Have you read Neil Gaiman’s article in the Guardian entitled Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming ? It made the rounds in the library and FB world. Perhaps it landed within your universe, too. If you haven’t read it, please do.
I must admit that I haven’t loved everything Neil Gaiman has written. I don’t think one has to love everything an author writes. But I am currently listening to Neil Gaiman’s book The Ocean at the End of the Lane and I am entranced.
At first, I thought it was Alan Rickman reading. I love Alan Rickman’s voice. But it wasn’t him.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was Mr. Gaiman himself. I like hearing authors reading their own work well.
Can I just tell you that this book has me entranced. The story is a little scary for me, but here’s why I can keep listening: Gaiman isn’t graphic. He takes aspects of real life and twists it just enough to make it eerie. Even though I know the events in the book can’t really happen, it seems like they could, especially if I were 7 years old, like the narrator. Gaiman really captures the essence of his unnamed protagonist. Another character has one of my favorite names in a long time: Lettie Hempstock. I like how it rolls off my tongue.
And then there is Gaiman’s beautiful prose. I loved this line the best:
Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences.
When was the last time you stepped off the path?
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