Hardcover, 192 pages
English language
Published June 18, 2013 by William Morrow.
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly …
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.
After reading the Vulture/New Yorker article I have chosen to remove my reviews of this man's content from my accounts. I choose to place this text here because I think it is important to juxtaposition these things. I also don't think that pretending I never read these things is particularly helpful either.
Gaiman' writing style is beautiful, haunting, and unexpected. I loved it and couldn't put it down!
Ja, hva skal man kalle dette? En magisk-realistisk autobiografi, en oppvekstroman, en fantasi eller en fabel? Jeg liker å lese en del av disse kategoriene, andre er ganske fremmede for meg. Spesielt fabler får det til å flimre i meg, jeg får ikke helt taket på de, og opplever de på samme måte som når jeg drømmer der historien ikke henger sammen, og jeg beveger meg på grensen til galskap. Samtidig elsker jeg oppveksthistorier, biografier som beveger seg i grensen mellom fakta og fiksjon, og magisk realisme er ikke til å kimse av.
Først og fremst er dette en roman med en reise inn i et barnesinn, og inn i hukommelsen. Hva husker vi, og hva er fantasifostre? Hvilken verden levde vi i, og hvor grensene mellom fablingen og forvirkeligheten.
Jeg har aldri lest Neil Gaiman før, har lenge tenkt at jeg må, og denne boken sto først på listen …
Ja, hva skal man kalle dette? En magisk-realistisk autobiografi, en oppvekstroman, en fantasi eller en fabel? Jeg liker å lese en del av disse kategoriene, andre er ganske fremmede for meg. Spesielt fabler får det til å flimre i meg, jeg får ikke helt taket på de, og opplever de på samme måte som når jeg drømmer der historien ikke henger sammen, og jeg beveger meg på grensen til galskap. Samtidig elsker jeg oppveksthistorier, biografier som beveger seg i grensen mellom fakta og fiksjon, og magisk realisme er ikke til å kimse av.
Først og fremst er dette en roman med en reise inn i et barnesinn, og inn i hukommelsen. Hva husker vi, og hva er fantasifostre? Hvilken verden levde vi i, og hvor grensene mellom fablingen og forvirkeligheten.
Jeg har aldri lest Neil Gaiman før, har lenge tenkt at jeg må, og denne boken sto først på listen fordi den har en fabel...aktig tittel. Det var virkelig verd ventingen, og nå er jeg klar for mer.
Much like Stardust, also by Neil Gaiman, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is a traditional-style fairytale for adults and I thought it was absolutely wonderful. The story flows perfectly with vivid descriptions and larger than life characters. How does Gaiman manage to maintain such inventiveness while also telling fabulous stories? The characters are perfect for their situations I loved the Hempstocks and could picture Ursula in great detail. I had already read other reviews so knew that this is more a novella than a full-length novel and I think it's just about the right length for the story being told although I would happily have spent much longer within this book. As it is short though, I devoured all this fantastic escapism in a single evening.
This book made me feel like a kid! Imagination and play are such wonderful things. This book reminded me of when my older cousin would take me on long adventures to find hidden treasure buried in the cliffs by our grandparent's trailer at Lake Eufala.
Šiurpulingas gėris.
The illustrated version made this 11/10
I love all of Neil Gaiman's work and this was no different. He weaves such great tales and captures the mood of fairy tales. Is his work about magic or actual magic? Hard to tell. Read the book.
Beautifully written and descriptive farm setting.
I guess it is long for a novella, but short for a novel. That means there is not a lot of room to build up characters. The protagonist is a bookish but uncomplicated boy but e.g. the parents are mostly ciphers.
It's an engaging story, I finished it in a few sessions, something I don't do very often these days. It feel very English, and very Rural, which isn't what I remember of Gaiman. It doesn't really break any new ground, but it well crafted, and the setting is more completely related than the characters.
It does have some scenes that would probably give sensitive souls (and children) nightmares.
couldn't make much of this. not my favorite Neil Gaiman book
I was rather underwhelmed by this book, Gaiman is a great writer and can take the reader on some stunning adventures but this book feels more like an idea for a story instead of a finished product. It might be that due to the story being from the point of view of a young child Gaiman has limited the language and story. There was a lot of potential here to create a story full of magic and wonder and that just never takes off.
I'd avoid this one and pick up one of his many other great stories.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a powerful story - about childhood, about memory, about being human. It's a beautiful book, in its own right - a story told through the eyes of a child, that managed to capture the essence of childhood so perfectly well, that I find it surprising that it was written by an adult.
The main character was simple - he is a young child, after all - but, to me, that was part of the beauty of it. As simple as the character was, he was actually relatable. How he saw the world around him, how he saw the adults of his life, all brought back memories of my own childhood, making me remember how I saw the world around me and my parents - and, in a way, how I still see them.
The other characters were interesting, mystical, and yet, …
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a powerful story - about childhood, about memory, about being human. It's a beautiful book, in its own right - a story told through the eyes of a child, that managed to capture the essence of childhood so perfectly well, that I find it surprising that it was written by an adult.
The main character was simple - he is a young child, after all - but, to me, that was part of the beauty of it. As simple as the character was, he was actually relatable. How he saw the world around him, how he saw the adults of his life, all brought back memories of my own childhood, making me remember how I saw the world around me and my parents - and, in a way, how I still see them.
The other characters were interesting, mystical, and yet, very real. In many passages, I saw my grandmother in Lettie's grandmother, while in others, she was something else entirely. I saw in the protagonist's parents my own parents' struggles and hardships, how they tried their best, but were sometimes influenced by anger and emotion and all their own flaws.
While the setting of the book is very mystical, with multiple dimensions, universes and beings, it felt somehow very real. A lot is left to be explained, that is for sure, but our own universe is filled with unexplained mysteries and unanswered questions. What the protagonist knows is what we know, and a child definitely doesn't know that many facts.
The book was real. It felt very real, and it spoke to me deeply. Memory is something so very precious to me, and this book definitely sparked memories of my childhood - happy and sad ones. A book that manages to speak so close to the heart is a book worth reading.
“Nothing's ever the same," she said. "Be it a second later or a hundred years. It's always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.”
What an absolutely mind-bending, soul-shredding book. It scared me, a lot, but made me smile even more. Plus, Gaiman reads it so the narration was fantastic.
The thing about Gaiman is that you always feel he is the hero, he‘s so good at making them seem so real. Another thing he’s great at is adapting many of the myths and legends from millions of years of humanity into something that fits today’s society, perhaps even into the distant future too.
The play on the dreadful school based adventure novellas we all read as kids was great too.
