soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2016-09-07 09:02 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2016-09-07 09:02 pm
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
I am reminded that there is a difference between finding a book compelling and actually LIKING it. The whole thing feels extremely Gaiman to me, in a way I can't quite put my finger on. And Gaiman tends as a whole to just not quite work for me. Oh, he's certainly a talented writer, but I just can't love the guy's books the way so many people do. And I don't hate them either, as many other people apparently do. He's just kind of eternally in a place of "I see what you're doing but ehhhh."
(I did genuinely like both Graveyard Book and Anansi Boys. But I think I can never reread Anansi Boys because embarrassment squick, which puts Graveyard Book as the sole true outlier. But I keep reading Gaiman books anyway! I guess there always feels like a chance that THIS time his writing will work for me.)
My biggest problem with this book, I think, is that the nameless protagonist/viewpoint character is just so bland and presenceless. The Hempstocks are fascinating, I am interested in the worldbuilding, there's some nice imagery, and there's nothing wrong with Gaiman's prose. But the main character had no actual character. And when you have such a complete lack of any kind of actual feelings about the main character of a book, it rather causes problems with one's enjoyment of the book. The feelings about the main character don't even have to be positive! There should just BE SOME. He seemed to me like a nonentity, there only to move the plot along.
A lot of characters in this book felt one-dimensional, actually. The rest of the protagonist's family for sure, and Ursula Monkton definitely. (I also didn't care about Ursula Monkton as the antagonist. The type of being she is as a larger worldbuilding thing, sure. Her in particular, not at all.) Even with the Hempstocks you only see hints of their complexities, possibly in part because you only see them from the POV of such a remarkably boring dude.
Anyways in conclusion I would read a book all about the Hempstocks in a heartbeat but probably not if Gaiman was writing it because I just can't care about his priorities, apparently.
(I did genuinely like both Graveyard Book and Anansi Boys. But I think I can never reread Anansi Boys because embarrassment squick, which puts Graveyard Book as the sole true outlier. But I keep reading Gaiman books anyway! I guess there always feels like a chance that THIS time his writing will work for me.)
My biggest problem with this book, I think, is that the nameless protagonist/viewpoint character is just so bland and presenceless. The Hempstocks are fascinating, I am interested in the worldbuilding, there's some nice imagery, and there's nothing wrong with Gaiman's prose. But the main character had no actual character. And when you have such a complete lack of any kind of actual feelings about the main character of a book, it rather causes problems with one's enjoyment of the book. The feelings about the main character don't even have to be positive! There should just BE SOME. He seemed to me like a nonentity, there only to move the plot along.
A lot of characters in this book felt one-dimensional, actually. The rest of the protagonist's family for sure, and Ursula Monkton definitely. (I also didn't care about Ursula Monkton as the antagonist. The type of being she is as a larger worldbuilding thing, sure. Her in particular, not at all.) Even with the Hempstocks you only see hints of their complexities, possibly in part because you only see them from the POV of such a remarkably boring dude.
Anyways in conclusion I would read a book all about the Hempstocks in a heartbeat but probably not if Gaiman was writing it because I just can't care about his priorities, apparently.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I loved Sandman (mostly) when I read it as a college student in the early 2000s, but it was also the first real fantasy graphic novel I'd read (as opposed to superhero comics, humor strips, or family history/memoir), and also it's so very much of its era. Like, it's not so much that the Suck Fairy has visited the series since (though it probably has) as that the 80s were a long time ago and I've read a lot more graphic novels, plenty of which were also influenced by Sandman, and it no longer seems FRESH AND EXCITING AND RELEVANT. But everything else -- I mean, it's fine? I've liked some! But something in his prose and characterization always makes me go "well, okay, that happened," and much of the time I just kind of wander away from the book without either ill-will or great interest.
no subject
ETA: Maybe I should try Anansi Boys, though...
no subject
And yes, life is too short to read eh books when the world is full of so many great ones!
And wrt Anansi Boys, it's been even longer since I've read that one, so maybe don't trust my past self's judgement on that one either? but then who knows.
no subject
no subject
(that kind of caring-to-apathy thing doesn't happen to me very often. Usually if I stop caring about a thing, I swing to the other side and actively dislike the thing. It is a WEIRD thing to find apathy where caring used to be, and it always disconcerts me when it happens to me!)
no subject
(it is a SUPER weird feeling! Though it tends to happen I find to me more often with stuff I cared about more for the community/because my friends did than because I was really deeply into it -- though I mostly only discover that was the case in retrospect, when the caring disappears.)
no subject
Tbh the only thing that's coming to mind for me that I have gone to a place of apathy about is Sports Night. Once upon a time I had a lot of feelings, and now when I think of reading sn fanfic I'm just like....why bother. And I'm baffled as to why I ever cared about it in the first place.
no subject
no subject