The Ocean at the End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

Publish Date: June 18th 2013 
Publisher:  William Morrow Books 
Author: Neil Gaiman 
Website: Author’s Website 

Note 

            I wrote this months ago and then I couldn’t find my file. Don’t judge me.

Introduction

            A grown man has returned to his childhood village and he visits the nearby farm he used to frequent. As he sits on a familiar bench in front of a pond, he remembers that the girl who lived there, Lettie, told him that it was an ocean. The memories that slipped away from the adult trickle back and he recalls the Hempstock farm, the cruelty of his family, and how an ocean can be anywhere, if you ask it nicely. 

Story and Fantasy Elements

            I had read this book last year, though I read it quickly and it honestly didn’t strike me as too special. I re-read it this year, much more slowly, and I took in more detail. I noticed more of the fantastical elements. This book has layers and layers to it, so I suggest that you don’t try to zoom through it too quickly just because you like to read a book a night or you really want to be a speed reader (or something).

            I really like the fantasy elements here. There’s no wand pointing and simple magic words. What happens with the Hempstocks is older and beyond human explanation, and they are also bound by laws and basically, the way it is done. What I mean is that they can’t bend the rules and do everything so it is convenient to the plot. 
            Something that I would love to research (but I lack the time between adventuring), is the Hempstock women and if they correlate to the mythos of the triple goddess, of the three stages of a woman’s life. What I am referring to is the tripartite concept of the maiden, the mother, and the crone. I would love to write an essay exploring if all of the Hempstock women on that farm are really the same entity in different points of time. If I were still in school I would definitely try to persuade a professor to let me do it!

            One more interesting aspect of this book was all the imagery of water. I think a neat essay could explore the water in terms of religion, along with whatever else might come up in the book that I missed. 

Characters

            The main character…doesn’t do much that affects the plot. He mostly reacts. For some people that’s infuriating. He is just a child, and a believable child mostly, but he’s mostly an observer. In The Golden Compass, Lyra has agency and does things, but the main protagonist of this book does not. 
            I loved the Hempstocks, and I immensely enjoyed Lettie’s plucky attitude. She would be an interesting character to include in an essay about that one character a lot of books have that just know how to get things done (like Hermione).   

Child Abuse Interpretation

            I read this just as a fantasy novel about a boy who got caught up in some affairs that he, as a regular human boy, was not supposed to be part of. Some ladies in my book club said, matter-of-factly, that it was a story of abuse. None of the fantasy and wonderment ever happened. Rather, it was just a coping measure for the protagonist to deal with the abuse of his parents. This is similar to the theory that Harry never went to Hogwarts and all the books are a fantasy to deal with the abuse. 
            Personally, I don’t subscribe to the abuse interpretations for either. However, it would make for some interesting essays, though I am sure it’s already been done before (I haven’t checked, but I assume). I’m sure your teacher or professor would be impressed if you brought it up in an essay though, just to show that you have read up on the book and other interpretations that they might not have taught.

Complaints

            Although this doesn’t take away from my overall rating (5 stars on Goodreads), seriously, I am so tired of reading everyone’s full names in books over and over. Lettie Hempstock, Lettie Hempstock, Lettie Hempstock, Lettie Hempstock, Ursula Monkton, Lettie Hempstock, Lettie Hempstock, Ursula Monkton, Ursula Monkton, Lettie Hempstock, Ursula Monkton, Harry Potter, Lettie Hempstock…stop it. There is only one Lettie, only one Ursula, one Harry. Usually, no one thinks in terms of full names in their heads. You don’t look at your kid and think, Lexi Alsop looks bored, maybe we should go to the park. Or, Wow, Lexi Alsop takes up the entire bed. Stop, stop, stop, please, Neil Gaiman. 

