Neverwhere: A Novel

Gaiman has always been hit or miss for me. Some of his books I love, some I don’t care for, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Neverwhere, outside of the fact that there’s something deeply satisfying about holding the illustrated version—something about thick little hardcovers is just the best feeling. Anyway, Neverwhere is a not subtle in its message: the homeless are invisible to those who want to pretend the “problem” doesn’t exist—but make it magic that has a very Tim Burton feel, because this is Gaiman, after all. When Richard sees one of those who have fallen through the cracks—a citizen of London Below—and proceeds to help her, it sets off a chain of events that plunges him into London Below and makes him just as invisible to London Above, and his old life, as the rest of the characters in this novel. In which there a lot, all of which are unique and magical and so beautifully distinct from each other. I even loved Mr Vandemar and Mr Croup who are unequivocally terrible people, but they are written in such a creative way that I couldn’t help but love them just as much as Richard and our heroine Door, with her opal-colored eyes. I loved the prose of Neverwhere, it read almost like it was meant for children when it’s so clearly not. There’s this whimsy to it, alongside Gaiman’s love of a metaphor and simile, which made the whole style just as magical as London Below. Speaking of, I loved the characters that populated this secret place. Gaiman was able to weave in a complex mystery and twists and turns into something that should have been an otherwise very straight forward plot: find out why/who is after Door and killed her family, and get Richard back to London Above. Gaimain, in this particular book anyway, is able to make you love and care for a character so, so deeply and then cut you to the core by taking them away all in one chapter. He’s also able to play with your mind about what is truly reality for Richard, and who should our main characters trust in a way that really added to the twists at the end. It was masterfully done! I will say that I read A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab before reading Neverwhere, and after reading Gaiman’s book, it’s really easy to see where Schwab got a lot of inspiration for that series: everything from the different types of Londons that only one person really seems to be able to move between, and even a certain magical coat. I’m not mad about this at all! It’s clear that Schwab idolizes Gaiman, and her writing is an homage to that without being a rip off. Its just something to keep in mind if you read this and things start sounding… familiar. All in all, this was a perfectly satisfying read—from just holding the book, to the perfect illustrations, the magical whimsy of the writing, and the cast of incredible characters that inhabit London Below. The story is dark, but with moments of tenderness and humor so I never felt bogged down to the point where I could no longer appreciate the imagery. Gaiman’s fantasy is always a reflection of reality with fantastic elements, so the ugly parts of our world are still present, but made magic so when you read you don’t necessarily feel preached to. But I can definitely understand why this style may not be for everyone—Gaiman doesn’t describe anything in a straightforward manner, instead almost tricking the reader into visualizing these delightful things. Which I loved, personally! This book was quirky and deep, fantastic and the kind of realistic urban fantasy I didn’t know I was missing until now, which is why this gets an easy 5 stars from me!

This is the first work from Neil Gaiman that I've ever read, so I didn't really have a good idea of what to expect. Neverwhere had me hooked from the start. Richard saves a young girl who comes tumbling out of a door that appears from nowhere and finds himself thrust into an entirely new world called London Below. London Below takes its cues from London Above (or is it the other way around?), where Earl's Court is a stop on the Tube in London Above, it is actually a darkened train car containing an Earl and his Court. The fanciful imaginative world of London Below, despite its darker twists, is a great escape for readers, especially if you've ever gotten into the drab routine of going to work in a city, reinterpreting it in the context of Neverwhere is a fun exercise. Richard, once he saves the young girl, Door, finds his fate entwined with hers as she sets out on a quest (with a few other characters in tow) to find why her family was killed. A highly respected member of the feudal states existing in London Below, Door is able to meet with and interact with many members of this strange society, acting as a liaison for defenseless and often seemingly witless Richard. As in most stories, these meetings and experiences change Richard in ways that will often surprise himself (though not necessarily readers). For me, the Marquis de Carabas, a sort of middle man and ultimately a companion to Door, steals the show. Scenes with him are often lively and entertaining, and his more devilish characteristics help balance out Door and Richard, who can seem too good-natured. At times it seems Gaiman could have delved more into the world of London Below and how it functions. Sometimes exciting bits are hinted at, but then never elaborated on. At other times, characters can seem to be cardboard cut outs. Silent but serious action girl extraordinaire, Hunter, functions as Door's bodyguard, but the reader doesn't really get to know her. Also, the ending can be a bit of a let-down. The book starts with a lot of promise, an exciting world, a quest, a motley crew thrown in together, a mysterious last message, strange abilities, but as it wraps up, it feels like it doesn't quite live up to all it could have been. But perhaps it's to the authors credit that so many details prodded my imagination onwards. I think this is a universe Gaiman could return to and elaborate on with great success. There are always other doors and other worlds to explore.

