Sharp Words

Catherine’s rating: 9 out of 10
Ken’s rating: 10 out of 10

This is a very timely review, because The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman’s latest novel for children of all ages, won the Newbery Medal on Monday. (Neil’s reaction by Twitter was very funny, though his blog post about it thankfully has less swearing).

The Graveyard Book is the tale of Nobody (Bod) Owens. When he’s 18 months old, the rest of his family is assassinated by the mysterious Jack, but the little boy hides in the old graveyard nearby. The ghosts who live there decide to look after him, with the help of Silas – a personage who is not-dead but not-alive, and wears a lot of black. (It’s not hard to guess what he actually is; there are plenty of clues.) Given the Freedom of the Graveyard, Bod grows up able to see in the dark, to touch the ghosts, to Fade and to send the Fear. But he has very little contact with living persons, and that which he has often ends in trouble. Naturally enough, Bod wants to find out who kills his family, and in the best story-telling traditions, he does so – with consequences.

Catherine: So that’s the brief synopsis; now onto our review. And I’ll let Ken have the first proper words.

Ken: I had such fun with our Book Thief joint-review, it’s great to have a go at a second one. It’s got the word book in the title too, which proves we don’t just throw this stuff together.

Catherine: Yeah, I noticed the book thing too; and weirdly enough, another novel I wondered about reviewing with you was John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things!

Ken: It was you, Catherine, who introduced me to Neil Gaiman. I knew the name, of course, but had never read anything. Your blog was complimentary – did I actually ask you to recommend one? I think so. Anyway I read American Gods and it was a lovely reading experience – ideal really, a big fat book on the bedside table, one that I looked forward to getting back to. I haven’t read any more since although my youngest son got Coraline in his Christmas Stocking (clever Santa) so I might give that a go soon.

But The Graveyard Book – I was looking forward to this one a lot. I dropped some hints that I would welcome it as a pressie and I got it so, soon after Christmas, I settled in and read it.

Catherine: Glad to have been of service, Ken! I’ve been familiar with Neil for years, and I’ve even met him at the Anansi Boys signing in Belfast a few years ago. (Well, I say met – I actually just went all wobbly when asking him to sign some books. Although I did manage to ask a question in the Q&A, about Beowulf which gave him an excuse for an Angelina Jolie anecdote…)

Ken: I think I would have gone wobbly too. Now, here’s the problem. We’re going to review this book via our discussion. Okay… I just really hope you can dredge up some negative stuff to say about it or else it might be a really short chat! I loved it from page one. I tumbled into the story and fell for it all hook, line and sinker.If you did
too (and I would guess that you might have) then what the hell are we going to talk about? Well, let’s see…

I think this is one of those rare books that will be better read in hardback. Is that silly? It’s got a little tome-like feel to it that I sense will be lost in a light paperback edition. So treat yourselves.

Catherine: I agree, it makes a lovely hardback! One of those you keep for posterity… And I have the version with the Dave McKean illustrations, and their swirliness gives a nice sense of otherworldliness to the text.

Ken: Ah! I have the one with the Chris Riddell illustrations. I like them, they’re moody and entirely appropriate. I must try and see your version. I might have to buy that too. Perhaps the thing I like most is the atmosphere. This little book is positively dripping with atmosphere. The lost child, the mysterious villain, the eerie setting of most of the action, the other-worldliness of it all. The chapter which runs away with the atmosphere prize is Danse Macabre (Chapter 5).

Catherine: Really? For me, it was Chapter 3, The Hounds of God – although I suppose that was less about the atmosphere of the graveyard itself and more about the ghouls’ world (which felt an awful lot like Mordor). That chapter reminded me a lot of the one in The Jungle Book where Mowgli ends up going off with the Bandar-log (the monkeys).

In fact, Neil says himself that the story owes a lot to The Jungle Book (by Rudyard Kipling of course), and it  follows a similar pattern of Boy loses Family; Strangers take in Boy; Boy grows up and has adventures; Boy finally grows up and has to Leave his Childhood World for the Adult one. In Chapter 7 (Every Man Jack), where Bod finally meets his nememis, he uses the graveyard to trap his opponents, and it’s described in language that feels a lot like Mowgli’s hunt for the tiger Sher Khan.