Final Verdict

            It is a beautifully written novella. I recommend it to people who like fantasy without the medieval setting and without it being extravagant. This is the only Gaiman work I’ve read, so I don’t know how well it holds up to his other work. If a reader doesn’t like exploring subtexts or thinking too much into what they are reading, I would still recommend it. Just reading it “straight up” was an interesting ride. Not that I think this would happen too often because of Gaiman’s reputation, but it is not a children’s book, despite the young protagonist. Unless you want to explain the muted sex scene to your kid.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Gilmore Girls’Reading List

Publish Date: 1963

Author: Sylvia Plath

Note

Everyone has heard of Sylvia Plath's one and only novel, and it seemed like everyone in high school had read it except me. Everybody I knew was a feminist, idealizing suicide and not belonging, and I just put it on my "To Be Read" list. So if you're like me and the only thing people ever spoke about this book was the suicide aspect (because that's all they were reading it for, honestly), you might not know what else the book is about. It’s Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in 1963. It was not published in the US until 1971, eight years after her death. In a nutshell, it’s about madness, identity, role models, gender norms, society, and happiness.

Introduction

Esther Greenwood, clever academically and aspiring writer, has won a trip to New York with some college classmates to intern at a fashion magazine. It is here, on her own in the adult world, that she learns about herself, sex, men and women, and her friends. Once she leaves New York to the next leg of her journey though life, she hits a standstill. By any standards, Esther is different - her actions for her age don't always make sense, and it makes life difficult for her. These difficulties put her on a deliberate path that most people shy away from.

The Beginning

The beginning of the novel is so different from the rest. In New York, Esther is making decisions and learning, and I felt that she was growing up though she was a bit strange and sometimes surprisingly mean. It feels like a coming of age story with a sharper edge an usual. She’s telling the reader her view of the world, and if you're paying attention, she's very cynical about it, but she’s conflicted about how she fits into it. It's when she leaves New York that we get the real turning point. An event sets her off into a spiraling depression, but from her cynicism in her New York experience, you can see that it isn't out of the blue. It’s like she’s walking down a dimly-lit staircase one step at a time – the reader is waiting for her to start going back up towards the light, but she keeps going down.

Themes

If thinking about depression, trying to understand depression in others, or if you think people should just buckle up, this book isn't for you. Same goes for suicide. It's not a bad thing, it's just hard to listen to people complain when they should have gotten the hint before reading. (If you hate vampire romance novels, don't read Twilight and complain about it.)

That said, you can easily write intriguing essays using this novel in university or high school. I’ve read that this book is studied in high school, so unless you come from a school with blinders on, I’d say it would be alright. Possible essay topics include:

• Oppressive gender roles;
• Models of women that are available for Esther to model herself as;
• Psychiatry of the 1950s (madness vs depression…can someone write a comparison to the works of Emilie Autumn and The Bell Jar? Please?);
• The role of the media;
• The stigma of mental illness; and 
• The imagery and metaphor of the bell jar.

 Characters

Esther is difficult for some readers because she lies to herself and others, so who she is doesn’t resonate for a long time (and she is trying to figure it out as well). However, that was the fun of Esther. When she did irrational things I was confused. Is she just so “feminist” I don't get it? Is she just "crazy" and she cannot be comprehended? I kept trying to make sense of her but I couldn't, even at the end, and I like that about her.

There is one character that surprised me from one chapter to the next. I am on the fence about the believability of this character, but hopefully it will continue to make readers think. Mental health issues are heavily stigmatized and yet they can also be romanticized. It’s such a terrible thought that someone could be faking the need for help, but the way that she acts and describes her situation left me believing that she was romanticizing her “craziness” rather than genuinely experiencing distress.

The book generally has a disparaging cast of men, and the women are diverse. Her mother, her sexually liberated friend, her “goody-goody” friend, the baby-factory neighbour, her doctors, her benefactor, her boss…there are many characters. As Esther is trying to write her own identity, she looks towards a whole host of people to compare herself to.

Final Verdict

I definitely recommend this for a library collection (it's currently in our hospital’s small fiction collection). It would be a hard sell for a teen book club, though if everyone wanted to read it because they had heard that they should, go for it (unless you fear overprotective parents). Overall, I'm glad I read this at this point in my life and not when I was 16. (Sorry, 16-year-old me.) Not that I wouldn't have understood it, but everyone was reading it for the insanity, the suicide, the implications of sex, and a loose idea of feminism, and I think I would have been swept away by the hype.

I don’t think this line would have struck me so deeply:

“I wonder who will marry you now, Esther.”

