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timepiececlockIt ended on a bit of a slow pace, like Stardust. But it had some interesting villains, and the storyline was quite imaginative. I can see why it won an award; Gaiman is a talented writer who creates beloved, emotionally moving characters in a lushly designed world. I liked the setting the best, with all the talents that the graveyard bestows upon its inhabitants, and how Bod comes to use those talents over the course of the plot.
Nevertheless, I have two complaints.
1. Unspoilery: Neil Gaimon uses the same stock villain in several of his books! I swear I could not tell the difference between the Jack[s] and the two pair of witty murders from Neverwhere. Spider falls into the same mold (for the first half of Anansi Brothers, at least), and some of the electronic gods had the same feel as well. But it was most noticeable with The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere. I am getting tired of this character, Gaiman. Please use that fantastic imagination of yours to think of something new next time, because this crush you have on well-spoken assassins is getting boring. (I did love the goblins, though!)
2. Spoilery: Something about the ending of the novel struck me the wrong way. Not the vanquishing on the villains, which was properly exciting, but about the way Bod was exiled from the Graveyard. He has to give up everything...not only the ghosts, his parents, but Silas too, and his physical home. It's implied--pretty thoroughly I think--that they're gone for good. I got the feeling that if he ever went back, at the most he might be able to see his mother, but home was basically wiped off the map as far as he's concerned. Like waking up to find everyone in your hometown was killed with a disease, except the girl you played tag with as a child, who managed to survive but had total memory loss and wouldn't know you from a frog.
Now, before I explain why this bothered me on a critical thematic level, let me roll out the obvious counterpoints:
1. Yes, he is alive and not dead, so his existence conflicts with the graveyard and he can't truly live within its walls. That was very clear.
2. Yes, he is growing up and everyone who reads fiction knows that only kids can see magic things because most adults are just stupidly blind that way. Trope.
3. Yes, the old argument is that you can never go home again.
On some level, all of those are true. Except, they're not. He existed fine for 15 years with the magic of the graveyard, just because he leaves to live doesn't mean he needs to lose the ability to see them even before he goes. Clearly the Jacks had magic; why can't Bod retain his own magic, at least enough to see his family?
The argument that you can't go home again only holds to a point--once you've grown up, you'll never be able to be who you were as a child so you'll never experience "home" the same way again, but your home in the literal sense--the land you lived on and every person you knew--usually do not vanish into thin air on you.
I wouldn't even particularly mind that, except that, as part of Bod's changing needs, it's presented as natural--as part of entering adulthood.
No, just no. To me, that's not what growing up is about. When you grow up, you take your family with you. Your friends go alongside you. You drag your parents into the next decade with fancy technology and exciting new slang. His book took the growing up experience, and robbed it of the collective nature of changing phases of life.
You don't have to give up everything to become an older or wiser person, to become an adult. Whoever thinks that is incredibly lonely. And didn't just grow up without parents, but apparently never had friends either. Which--yes--is true for some people, a small percentage of us, people who have lost their villages to disease or war, who've been sold into slavery. But is not true for most of the human race. And even in times of strife, we create new homes and new families from the people around us. Those who don't have blood family tend to create new families out of their friends, and they grow up with them. Even the kids that run away from home: for better or worse, they know home is still where they left it. Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, your past exists and the people that know you exist, because they travel through life right alongside you.
Hell, for some of us, it even means having that kid in your school you despised from 2nd grade till junior year, that kid who will never be your friend or date you or even respect you...they still change with you.
Childhood isn't something that happens in a way that one day you cross over a line and everything you loved or valued disappears because you're too old too see it. Sure, that happens in a few cases (really traumatic cases involving bombs and Ebola and kidnapping), and it's okay that it happened to Bod because I get that the graveyard was incapable of change. But I don't like how the book says "This is the way things are." How Bod grew up and had to give up the graveyard, as representing how children have to give up the comforts of home. But to way too much of an extreme.
No, Neil Gaiman. That's not how things are. This isn't a logical allegory for growing up, because the world grows up with you.
I can call my grandma if I want to know how to make Thanksgiving dinner rolls. I can look up people I went to elementary school with in Facebook. Even if every one of my family members disappeared from this earth tomorrow, I could still drive 450 miles for the sole purpose of going to my old day care to talk to the woman who taught me cynicism and critical political thought at age seven.*
It makes no sense to rip his entire family from Bod and exile him. It's unnecessary. It makes no sense that it be some kind of mystical requirement like the book implies, and no---we do not grow by the absence of our past. We bring our past with us every. single. place. that we go.
But, other than that, I liked it!
*In retrospect, she was a raging liberal who 'poisoned' my childish mind with her leftist anti-establishment thinking. I adore my memory of her. My parents liked her too.
Nevertheless, I have two complaints.
