who keep their debts, people who speak with rats and rats who speak back. Women who are lovely and deadly, assassins who span their craft along the centuries of time and you may even come across an angel. Oh there’s also Richard. Can’t forget him.
This book introduced me to the world of Neil Gaiman, and the amazing way he writes. He has such a great flow to his words, a way of blurring the lines of what’s real and not. His humor can be light laughs to something a bit more dark and cynical. If anyone asks me about his writing, or this book, and if they should read it, I gasp in the most horrific way as if they’ve killed tiny kitten and demand to know why they haven’t read his stuff already. So to you reader I say this, give this book a chance. In my opinion, it’s not the best of his work, but it outshines many authors’ attempts at writing.
Stuck in a Book 