A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman’s first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys.
This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real…
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
By Neil Gaiman
Mythologies old and new.
The best book he’s ever written. This is one of those gems you can read again and again. Read it today!
As usual, Gaiman’s gentle style of writing draws you into to the story from page one.
Great book. Neil Gaiman has really evolved from his Sandman days, when he was more of a diamond in the rough.
Nice flow, nice mix of a supernatural that didn’t feel overdone and too familiar, and a slight surreal touch that has come to be a great Neil signature. At one point,his surreal touches felt a bit like a cop out, and slightly underdeveloped at that. None of that is the case anymore.
Dreamlike would be the word i would use to describe this novel. a great original story.
This was my first Neil Gaiman novel. A perfectly nostalgic story to an age that’s seldom written about.
In the Fantasy/SF genre, I’ve always leaned further into the SF realm. This story opened me up to the appeal of fantastical elements.
If you’re seeking a short book, this is the one. One downside to reading this on a plane is that Gaiman’s description of food will make you very hungry.
This is the story of a little boy (who is never named) who lived with his parents and sister in the country. One day, a man who had been renting a room at his family’s house was found dead at the end of their road. While the police investigate the case, a younger girl named Lettie offers to take the boy back to her house and keep him company. While at her farmhouse, he meets Lettie’s mother and grandmother and thus begins a fantastic fairytale. Lettie takes the boy on a walk, and insists she hold his hand, but when he lets go, a “othe world being” takes hold of him and Lettie and her family must work to get this being back where she belongs. The boy soon discovers that Lettie and her family are immortals disguised as humans and whose lake behind their house becomes an Ocean that heals when needed.
This was a great book. I have never read anything about Neil Gaiman, and hadn’t heard of him until my husband pulled 3 books of his off his book shelf. He is one of his favorite authors and I can see why. This is a short book compared to some that my husband showed me, but it covered the story beautifully in that short time period.
It only took me a day to read this book, but that was mostly because I enjoyed the story and wanted to know where it was going. I didn’t realize the little boy was never named until I got to the end of the book and started to look for his name for this blog post. The boy, when he left the house after the being was put back where they belong, was made to forget why he was ever at Lettie’s house in the first place. And when he returns 40 years later, some memories return, only to be swept away again as he drives away from their house for the last time.
I recommend this book. It was captivating.
The book enthralled me. I couldn’t leave it until finished reading. At first and maybe even halfway through the book it was brilliant. Toward the middle of the book, I think I already knew that I had received a reasonably clear answer, and since then I have remained on the one-dimensional tension of what is going to happen at the end of the plot. If it had dragged the question of whether it is an imaginary world or real until the end of the book, it would be a genius piece.
It’s been years since I was SO enthralled by a book. I was choked up at the end of the final chapter and had to stop…couldn’t read the epilogue. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want the boy to grow up—though I knew it was inevitable: he was, after all, an adult reliving his past—didn’t want to know what became of the wise and comforting Hempstock women, didn’t want to emerge from my ocean.
I don’t know exactly why this book had such a profound effect on me.
It had something to do with the fertile Sussex countryside, with the Hempstock farm—with Lettie, and Ginnie, and Old Mrs. Hempstock—with their pioneer spirit and simple sumptuous food: with their porridge and drippling honeycombs and pots of sticky berry jam; with warm unpasteurized milk straight from the cow (I’m sure I tasted that as a kid), with shepherd’s pie layered in gravy and mashed potatoes, and soup collecting in a hanging cauldron over an open fire. I wanted to join them at the scarred old kitchen table and whisper by candlelight and sleep curled up in the four-poster bed under the full moon— was both hungry and sleepy simultaneously.
It had something to do with magic realism (which I adore) and a delicate understanding of the soul and parallel worlds that know no space and time, with a reality that “was a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger” (143).
Yes, it had something to do with incredible writing, perfect pacing and simple, yet powerful, descriptions that sing through the mind of the boy like an incantation. The girls and boys come out to play…
A boy that could be any seven year old boy and no seven year old boy. An unnamed boy…every boy and any boy and no boy: the “pudding-and-pie-boy”, the boy from the top of the lane, the boy running for his life in bare feet across the meadow in a lightening storm wearing red pyjamas and a soaking housecoat. He’s a boy much like I imagine Neil Gaiman to have been: a boy that reads by a glimmer in the dead of night, that dreams of Narnia and Batman, that loves the rain on his face as he sleeps, that feels and thinks and believes in a world adults have misplaced; a boy with no real friends until…a boy that fights demons and will give up his life to save the world.
And, it had something to do with a fluffy black kitten on a pillow that made me cry.
I promise I’ve not given anything away.
You must read it to know it.
Should I read the epilogue? Can I? Now? Ever?
I finally read a Neil Gaiman novel!
It has taken me awhile to read Gaiman as a novelist, even though I read the groundbreaking and wonderful Sandman comic book series back in the 1990s. Gaiman is an author I have been meaning to read over the years and the time came to do it.
The Ocean at the End of Lane tells the story of a middle-aged unnamed protagonist who returns to his childhood home to examine what happened when he was seven years old and how that event that has affected him for the rest of his life.
The story written as a fairytale and has engaging characters like Lettie Hempstock, the best friend of the unnamed protagonist as a boy, Grannie Hempstock, the wise seer of the Hempstock family, and Ursula Monkton, the antagonist, who came across as scary.
I read this book in two settings (it’s only 180 pages). Gaiman is an excellent storyteller and it kept me interested throughout the entire novel. I will admit that I like this book more than I love it. Reading is subjective and some books connected you more emotionally than others. The Ocean At The End of The Lane did not have that deep connection for me. But, I believe it’s an excellent book to start for those who have not read Neil Gaiman. I’m glad I have finally read a Gaiman novel and I can cross this one off my reading bucket list.
Intriguing, dark, and a good representation of the world in the eyes of a child, this book was unique and creatively intriguing. The world building fell flat for me though, I know some people enjoy the mystery of it all, but Neil sets up and gives hints to the beautiful, elaborate world of the Hempstocks, but then never really goes in depth with any of its aspects. As I said, some people like the mystery of it all, but I felt as if I was missing a giant puzzle piece of the story once I’d finished it.
Best book I’ve read in 2018. First book I’ve ever read by Gaiman…it certainly won’t be the last.
A friend of mine highly recommended this book so I got it this weekend when it was on sale and promptly read it in one sitting. Gaimen has a habit of sucking you into his tales and this one definitely does.
A man is visiting his home for a funeral and goes to the house of a childhood friend and suddenly remembers everything that happened as a child. I really can’t say anymore without spilling the plot. So just read it already.
Finished it 3days ago, and my mind keeps going back to it. Quite odd. Like being little and have a high fever, and have those weird dreams. Very original and strange. Wanted it to be longer. Have a lot of questions I want to ask.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this an AWESOME book!!!!!!!!!!! Some parts, I’m guessing, were pulled from Gaiman’s own childhood and how he’d often imagine living it!!!! This is SUCH a good book! From the boy, Arthur I believe, and his unimaginative start, parent’s divorcing and etc., and his imaginative transportation with Lettie Hempstock, and that girl knows what’s going on, going to happen, and going on miles from her… HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Wished it was a longer book!! I loved the characters and the story.
Love Neil Gaiman! This book held my interest and I finished it in one evening. It’s a quick read but well worth it – one that I will read again and again.
An imaginative tale from Gaiman. Well worth a read.
Great Gaiman
I loved this book. Kept me interested from start to finish. I hated to see it end. Highly recommend it.