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With another completed book between me and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (damn my procrastination!), I'm struggling to remember what I wanted to say about it. Oh right. Something about Gaiman's writing style (as observed in Stardust and Neverwhere) and something about movies. Got it.

Take two.

There's just something about Neil Gaiman's writing style. My experience reading Neverwhere was similar to the experience of reading Stardust. With both novels, I was drawn in by the clear and simple writing style that made the story feel like a childhood fairy tale yet couldn't quite guard against the fictional worlds' grim realities, grotesque villains, and fearful straits. The heroes in both novels--though distinct characters--were both similar in that they were affable and kind men who needed to be pushed by some powerful forces to reach their full potential (which, of course, was never quite what they envisioned it to be). Richard Mayhew, the protagonist of Neverwhere, is especially likeable. For some reason, he, unlike other Londoners, can really see the residents of London Below--an alternate reality where bartering is the rage, I.O.U.s are dangerous currency, kisses can be deadly, and bodyguards can't be trusted--which means to say, in the ingenious world that Gaiman created, that Richard, unlike other Londoners, can see the suffering of an old beggar woman in the rain or a bruised and bleeding victim crumpled in the corner.

Though I try very hard to not be the pretentious "The book was better than the movie" type (though odds are it was), I'm usually not super enthusiastic about marrying the two medias. That is to say that never before have I read a book and thought, "Dear god, please have someone make this book into a movie." Until Neverwhere. Dear god, please have someone make this book into a movie. (A quick google search informs me that there was a BBC miniseries in 1996 and the possibility of some sort of 2009 film.) I want to see this book. I want a fantastic director and all those other people involved in the movie making process to open the door to London Below, so I can see the doubtful and dignified marquis de Carabas, the perfectly luminous Angel Islington, and the terrifying and bestial Croup and Vandemar. His characters and fictional world are so fully-formed and uniquely imaginative that they just beg to be on screen. I mean, I would go. Opening day.

To sum up this scattered and generally indirect review of Neverwhere, Gaiman expertly creates an alternate reality so aligned with our own that it can't help but teach us about ourselves. And then he inhabits it with memorable, unique, disgusting, and loveable characters, who play excellent roles in his thrilling plot that keeps the reader guessing even after he or she has read the last page. Good stuff.

Quote:

"I have always felt... that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the final sanctuary of the terminally inept."