1. Unspoilery: Neil Gaimon uses the same stock villain in several of his books! I swear I could not tell the difference between the Jack[s] and the two pair of witty murders from Neverwhere. Spider falls into the same mold (for the first half of Anansi Brothers, at least), and some of the electronic gods had the same feel as well. But it was most noticeable with The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere. I am getting tired of this character, Gaiman. Please use that fantastic imagination of yours to think of something new next time, because this crush you have on well-spoken assassins is getting boring. (I did love the goblins, though!)
2. Spoilery: Something about the ending of the novel struck me the wrong way. Not the vanquishing on the villains, which was properly exciting, but about the way Bod was exiled from the Graveyard. He has to give up everything...not only the ghosts, his parents, but Silas too, and his physical home. It's implied--pretty thoroughly I think--that they're gone for good. I got the feeling that if he ever went back, at the most he might be able to see his mother, but home was basically wiped off the map as far as he's concerned. Like waking up to find everyone in your hometown was killed with a disease, except the girl you played tag with as a child, who managed to survive but had total memory loss and wouldn't know you from a frog.
Now, before I explain why this bothered me on a critical thematic level, let me roll out the obvious counterpoints:
1. Yes, he is alive and not dead, so his existence conflicts with the graveyard and he can't truly live within its walls. That was very clear.
2. Yes, he is growing up and everyone who reads fiction knows that only kids can see magic things because most adults are just stupidly blind that way. Trope.
3. Yes, the old argument is that you can never go home again.
On some level, all of those are true. Except, they're not. He existed fine for 15 years with the magic of the graveyard, just because he leaves to live doesn't mean he needs to lose the ability to see them even before he goes. Clearly the Jacks had magic; why can't Bod retain his own magic, at least enough to see his family?
The argument that you can't go home again only holds to a point--once you've grown up, you'll never be able to be who you were as a child so you'll never experience "home" the same way again, but your home in the literal sense--the land you lived on and every person you knew--usually do not vanish into thin air on you.
I wouldn't even particularly mind that, except that, as part of Bod's changing needs, it's presented as natural--as part of entering adulthood.
No, just no. To me, that's not what growing up is about. When you grow up, you take your family with you. Your friends go alongside you. You drag your parents into the next decade with fancy technology and exciting new slang. His book took the growing up experience, and robbed it of the collective nature of changing phases of life.
You don't have to give up everything to become an older or wiser person, to become an adult. Whoever thinks that is incredibly lonely. And didn't just grow up without parents, but apparently never had friends either. Which--yes--is true for some people, a small percentage of us, people who have lost their villages to disease or war, who've been sold into slavery. But is not true for most of the human race. And even in times of strife, we create new homes and new families from the people around us. Those who don't have blood family tend to create new families out of their friends, and they grow up with them. Even the kids that run away from home: for better or worse, they know home is still where they left it. Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, your past exists and the people that know you exist, because they travel through life right alongside you.
Hell, for some of us, it even means having that kid in your school you despised from 2nd grade till junior year, that kid who will never be your friend or date you or even respect you...they still change with you.
Childhood isn't something that happens in a way that one day you cross over a line and everything you loved or valued disappears because you're too old too see it. Sure, that happens in a few cases (really traumatic cases involving bombs and Ebola and kidnapping), and it's okay that it happened to Bod because I get that the graveyard was incapable of change. But I don't like how the book says "This is the way things are." How Bod grew up and had to give up the graveyard, as representing how children have to give up the comforts of home. But to way too much of an extreme.
No, Neil Gaiman. That's not how things are. This isn't a logical allegory for growing up, because the world grows up with you.
I can call my grandma if I want to know how to make Thanksgiving dinner rolls. I can look up people I went to elementary school with in Facebook. Even if every one of my family members disappeared from this earth tomorrow, I could still drive 450 miles for the sole purpose of going to my old day care to talk to the woman who taught me cynicism and critical political thought at age seven.*
It makes no sense to rip his entire family from Bod and exile him. It's unnecessary. It makes no sense that it be some kind of mystical requirement like the book implies, and no---we do not grow by the absence of our past. We bring our past with us every. single. place. that we go.
But, other than that, I liked it!
*In retrospect, she was a raging liberal who 'poisoned' my childish mind with her leftist anti-establishment thinking. I adore my memory of her. My parents liked her too.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 10:37 am (UTC)Also, if we're viewing the book as a metaphor for growing up instead of taking it very literally, then the disappearance of his home and his family represent not that we as people, whom Bod represents, have to leave behind everything and be lonely in life, but that as adults we are required to learn to do things on our own, because no, our parents won't always be there to help us. When we grow, we (supposedly, I'm finding this aspect of life very difficult to achieve, personally) move out of our parents' homes, we strike out on our own, and while the people we know remain, we still have to pay our own bills, care for our own homes, do our own laundry, buy our own food. We take care of ourselves. Sure, we can call friends and family for pointers or help if we need it, but in general we are on our own.
