Tuesday, November 12, 2013

58. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman


Halloween 2013#3




So, I am lagging by a couple of weeks or so in my reviews, and I am only in my second month of starting this blog, troubling signs indeed.

Less troubling was The Graveyard Book, which read like a walk in a park, or rather, a graveyard. It was just the perfect combination of warm and weird, spooky and funny, a supernatural tale of vendetta like no other. Gaiman possesses the gift of taking out the sting off the grisliest of situations and putting you in that dreamlike haze where everything is possible and the horrible is as fascinating as the fantastic.

The book starts with a triple murder and revolves around the sole survivor in the family, a toddler, over the course of the book, turned young boy, named Nobody Owens (a little Dean Koontzie in the naming convention, aren't we?) who lives, you guessed it, in a Graveyard. With the ghostie people no less. And a lot many more interesting dead and undead species. And then, there is the tale of the revenge, as odd as it can get, against a whole tribe of people, all named Jack (now I am picking A Tale of Two Cities reference). I am quite sure there would be multiple such references which I have missed, and the whole book could have been a spoof, it it weren't so brilliant and coherent. There are plenty of cool characters, and to balance it out, the most cool headed actions in the book end up being despised.


To be honest, after reading two of his books, I am still undecided if Gaiman's works are a spoof or ordinary stories looked through a funny glass, whatever they maybe, they are so damn entertaining.



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