The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I am an unabashed Gaiman fan. I will tell anyone who listens that Neil is the greatest author in modern literature. Of course, he proves my point every time he puts a new book on the shelves.
His latest masterpiece, the Newberry Award winning The Graveyard Book, is brilliant in its simplicity. Gaiman took a classic concept, that of Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and gave it his own dark yet hopeful twist.
The book opens with a murder. The Man Jack is creeping through a house, slowly and mercilessly killing all the inhabitants. He only has the baby left. Gaiman doesn’t focus so much on the killing as he does on the emotions, or lack thereof, of The Man Jack. The baby, ever adventurous, crawls out of his crib and out onto the streets. He makes his way to the local graveyard and that is where his story truly begins.
The boy, Bod (short for Nobody) Owens, is adopted by the ghostly inhabitants of the graveyard. The ghosts of Mr. and Mrs. Owens take him in and care for him. The dark and mysterious Silas, who is no ghost, but a different creature all together, becomes his guardian, and Bod lives in two very distinct worlds until he must again face The Man Jack and take control of his life.
The beauty of Neil’s writing is in his control of the language. He doesn’t so much as author a book, but guides his readers with every word, comma and period he uses. You feel what Neil wants you to feel. You feel what Bod is feeling. Of course you can not relate to being raised by ghosts, but you can relate to the sense of isolation and loneliness that Bod struggles with in every chapter.
I’ll admit I am also a sucker for dark, macabre stories. However, The Graveyard Book isn’t a typical spooky story. It’s not that you feel scared while reading; in fact most of it isn’t scary at all. Gaiman wraps you in dark. Everything feels slightly dim and eerily damp. It seems like you are walking in a rundown part of town, coat collar lifted to stave off the cold, arms held tightly across your chest and a slight feeling of unease settled comfortably across your shoulders as you traverse the pages. Yet for some reason, you have a goofy smile on your face the whole time.
You should read this.
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