“How old are you, really” I asked.
“Eleven.”
I thought for a bit. Then I asked, “How long have you been eleven for?”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane was the first book I read in 2014, and the first of my #Read26Indy books. I didn’t mean for it to be. I was trudging through Gravity’s Rainbow when I caught the flu. Not just any flu, but the worst illness I’ve had in years. I couldn’t leave the house, couldn’t even really walk around, and I definitely could not concentrate on Pynchon.
After watching Sharnkado on Netflix (sharks flying through the air actually did make me laugh and feel a little better) I decided to put the frustrating doorstop of a book aside and read something likely to be more enjoyable: Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. While buying Christmas presents for other people during the holidays, somehow this book had ended up in my online shopping cart and made its way to my house, where it was added to the top of my “to read” stack on my bedside table. It’s funny how that happens sometimes.
But before I get to the book, this is my opportunity to tell my Neil Gaiman story. I’ve met him a couple times, very briefly, in events surrounding his writing. I’ve always been a book nerd (I'm still proud of the "Bookworm Award" I received in kindergarten), so meeting Neil Gaiman was, for me, like meeting a movie star. The first time I met Neil was during a reading and book signing he did at a bookstore where I worked in Charlotte, North Carolina. His voice floated through the store as he read Anansi Boys and I served coffee to the religious book group that asked me if I could please go ask whoever was talking so loudly to be quiet. I was impressed that Neil stayed until every last person had their book signed, good naturedly smiling at even the man who had brought his entire portfolio of artwork to show him.
The next time I met him was after I'd moved back home to Indiana, when the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library invited him to give the annual McFadden lecture, and afterward I joined friends who knew him for dinner with Neil and about 15 other people. He told marvelous stories in his British accent that makes everything sound more interesting.
The next time I met him, I went up with the same friends to Wisconsin for a Neil Gaiman-themed weekend at the House on the Rock, which is an incredibly weird, sprawling house that no one has ever lived in, and which has no bedroom, with pathways and tunnels leading to warehouses full of the oddest collections of objects, like imitation gem tiaras and hundreds of Santa Claus figurines. It also has an underground carousel that typically no one is allowed to ride. The House on the Rock was featured in one of Neil’s novels, American Gods, so the weekend was a perfect fit for his fanatic, quirky, fans. Hundreds of people traveled there to hear him read and speak, and to see if their vision of the settting described in print would match the reality (it was much stranger than fiction, as the expression goes).
Through my friends, I went to dinner with them and Mr. Gaiman. And it is true, he really is as nice as he seems. I’m pretty much the opposite of outgoing when I meet new people, particularly ones whose work I admire, so I didn’t say a whole lot during the meal. My friends, on the other hand, are boisterous and fun to be around, and of course he loved them. We ran into him several times throughout the weekend, and when it was time for us to head home, he hugged each person and wished them well. I could tell when he got to me that he couldn’t remember my name. I don’t blame him, he met hundreds of people that weekend. So instead, he gave me a little hug and said, “Oh, you”. I thought it was funny, and sweet that he didn’t want to give away that I hadn’t quite registered. My friends called me “Oh, you” the whole way home. And so on to the novel.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is the story of a boy who doesn’t have many (or any, really) friends and reads books constantly, which reminded me of myself as a child, who finds himself drawn into otherworldly occurrences that introduce him to neighbors, and other creatures, who are not usual. There are parents who just don’t understand, new friends who do, and creatures that try to give people what they think they want with disasterous consequences. It was just today when I started writing this post that I realized that the boy is never named, all the better, I think, to put yourself in his place. The boy has to risk everything to save what he loves.
I attempted to explain the plot to my girlfriend and she told me, “That sounds like one of your dreams”. And maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. It was dreamlike, ethereal and outside normal life, but still believable. There is danger, and magic, normal, and extraordinary, all living together. It makes you wonder if, perhaps, back in your childhood, where you can't remember it, there really were fantastical events and creatures that you just can't remember now through your adult sensibilities.
I won’t go any further into the plot, because my recounting of it would not do it justice. But I encourage you to pick it up, if you like a novel that is outside normal adult life. And if you ever run into Mr. Gaiman, please tell him “Oh, you,” says hello.
