Absurdland

ON THIS PAGE

City of glass, intimate

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Invigorating.

City of glass, intimate

I hesitated to classify this book in the "Absurdland" category because the author clearly wants to talk about himself. He even stages himself in the company of his wife and son. He doubles himself several times, alternately as "the author," the character of Paul Auster, and probably a writer, his hero, and his figurehead. He gives us the keys to his approach (the doubling of the author) by drawing parallels with Don Quixote, Cervantes, and a story of the origin of the work. I could therefore also have classified it in the intimist category.

But the absurd trumps the intimate. This is not pejorative. Many absurd works deserve their success, from Ionesco's The Bald Soprano to Beckett's Waiting for Godot. And the novel is as well constucted as it is well written, in a style of great fluidity and clarity.

Reference : read in the Faber and Faber paperback edition of The New York Trilogy, 2004

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Invigorating.

I don't usually read fantasy novels. This one was recommended to me by a work colleague during a conversation about art and personal development. This circumstance made me even more wary of these kinds of stories, which I imagine to be full of trolls, headless knights, and other malevolent elves. Nevertheless, I gave it a try. And I discovered a beautiful work, a style marked by humor and impeccable taste, a plot that, while admittedly improbable, is full of meaning, raising numerous existential questions far removed from the naiveté I suspected before crossing the threshold into that London underground. The novel is very British. It reveals both the modernity of its capital today and the historical roots in which it is anchored. The hero matures through his exposure to the dangers of the city below, the city above proving incapable of granting him a place worthy of his ambition, an ambition itself concealed before he is confronted with extraordinary challenges. A short excerpt to conclude this review, highlighting the quality of the style and the author's talent for creating atmosphere: "It felt not so much as if the lights were being turned down, but as if the darkness were being turned up". This is what Richard, the hero, feels when he enters the London of the underworld.

Reference : read in the November 2010 édition (Headline)

ON THIS PAGE

City of glass, intimate

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Invigorating.