Neverwhere by Neil GaimanMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
As I was just about finished with this work, I hopped on over to the review section and found this little gem which sums up quite nicely how I feel about the book as a whole. As Frankie says, there are "cliche characters, cheesy narration and formulaic plot." Gaiman is quite good at setting up a story for what could be a good and entertaining read, (he is successful in some of his other works) but unfortunately he falls flat here. I could see all the mechanical cogs and gears in this story--the quartz bead from Anaesthesia, the Marquis' character, Richard's oddly-placed boar dreams--and because of that, when the big reveal happened for each of those events, I found I was... disappointed. There was a "well duh that was gonna happen..." kind of moment.
I also think that a lot of Gaiman's work have self-insertion type main characters (ever notice how a lot of them look a little similar to our scruffy, dark-haired author?) which completely takes me out of the story. I didn't sympathize with any of the characters, and when Richard first helps Door, which starts off this entire adventure, I couldn't really believe it. All of the characters were simple devices with the wires hanging out. The villians were overwhelmingly evil. The main characters (like Door and Richard) blatantly containing sob-stories as to be ultra-sympathetic. The story was too black and white. Too predictable. The big climax was especially...well, anti-climatic.
Overall, this book reeks of "anti-mainstream lookI'msopunk/goth/hipster/differentthanallofyoufucktardswhowanttobesuccessfulorliveinsociety graaaagh!!" Jesus Christ, give me a break. Tim Burton succeeded with Nightmare Before Christmas, but now everyone wants to be a Jack or Sally. It even reminds me of how my angsty ex-roommate writes. Amatuerish and self-important. So, I would say the book is a fairly entertaining and easy read, predictable and fantasmic, an attempt at seeming different, dark and edgy, but there's not a whole lot of depth to it. It's an alright introduction to "Urban Fantasy" fiction or "pseudo-science-fiction." Young teenagers who are in love with Tim Burton will probably like this book.
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2 comments:
I genuinely prefer Mike Carey's comic book adaptation to the novel version. It brings to life a lot of the color of the other London that gets damped down by the books overworked Gaiman-itude.
Interesting! I would like to take a look at that, actually. I've heard that Neverwhere was also a terribly rendered TV Show on BBC for a while...but I can't remember if the book or the show came first.
Either way, I'm always in the mood for a comic book adaptation!
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