There are some people who say that London has no heart and if it has a soul it was sold, wrapped and delivered to the devil a long time ago. It is no use arguing with these people; what ails them will not be cured by reason or logic. It is quite possible that there is no cure, that they may be saved but never healed. I am convinced, though, that if there is a cure, it will come in the form of something very much like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. The first thing that the former doubter will notice is that London, far from having no heart and no soul, has a surfeit of them. For, like the doctor from Gallifrey, London has two hearts and, unlike the doctor, two souls to match. Within one heart and one soul lives the magical, infinite variety of London, with its evocative place names, its ghosts of eccentrics, stuffed shirts, urchins and poets, heroes and cowards; and its streets and alleys that echo with footsteps long buried beneath rubble and stone. It is this London that Gaiman plays with in Neverwhere. His London Below is not a parallel London. It is an intersecting world, coloured and shaped by London Above. There, in that intersecting world, the Seven Sisters are a fabled family, not a place; Serpentine is a feared but sensual figure; and just to keep the balance skewed, atop Centrepoint lives a denizen of Below who is only comfortable with distance between him and the ground beneath. And as if part of the reality of both, London's cavernous sewers run like a fetid umbilical cord between London Above and London Below. This is a wonderful book, a book of imagination and inspired storytelling. Gaiman has a knack for seeing the curious and odd in the ordinary. And despite the fact that most of his female leads are all variations of the same character, there are so many more who are delightful, even when they are not completely original or fresh. The dark ally, the Marquis de Carabas (from Perrault's Le Maître Chat, ou Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots to us) is a great creation; the implacable murderers, Croup and Vandemar are a classic villain combo - one smart and eloquent, the other a simple, single-minded brute - who are Gaiman's vehicles for the best comic lines in the book. Gaiman's best works are fairytales (or "otherness" tales?) that are not weighed down with gravitas: Stardust, The Graveyard Book, Neverwhere and even his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens . Each one of them is a better book, a greater feat of the imagination, than his slightly ponderous and self-consciously pop American Gods. In his otherness tales, his skill with language joins with his talent for story and his own alchemy of imagination transforms skill and talent into gift.

There are some books that I would never even have thought of buying if it hadn’t been for Instagram. This applies to Fantasy more than any other genre. I don’t know why that is, because I have read some fantastic books belonging to the genre during the last year or so. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is one of them. Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew, who moves to London from a small Scottish town. At first overwhelmed in such a big city, he soon settles into a routine and his awe with London recedes. Then he meets Jessica, who is way out of his league and turns him into a scatter brain, and Richard finds himself engaged to a woman much more ambitious and determined than him. One evening, when everything seems to be going wrong for Richard, he stumbles upon a bleeding girl on the street, and stops to help her. If things were bad before, they become unbearably worse after his decision to defy Jessica and help a fellow human in need. For the injured girl is the Lady Door from Neverwhere. Neverwhere is the shadowy reflection of London which exists underneath the London known to man. It is a world with monsters and assassins, angels and demons, and everything that has ever slipped through the cracks of the real world into this underground world. Richard is drawn unwillingly into this world when it seems that he has stopped existing in London Above. Now he has to stick to Door and her shady companions if he ever wants to go back to his former life. But the Lady Door is on a suicide mission to avenge the death of her family at the hands of the most gruesome and terrifying murderers that history has ever seen, and it seems likely that Richard will just be one of the casualties of this crazy quest. As grave and serious as the story sounds, it is anything but. It is irreverant and witty, and I fell in love with most of the characters. While Richard is funny as the clueless man being taken on an adventure against his will, and Door is admirable in her quest to find out the truth, it is the Marquis de Carabas who steals the show! And yes, the Marquis is named after the fictional Marquis from the very famous fairy tale, Puss in Boots. Neverwhere is a roller coaster ride of adventure, as the motley crew consisting of Richard, Door, de Carabas and Hunter, the bodyguard, dashes across London Above and Neverwhere to find the answers needed to solve their problems. The characters they meet on the way are no less remarkable. Whether it is Anaesthesia, the rat girl, the Earl from Earl’s Court or the Angel Islington, every character is tongue-in-cheek and batshit crazy! It would be remiss of me if I don’t mention the two terrifying murderers who are after Door from the beginning of the book. They are the main villians, and as villainous as a villian can ever hope to be. Maybe even more. They are Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. They are filthy and disgusting, with terrible table manners and no sense of humour. And they are hilarious! Even when they are dismembering and torturing living things, their banter doesn’t stop. At the end of the edition I was reading, is a bonus story about my favourite, Marquis de Carabas. And it was a bonus, because I have not had my fill of this wonderful, mad world called Neverwhere, and would love to visit it again some time. A fun read to take your mind off real world problems.