Rise by Anna Carey

 The Eve Series 

Eve, Once, Rise 

Published: April 2nd 2013

Publisher: Harper Audio
Website: Author’s Website
Series: Eve
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged 
Narration by: Tavia Gilbert

Quick Review

Introduction

            Taking place after the events of the last book, Eve has to live in the palace of the City of Sand. Caleb has been executed, she has married Charles against her will, and she soon discovers the repercussions of her one night with Caleb. Life in the palace plays against the backdrop of a growing revolution in the city, and Eve wants revenge against her father for killing the one man she has ever loved. Luckily, the elusive Moss is there to help.

Characters

            The characters in the last installment face many changes. Eve has been separated and reunited with most characters. Most are satisfying, and some will break your heart.

Arden is absent for most of the book. Where she does go, I saw it coming, but it made me cheer inside. This book cements her sheer awesomeness, but she really needs her own book series.

Clara has changed in this book for the better. She still carries the same bossy attitude, but she moves forward with Eve in many ways. She is an example of a character that changes with the tides of the world but still keeps her essential characteristics. She is another character that I do not want to say goodbye to. She doesn’t get much of an ending for herself, though the reader can assume her fate in the end.

Charles, poor Charles. He tried so hard with Eve, but she was forced to marry him. He could have forced himself on her, despite her love for a dead man, but he doesn’t. In fact, he goes out of his way to protect and help her. All for a woman who doesn’t love him – a woman who wants to tear down the very society that has treated him very well.

Rebellion

            I have to say that the rebellion aspect was a little underwhelming, though that is because the reader is delivered events only from Eve’s perspective, and she is stuck in the palace or within the city while under soldier supervision.

            Where the book shines is what Eve does for the rebellion. In Once, Eve was forced to leave Arden, Pip, Ruby, and all the other girls at the schools. Readers have criticized her for not doing anything for them (though when exactly and how was she supposed to manage that?). In this book, she takes action to save as many girls as she can. Her actions are realistic – at that point, she couldn’t take down the government all by herself. She helped as many girls as she could muster in a short amount of time. Girls were left behind, so it feels like Schindler’s List – she wished she could have done more, but she moved forward with those she did save.    

The Very End

Spoilers ahead

This is my very favourite part of the book, and after a brief search on the internet, a lot of people hated it. And yes, you can write whole feminist essays in favour for, or against, the ending. Personally, I was so happy that Rise ended the way that it did. Since this is a quick review, I will only go through my reasons briefly.

So, Caleb isn’t dead. Yes, this resurrection is a bit…exasperating. Granted, I didn’t see it coming, and it could happen. Eve’s father is a duplicitous and calculating man. If he needed some leverage against her, he would still have Caleb’s life to manipulate her.

Caleb starts the revolution, as far as Eve is concerned. She helped the rebellion by stealing maps in Once, so she was willing to help where she could. Once Caleb is dead, she helps more, in more drastic ways. You could say that it took the death of “her” man to move her to pivotal action/revenge. Thinking that he was dead gave her the edge to risk everything. She killed her father, the King of The New America, because she was angry and wanted change and revenge. To her, it was his revolution, and she wanted it to happen because she loved him and she saw the terrible conditions. She was able to do it, but she didn’t do it for him, for him to love her, or so they could live freely together. He was already dead. She did it because it would bring the change they wanted. She got him back after she achieved her goal, and she wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t her goal. He was an unexpected revelation. It can be said that the author gave her a happy ending that she wasn’t expecting, but she deserved it. I do wonder though, how different the book would be if Caleb was never “dead”. Would she have had the courage to kill her father if Caleb were still alive? Would the task be purposed to her? What else would she have done, if anything at all?

The only thing I find strange is that she calls herself his wife. Well, that’s nice, though technically they aren’t married. But what do you call yourself? Declaring that she’s his girlfriend doesn’t do much for last words of a novel. Maybe the hospital won’t let her see him if they aren’t related. It’s just that they aren’t so it was weird to hear it. I’m sure they do get married and live happily ever after the book (and apparently, the author has written an epilogue, though I don’t think it’s needed).

   

Final Verdict

            If the first two books of the Eve trilogy excited you, the third is an excellent conclusion. It’s a realistic rebellion story – Eve is a single cog that has an important role in one event, but she doesn’t win the war all by herself, and she doesn’t even fight. Eve does her best to act appropriately when, in previous books, she failed. The series is great material for that teen who has read all the popular dystopian novels already.