The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman, is an urban fantasy about a man coming back to his childhood home and remembering a long forgotten otherworldly experience from his childhood. As a seven year old, his life changes for the weirder when an opal miner, who had been renting out a room in the boy’s house, commits suicide in their family car. The death opens a door for a mischevious cloth-like spirit to start messing with the locals’ lives in twisted ways of giving them what they want. The boy meets the Hempstocks, an immortal family of three who live at the end of the lane, and accompanies the youngest, Lettie Hempstock, on a journey to bound the spirit. However, the spirit latches on to the boy and uses him as its gateway between worlds. Parading as a nanny named Ursula Monkton, the demon torments the boy through herself and his father. It’s up to the boy and the Hempstocks to send the demon away and restore reality.
Gaiman’s imagination makes the book take flight. The type of magic that the Hempstocks practice is unique and creative, like how they can snip things out of and into reality with scissors, change the phase of the moon, and use the pond by their farm as an all-knowing ocean. The Hempstocks could have easily been made out to be spooky witches, but Gaiman makes them brave and comforting, their old-fashioned home a place of warmth for the boy to recover while his home life falls apart. Gaiman characterizes Ursula as cloth-like, resembling a rotten pink and grey circus tent when not in human form. I’ve never read about any villain made of cloth- and yet, that cloth is terrifying. The shadowy carrion Varmints that come later in the story are scary in a more traditional sense, looking like crows and darkness personified, only visible in the corner of the eye. These magical beings- well, it isn’t really magic per se, but something similar- add life and adventure to what would otherwise be a simple neighborhood street.
Gaiman also possesses the ability to create intense climactic scenes. Three scenes in particular stand out to me: when Ursula catches the boy as he sprints during a storm to the Hempstocks, when the Varmints try to convince the boy to leave the fairy ring, and when the boy steps into the ocean. In the first scene, the combination of the storm, the scratches and pain, the boy’s exhaustion and panic, and Ursula’s dooming figure chasing and whispering in the boy’s ear make the scene incredibly tense. We know he is close to safety with the Hempstocks, but how close? He drops to the ground, giving up in fear, and we feel for him. The imagery was vivid and scary, which worked to create a wonderfully intense moment. Near the end of the book, the fairy ring sequence occurs and is phenomenal. Again, the imagery is clear and strong, but here the boy’s confidence is what shines. The Varmints materialize as his friends and enemies, trying to convince him to leave the ring and be devoured. The boy keeps his wits about him, and we root for him to last through the emotional strain and torment. He stays strong where he would have been weak in the beginning of the book, and the character development is poignant. Finally, the scene where the boy steps into a bucket of pond water and falls through into the ocean is beautiful. Suspended in the water, he sees, knows, and understands everything about the universe. This enlightenment among the sea is such a tone shift from the horrors he just experienced, and he seems mature and content. The enticement of the ocean is far stronger than anything the Varmints could cook up. The beauty and tranquility of this moment really stood out (and it made me ecstatic to realize that the cover of the book was reference to this part of the story).
At the very end, I discovered that the structure of The Ocean at the End of the Lane reflects the theme that grown-ups are just kids with a mature exterior, but inside they never really grow up. We enter the story through a mundane setting, a man leaving a funeral and thinking about the past. Then, as he arrives at the Hempstock farm and sits by the pond, we dive into his memories and experience an intensely magical part of his childhood, then retreat back out into the mundane world, watching sadly as he forgets the memory once again. We see his grown-up exterior, learn about the child inside him, then leave him once again as a simple grown-up.
I truly loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane; it’s a perfect example of Urban Fantasy and shows off Gaiman’s talents as an author.
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