So the blurb says "Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk." Now, if you're expecting a knight in shining armor with a quest to save the damsel in distress, you can just drop this book. Because Richard Mayhew is the one who needs saving. Richard leaned against a wall, and listened to their footsteps, echoing away, and to the rush of the water running past on its way to the pumping station of East London, and the sewage works. "Shit," he said. And then, to his surprise, for the first time since his father died, alone in the dark, Richard Mayhew began to cry. Characters Wow, I'm so used to perfect, alpha males as MCs that I was totally taken aback to have met Richard Mayhew. He's the sweet, "safe" boyfriend who would make a dull, henpecked husband in the future. He's a bit of a muddlehead - the kind who messes up his appointments and locks himself out. Richard Mayhew is, for lack of a better word, a total pussy. "Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth . . ." Then we have the other characters. Lady Door, the bleeding girl, has the ability to open doors. Now, don't let my ineloquence fool you - it's an extraordinary gift. However, she's a total *yawn*. Her companions; marquis de Carabas and Hunter are much stronger and notable characters. And the antagonists were really dark, violent, magnificently thought-out characters. It was like as if Neil Gaiman had spent more time developing the secondary characters than the MCs. Storyline and Writing I have never heard of Neil Gaiman before this. But one fine day, the local bookstore had dedicated a whole section just for his books. And that got me intrigued. Further probing around GR got me to believe that Neil Gaiman is a magnificent storyteller. It was evident, from beginning to end, that he is excellent at creating this parallel universe. "So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding." How do I categorise Neverwhere? I grew up reading Roald Dahl's children's books and watching the movie adaptation. Do you remember the movie "The Witches"? It scared the hell out of me. I could vaguely remember the part where the little boy was forced to drink this potion that turned him into a mouse. I couldn't help thinking about that movie while reading Neverwhere. It gave me the same chills as The Witches. Neverwhere reminds me of Roald Dahl's, ironically, children's fiction: dark and violent. Conclusion: Don't let the MCs deter you from attempting this well-written piece by Neil Gaiman!