(Although I admit that it’s been quite a few years since I’ve read either part of The Jungle Book, but I knew both very very well as a child (and can still recite most of The Law of the Jungle), and reading this novel brought back a lot of memories.)

Ken: I didn’t get that Jungle Book connection but I do now that you mention it. The Graveyard Book is a children’s book but it is beautifully written. Could it be that the clarity required to successfully tell a good story for children is the key to writing a good book for anyone? The process which, by necessity, must cut away all that is extraneous and unclear, is something that more writers should perhaps consider.

Catherine: Neil Gaiman definitely excels in writing books ostensibly for children which appeal to everyone – though of course, he has a lot of adult fans anyway, who (like me) will buy pretty much anything he does. Stardust is another good example of an age-spanning novel, while in Anansi Boys, he uses a straightforward style similar to The Graveyard Book to great effect.

Ken: So, I loved this book. I am now going to pass it on to my twelve-year-old boy and I am confident that he will like to too. How great is that? A book that spans the generations. But now I’m going to try to be critical. (Did I mention I liked it?) It’s good to be a little critical, these faculties need to be stretched from time-to-time or else everything starts to look great. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

I might say that the ghostly characters in the book seem a little less rounded that the other characters. I found them to be a little one-dimensional, I found that they didn’t develop or grow on their passage through the narrative. But wait, that can’t be a criticism, that is doubtless quite deliberate on the writer’s part. As Silas says, near the end, “All the people here have had their lives… now it’s your turn… to live.” So the one-dimensional aspect of the graveyard inhabitants only serves to drive home the point of the book. Criticism? Fail?

Catherine: I think I’d agree with you that they are one-dimensional, and also that they are supposed to be. Again, drawing parallels with The Jungle Book, Bod finds himself growing beyond the child ghosts who were his playmates; he can grow up but they can’t. In The Jungle Book, it’s a bit different: Mowgli’s friends instead grow old long before he will, but there’s a similar sense of learning your own mortality.

Ken: Okay, here’s a criticism. The honour guard allies who guard and help little Bod – they’re a tad ‘Harry Potter’ aren’t they? Werewolves and Vampires (oh, come on! How could anyone not know?) and Mummies. Even some of the names… ‘Lupescu’ – any chance she’s going to turn out to be a wolf? Naw, really?

Catherine: Oi, Ken, mind out for spoilers! Though you’re right, Silas and Miss Lupescu weren’t hard to figure out. I suppose they were a bit Potter-ish, although Harry’s allies are predominantly human (well, wizards and witches). Although the reason why Jack was trying to kill Bod was also very Potter-esque.

Anyway, I liked that we didn’t really see the Honour Guard – they were a presence in the background, and two of them had a direct hand in Bod’s upbringing, but it’s not till nearly the end of the book that we find out just what they’ve been up to.  (And I loved the idea of the mummy carrying around a pig, just because. That’s not a spoiler, honest.)

Ken: Oh, oh, I thought the Ghouls were very good too, really great! Criticism? Well I tried, didn’t I?

Catherine: I liked the way the ghouls were named, gruesome as it is! And in a similar vein, I liked the way the ghosts’ names were often followed by their epitaphs, such as Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish (Who Did No Harm to No Man All the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?)

Anyway, as regards criticism: you did give it a try, Ken, and I applaud you for it. No, really, I do, because I’ve also found it hard to find things in this novel that I can criticise. Perhaps the fact that it’s so short? I’m sure there are more stories that could be told about Bod’s upbringing, and who knows? Maybe some of them will crop up in short story collections in the future.

Ken: I don’t usually go in for ’scoring’ books but I’m going to give this one a 10 out of 10 and I don’t do that lightly. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Catherine: In short, I really liked this book too! And of course, being a big Neil Gaiman fan, I’m rather biased. But I can cheerfully recommend it for anyone who likes slightly spooky adventure stories, from the age of quite-young to quite-old.