Book Review on The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman weaves nothing short of magic by his mighty pen. This is a known and widely accepted fact. His imagination puts many a folk fairy tales to shame. One can think of this book as a fairy tale though. There’s a little boy who gets into trouble with unknown forces, three ladies who pamper and protect him like godmothers and a queer sort of ending that leaves you both happy and sad.

Through the voice of a middle aged man reminiscing about his boyhood, Gaiman transports his readers to the magical days of youth. The narrator, while going through a mid-life crisis, finds himself retracing his path to the old neighbourhood where he had lived as a child. The lane has changed much since then, but the Hempstock farm at the end of the lane remains almost untouched by time. The epitome of grandmotherly-ness, Old Mrs. Hempstock lets him in and sit beside the pool in the backyard to contemplate his life. He remembers that Lettie Hempstock used to call that little pool her ocean. The narrator experiences a unique kind of peace pondering beside that water body. He finds himself drowning in memories, and then learning to swim through them to the sanity of the shore.

He remembers his lonely seventh birthday, the financial trouble that led his parents to take in tenants and the opal miner moving in, accidentally killing the narrator’s precious cat. The opal miner runs into debt and commits suicide in the narrator’s father’s car. The little boy sees the dead body at that tender age and is scarred thereafter. Lettie Hempstock and her family offer him a safe haven at their farm. The opal miner’s dying wish sets off events that result in a supernatural being its way into the narrator’s reality. And all of it is fixed, time and again, by the wise Hempstock ladies. Their household is described as a warm, comfortable place where food is always aplenty and danger always far outside the walls. There is old magic binding the story together. And it is described in a manner that makes one think that there’s no other way the world would rather be.

In reading the book, one remembers the games every child has made up to occupy time, the friends little children make that parents can never understand and the monsters whose real faces only the clarity of childhood can see through. The readers find themselves believing the children’s side of the story for once. The story features the evil incarnate Ursula Monkton, who takes over the narrator’s home as the perfect housekeeper. The author very clearly defines the differences between good, evil and the nature of beings. One of the best parts in the story is when the narrator takes a dip in Lettie’s ocean. He experiences a state of enlightenment that can best be described as moksha.

Possibly the best thing about the story is how everyone can relate to it in one way or the other. All of the enchanting experiences of childhood are captured here in the timeless abode of Gaiman’s penmanship. He ends the story on a bittersweet note where the readers are left hoping for the best to happen to the narrator and for Lettie to someday return.