Back to THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

 I took my time finishing Neil Gaiman's THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE -- it's not a big book like NEVERWHERE or AMERICAN GODS -- it's only about a hundred and eighty pages.  And while I would have welcomed another big book, this one seems perfect just as it is. 

A middle-aged man returns home for a funeral and revisits a nearby farm where, as he dimly remembers, some strange things happened many years ago. The story reverts to the past and we see through his seven year old eyes, his close encounter with inexplicable things some Good and some deeply Evil. It's a wonderful blend of the everyday and the, for want of a better word, supernatural.

The young boy was particularly endearing to me -- he loves the Narnia books and recites Gilbert and Sullivan in times of stress -- this could have been me!

The three Hempstock women who live at the end of the lane include Old Mrs. Hempstock -- who remembers when the moon was made, her daughter, and her daughter Lettie -- who insists that the duck pond is an ocean.

 Just who or what these three represent didn't become clear to me till near the end of the book and then I smote my head --as an English major, used to looking for symbolism in the oddest places, how could I have not realized ? . . . 

I listened to the book, read by Gaiman -- who, as I said before, is a wonderful reader. I loved hearing it -- in a hard copy I would have read too fast and not savored the language as it deserves. But now I wish I had a hard copy to thumb through and look for earlier clues as to the Hempstocks' true nature.  Ah, well, I'll just have to listen to it again. (I've listened to NEVERWHERE multiple times and always hear something new.)

l

But before I go back down that lane again, I'm listening to another Gaiman read by Gaiman -- FRAGILE THINGS, a collection of short stories. I'm in the middle of the first one -- in which Sherlock Holmes is in an alternate London -- an H.P. Lovecraft sort of London where the Royals are creatures of another sort. For starters, they bleed green blood. . .

I'm hooked

Neil Gaiman Helps Me with the Pesto

Neil Gaiman's latest has been in my Kindle in Audible form for several weeks now. I've been hoarding it, anticipating the pleasure of listening to Mr. Gaiman read it to me.  And yesterday, the time had come.

The basil down in the box beds was overgrown and falling over of its own weight.  So I went in with the pruning shears and was ruthless -- harvesting a huge amount of basil and a lesser amount of parsley  (my pesto recipe calls for parsley too.)

It's a tedious job, going through and picking off just the good leaves... the kittehs didn't want to help. . . so I propped the Kindle up beside me and let Neil entertain me -- he's an excellent reader, by the way.  

.

I soon realized that this job was going to take several hours and so Neil and I moved to the living room where I could put my feet up as I worked.

At last I was ready to make the pesto.  -- six batches of it. . .

 The Cuisinart drowned out Neil's lovely British accent so I had to postpone hearing more of the story.

I ended up with 16 half pints of delicious pesto to put in the freezer and a bit over -- which adorned the fried pork chops and the potatoes  we had for supper.

Since I haven't finished the book, I'll say more about it another time -- but I can tell you that, half way through, I really, really like it. So did A.S. Byatt, according to her review.

(Merisi  suggested I add a link to the book on Amazon -- and HERE it is.)