*SPOILER WARNING* I'm really impressed by the worldbuilding skill that Gaiman demonstrates in this novel -- I know I'm going to be thinking twice next time I get on the metro. I had a hard time putting this book down when I first started it: the main character, Richard, is endearing & funny & doesn't suffer from the Gary Stu complex that plagues so many fantasy/scifi texts, and discovering the ways of London Below along with him was tons of fun. Gaiman definitely has a gift for creating characters who are unique and memorable. Richard was great (I love protagonists who are not all Serious Business), as was the Marquis, Old Bailey, and many of the weird and wonderful denizens of London Below. I didn't like Door particularly, though, with her amazing flame-coloured hair (that "shone in the dawn like burnished copper") and her "odd-coloured eyes" that (gasp!) change colour... I'm confused about why Gaiman fell back on such a trite descriptive route with his heroine. Also, the fox/wolf thing that characterizes the two main antagonists was beaten over and over again quite tiresomely, to the point that when Vande-whatsit "howled like a wolf" (twice) I was rolling my eyes. Oh well. The other characters make up for it! I'm giving this three stars because, as much as I enjoyed it, there were a couple of aspects that I thought could have used a little more work. While the alternate underground world Gaiman created was original and fresh and unpredictable, the plot itself was unfortunately not: a Revenge For Murder Of Family plotline drives the narrative (with a standard whodunit driving *that* because we don't know who killed them) & a few quests thrown in for good measure (get me the magic key, pass the 3 tests with the Generic Mysterious Order)... meh! I was definitely reading to find out more about London Below than I was to discover whether Door would figure out whodunit and slay them dramatically (which she does). There were lots of fantasy-standard Mysterious Items With Magical Properties that I thought Gaiman could have done away with as well (mysterious silver box, mysterious silver key, mysterious knife, mysterious spear, mysterious feather). The text could also have used some tighter editing in places, especially to avoid this kind of repetition: "... and approached Old Bailey to embrace him and conclude the deal. The old man averted his face and held his breath until the embrace concluded" -- or "'[...] I can rely on your discretion."' '"You can rely on me, lady.'" Another little quibble: I would've liked the names to have been reworked/rethought as well, names do not have to relate to occupation or defining trait to quite this extent! Door (opens doors). The Night Bridge (is a dark bridge). The Golden (is golden). Hunter (hunts). Anyway -- my gripes are minor compared to what makes this book strong, but I did want to make a note of them regardless. All things considered, though, if you want to delve into a world that is as original as it is intriguing (and frequently quite scary), this is definitely worth a read.

Gaiman is a master of the modern fairy tale. I really enjoy reading his books. They take me away down the rabbit hole and, like Robert, I think it’s so much more enjoyable to read compared to the news of this crazy world.

Gaiman is one of the most reliably entertaining writers out there. He creates a world where the weird and magical coexist with the familiar and mundane world around us. Richard Mayhew is the hapless hero of this Gaiman tale. Richard, in an act of kindness to help a young, injured girl, unknowingly cuts himself off from London Above. Lovable, clueless, and yet somehow, strangely accepting of the world beneath the streets of London - London Below - where he finds himself confronting royal courts, floating markets, rat-speakers, angels, knights in armor and monsters, Richard is a wonderful protagonist. The majority of the tale is told from Richard's POV in third person and it is here that Gaiman shines. We see a man struggle with not only who he is, but how this is all possible, while also succumbing to the world around him in a way that allows his full participation, despite the logical part of his brain telling him, none of this is possible. Richard is curious and fascinated by London Below, but finds himself helping in improbable situations in order to get back home to London Above. Gaiman doesn't waste time explaining the mechanics of this world - we simply figure them out along with the protagonist - or not and, again, like Richard, simply suspend our disbelief and go along for the ride. He shows that world-building isn't about paragraphs and pages of backstory and info dumping so the reader 'gets it' but rather, he trusts his readers will accept and join his adventure. Gaiman brilliantly weaves myth and urban legend and humorous literalism into a magical world filled with bizarre and entertaining folk. Richard saves Door, a girl with powerful magic to open locks and doors and even create doors. Her family of openers been killed and she wants revenge. Richard, for his act of kindness, finds that he no longer exists in London Above - people don't really see him, his landlord re-leases his flat, his colleagues don't know him.... See no alternative, he joins Door on her attempt to find out what happened to her family. They are joined by the Marquis de Carabas - a thief who has restyled himself a lord and Hunter - who has slain mythical beasts like the Albino Alligator of New York. Along the way the meet of host of other characters who try to help or hinder their success. There is the Earl's Court that travels the 'dark unopening' car of an British Underground train that passes through the Earl's Court station (leaving Richard wondering if there's an Raven's Court....) and the assassins Vandermar and Croop - a bit like Pinky and the Brain and a hilarious take on the 'intellectual criminal and dunderheaded thug' type. Richard and Door's adventure is a traditional hero quest and the characters mythological in many senses. The book had me laughing aloud at the puns and the familiar yet wholly original takes on types. I'd love to see more of the world of Neverwhere.