Summer Reading: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

When I published my summer reading list I had several people recommend The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman so I was very eager to read it, despite the fact that fantasy is not a genre that I usually enjoy (although I did as a teenager). An unnamed narrator returns to his childhood home for a funeral and begins to remember long-suppressed events which happened forty years ago when he was a seven-year-old boy. As he walks to the farmhouse at the end of the land, he remembers himself as a lonely (no one comes to his birthday party) and fearful boy with distracted parents and a bratty younger sister who finds solace in the adventure stories he reads. He befriends his neighbor, a mysterious eleven-year-old girl named Lettie Hempstock, along with her mother and grandmother, and they inadvertently open a wormhole (literally) for a malevolent presence to enter his house. Lettie helps him summon a strength he didn't know he possessed to fight against this evil. As the narrator leaves Lettie's farmhouse, he once again forgets these horrific events and returns to his ordinary life. I have to admit that I really struggled while reading this because the events seemed so fantastical and, frankly, a little strange (Oh, what happened to the girl who loved A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle?). Now that I've finished it, however, I can't stop thinking about it. Once I rediscovered that girl who loved A Wrinkle In Time, I came to appreciate this novel as a metaphor for childhood and the magical worlds that children inhabit before they embrace the cold reality of adulthood. Imagery and symbolism abound (Gaiman's writing is truly beautiful) and the more I think about the elements in the story, the more I understand them, especially the ocean, the wormhole, and the giant flapping canvas monsters. I highly recommend this novel to help you remember what it was like to be a child. Just make sure you check underneath your bed before you start reading!