While you do have points, all I'm saying is I think you're taking it a little too literally. Which, honestly, is a problem with the book that you point out that I agree with you on, ironically: If you, an adult, read the book and get that literal lesson out of it, then the children for whom the book is intended and less able to see things metaphorically are very likely to get the same message from it.
Unfortunately, considering the setting, the story, and the trope, there really was no other way for it to end. The trope requires the growing child to, on becoming adult, lose the special sight that allowed him to see these special things. ::shrugs:: Unless he's Harry Potter and even the adults are all special and magical too. As pointed out above, though, the magical adults still don't have that particular ability.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 02:06 pm (UTC)As I said in the disclaimers above, there's an element of complete isolation to Bod's result that doesn't match with the normal experience you describe. Bod can't go call friends and family, because all of his disappeared. Of the two that are alive, Silas can contact him but not the other way around, and Scarlet left without leaving him any way to contact her, and probably is going to forget most of it because of the forgetting power of magic, if I read the end of the book correctly.
Unfortunately, considering the setting, the story, and the trope, there really was no other way for it to end.
Actually, there was. Bod loses his powers in the graveyard, loses interest in the settled life, and leaves. He's still able to see the ghosts. Or, if that's not enough, he's still able to see a few ghosts, because the power of love and the ties of knowing are strong enough that they trump the empty blindness of magicless adulthood.
Gaiman is talented enough at writing that if he'd wanted, he could have ended it any number of ways and been convincing. The magic of the Jacks was separate, but that level of detail is, again, completely determined by the author. It doesn't have to be that way; there's always a reason for it. The way he ended here felt like a thematic statement to me, and it's that statement that I don't agree with.
Which, honestly, is a problem with the book that you point out that I agree with you on, ironically: If you, an adult, read the book and get that literal lesson out of it, then the children for whom the book is intended and less able to see things metaphorically are very likely to get the same message from it.
I was thinking of it as a metaphor, not literally because I don't see ghosts, but yes, that's exactly what I mean. It felt all big and Message-y to me, as Gaiman's works often do. He likes the Messages.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 03:34 pm (UTC)Okay, I had a very long response to this breaking this down by the different variables, but frankly it came across as very smart-ass-like and I sort of hated myself for the long, dry academic deconstruction. X.x SO. Instead, I'm going to try to streamline my response into one coherent but brief paragraph.
I believe you're considering parts of the metaphor that aren't intended to be considered in developing a conclusion. Bod is a fictional character. Not all of his circumstances are going to apply in real life, thus we cannot apply all parts of the metphor or the conclusion of his circumstances to a real-life lesson. When considering the metaphorical lesson, we have to disregard the fact that 1) Bod grew up in a graveyard and 2) that he grew up seeing and speaking to ghosts, because these things are not likely to apply to a real-life child, and we must assume Gaiman knew this when writing the book. As the graveyard and the ghosts are the two things you are most concerned with disappearing, and we have now disregarded them as factors, then the loss of them cannot be considered part of the lesson Gaiman intended to convey.
:/ It still sounds dry, but you've got me in English major mode and I can't help it.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 05:07 pm (UTC)Trust me, you and I are talking about the same thing but coming to two different conclusions.
What they represent is what is taken away from Bod. He would have left willingly anyway, we know that he wanted to explore, but the all"people" in his entire "town" are taken away from him as the impetus to drive him out into the broad world. He doesn't choose to lose them all, and he isn't sent out with orders to come back for his tenth high school anniversary.
Anyway, I feel like we're both discussing this with more passion than I actually *feel* about it in the first place. I guess we both just like discussing!
My quibble with the ending didn't stop me from enjoying the book and I understood the story structure and the rationalizations for how it played out. You don't need to break that part down for me. =) I just don't feel that it was necessary, particularly, and the theme that ending created in my mind didn't work as a metaphor for growing up. This isn't a problem in the writing or execution; it's a dislike of the author's philosophical content.
I figure you probably wrote an long initial reply because I wrote several paragraphs about it in my entry. That probably makes it sound like I really care, which perhaps makes it something you can fix if you explain it right so that I am satisfied, but unfortunately it's not that kind of quibble. You could give me the most beautifully dry and persuasive statement and that wouldn't change the "What? But that's not right." feeling I got from the ending of the book. Also, I really *don't* care as much as all this writing seems like I do. The reason I wrote so many paragraphs in the entry about it was that I am loquacious--even about small things--and I over-explain stuff all the time. I sound it out in my head by writing all the aspects that I can think of down on paper. It makes my LJ habits long-winded. =)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 05:13 pm (UTC)This must be why you became known as Rashaka of the Mile-Long Reviews. :D
Anyway, I understand, I tend to do the same, hence the cutting of said really long comment down to one (hopefuly) coherent paragraph. Not only because it was long and dry and boring, but because the truth is I didn't care so much about this until we started discussing it, either. XD I guess I just like a good literary debate.
(I once had a "discussion" with someone over the validity of Oedipus in Oedipus Rex as a tragic hero... we were angry with each other for days.)