Tag Archives: Haruki Murakami

Neil Gaiman’s latest novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane is not a children’s story.

Not because it is too violent or scary — the story is sinister, at times savage, and very sad. But most of the danger feels safely constrained, and rounded off at the sharp corners, much like the fairy tales it echoes, where there is always a magical antidote to some evil and stories tend to end happily.

Nor is the book out of reach of a young audience, particularly. Children will read and enjoy the tale of a seven-year old and his eleven year-old friend warding off mystical forces that mean them harm. They will recognize both the pleasant and unpleasant adults, who at least start out seeming like people who would fit perfectly well into a Roald Dahl story (the children’s ones). Even still, the novel is not written for kids, and they may miss the heart of the story unless they revisit it later.

I feel the need to make this clear because Ocean is a quick and bracing read, and it would be easy to blow through it and think, “Another nice YA piece from Gaiman*.” But that would be missing the point, because Ocean is not a kid’s book. Ocean is a book about a childhood memory, and children don’t have childhood memories, much less can they know the importance of childhood memories as they ripple through years. Children don’t know what it’s like to return to a place you believed was an ocean, and see that it’s only a pond. Continue reading →