Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman is an amazing man. My first exposure to his writing came from the wholly confusing yet still enjoyable American Gods, which was mostly confusing because I had no idea who Gaiman was or how he wrote. Since then I've only seen glimpses of his work through the movies of Coraline and Stardust, and so I figured it was about time I picked up his very first novel, Neverwhere.

Set against the background of modern day London, we follow the trials of Richard Mayhew, an average man with average goals and an average life, which all of a sudden gets completely turned around when a mysterious girl named Door, who has been running from the deadly Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, comes out from a wall in front of him and collapses bleeding on the street. Despite complaints from his fiancee to just leave the girl, his compassion gets the better of him and he scoops up the girl and brings her back to his house to help her recover. While trying to reveal as little as possible, Door brings him on a quest through London Below, a mystical and very dangerous place consisting of London's sewers and so much more. She finds her friends, and leaves Richard confused and baffled back in his apartment.

But something has changed. Suddenly, no one notices Richard anymore. He can get their attention for a second or two, but they go right back to ignoring him soon after. He has become part of London Below, a helpless man who dropped through the cracks, and must find a way back to his old life while trying to survive the dangers that lurk below.

It's a delightfully creative premise, and Gaiman never fails to add his own flair to every location, every character, and every sentence in this book. By all accounts, I shouldn't consider this one of the best books I've read. The plot, while creative, when boiled down is a very simple and traditional quest plot. There is relatively little character development. The ending is rather easy to foresee and even a little cliche. And yet, I loved every single page. Where this book shines is not in those basic elements, it's in the pure unadulterated creativity, style and voice of Gaiman shining through. Gaiman's descriptions can turn a small shadow into one of the most terrifying things you could imagine. His quirky humor is littered throughout the book as well, helping to alleviate what otherwise would've been some almost unbearably depressing scenes. Toss in a smattering of Matrix/Inception like philosophy and you get a simple story with some amazingly complex undertones. However, where Gaiman's strength lies is in his characters, from the calm violence of Mr. Croup to the noble sliminess of the Marquis to the dark depths of London Below itself. While none of them really develop in the course of the story, each is already so rich as a character that they don't need to.

Gaiman has somehow managed to take a story that in other hands would've been thrown away and turned it into one of the best pieces of fiction I've read. I don't care about the simple plot. I don't care about the cliche ending. Neverwhere is by and far one of the best examples of something being more than the sum of its parts.

Neverwhere gets a 10/10.