The Graveyard Book
Posted under: The Graveyard Book
On the recommendation of Iris Harper, I snagged a copy of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book from the library. I managed to forget exactly what she said about the book, except a vague understanding that she enjoyed it and it wasn’t terribly long.
Book Summary
The Graveyard Book is a YA novel, with a few illustrations peppered in to keep it visually interesting.
The protagonist is a young boy by the name of Nobody Owens. While still in diapers, young Nobody’s parents and sister are all murdered by “the man Jack” and Nobody (or “Bod”) escapes to be raised by ghosts and a mysterious person named Silas who one presumes is a vampire.
The book is more a loose collection of short stories than a single novel. Bod ages slightly for each adventure/chapter in the book until finally reaching the culmination, wherein he confronts the man Jack.
Style
The writing style has an older flavor – a cadence and way of choosing words that has largely been lost to modern novels. This made for a pleasurable and interesting reading experience – but it meant that I was always conscious of the fact that I was reading a book. My typical goal when reading a novel is to lose myself in the story. Clever or conspicuous writing pulls the reader away from the story. That doesn’t make it BAD writing, it simply achieves a different sort of writing goal.
The Nitty Gritty
My favorite aspect of the book was the worldbuilding – the amusing little asides and anecdotes about what it might be like to be raised by the ghosts of people from wildly different eras.
Although I did not dislike the main characters, I never felt truly connected to them. The supporting (primarily ghost) cast were all amusing, but mostly flat.
The growing peril of the story being told was largely undermined by the episodic feel of the chapters, so I wasn’t reading to find out how it all turned out or to be assured that Bod would get revenge. I wondered about these things, but I was not gripped by them.
Instead, I continued reading and enjoyed the reading because the way Bod saw the world was so unique and well-envisioned that I wanted to find out how he learned to read, or how he interacted with normal people, or how normal people reacted to him. I wanted to see him get advice from a long-dead (and self-important) poet or learn constellations from an odd woman who made him eat salads. I wanted to read about ghosts and vampires who debated the logistics of a banana as food for a child.
Kipling
In a stunning display of just how remarkably narrow-minded I can be when I’m reading a book, I did not draw the very obvious parallels to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book until reading the acknowledgements at the end.
The writing style, the “Boy Raised By Animals/Ghosts”, the types of adventures, the layout of the book, the title – all of these things and more were clearly inspired by The Jungle Book.
The Graveyard Book manages to pay homage to that classic without feeling like a rewrite or a copy. It stands well on its own, and (for those of us who read the original Jungle Book) its relationship with the other book only makes it more interesting.
Recommendation
I recommend reading the book, ESPECIALLY if you’ve read the Jungle Book and remember it with fondness. Even without that association, I felt it was more than worth the trip to the library and the time spent reading it, though I don’t think I’ll be purchasing a copy.
I enjoyed it and it wasn’t terribly long.
=]
I have added this book to my shelfari!
@KristenSue
Woot! I do hope you enjoy it!
Hey, I want you to know that I read the Graveyard book a while ago. I enjoyed it. It did originally start as a short story in an anthology (I think I read that too and was surprised by it being somwheres twice)
Oooh, I’m so glad you liked it! Interesting that it was also partially in an anthology. I wonder if he got enough feedback to be permitted to write the full book after that?