I don’t really need to review this, do I?

Randall Munroe is the much-beloved writer and illustrator of the much-beloved webcomic xkcd. He puts his physics and robotics background to good use creating humorous situations based on science, mathematics, and nerd culture. He has since branched out with What If?, a weekly blog in which Munroe answers over-the-top questions by following the facts to whatever consequences they might lead.

This is the book of the blog.

(That’s like the book of the movie, only it’s a blog, not a movie. Savvy?)

So if you’re curious about what this book is like, just go read the blog. You can do that for free. Many of the chapters in the book are reprints from the blog—though some posts have been revised, expanded, or mutated through exposure to gamma radiation. Some of the chapters are new, and just as hilarious.

That’s the defining characteristic of What If? for me: it’s a wonderful demonstration of how asking—and answering—questions is fun, and that really should be the backbone of any science education effort.

Now, much like Republican politicians, I am not a scientist. I don’t even play one on TV. But I am a mathematician (which is kind of like a scientist, only cooler), and I’m an educator. Math and science share a lot of the bum rap when it comes to which subjects kids enjoy in school, and most of it is bad PR on the part of parents, policy-makers, and teachers. And this makes me angry, because science is wonderful and fascinating and awesome, and I want kids to love it just like I want kids to love math. Even if they don’t particularly want to grow up working in a field that requires a working knowledge of particle physics or a penchant for solving partial differential equations, I want them to dip their toes with joy and abandon into the oceans of inquiry and problem-solving—and not feel pressured or shamed by the fallout from standardized tests that label them with numbers and letters and predictors of success.

Munroe is one of a cadre of Internet peoples who is leading the charge in a glorious vanguard of new science education. He gets it. He has that golden spark of talent that puts him in the sweet spot of both knowing the science behind these issues as well as being able to write about them in a humorous, entertaining way. What If? is like an armchair version of MythBusters and no less amazing for it.

I’m not exaggerating when I’m saying that I enjoyed every single chapter in this book. I laughed out loud frequently. Even the less interesting ones, or the ones I read before on the blog, are nice to revisit. This is a great coffeetable book for geeks: you can dip in and out of it at will.

My favourite chapter has to be “Periodic Wall of Elements,” in which Munroe explains the consequences of trying to construct a periodic table wherein each entry is a sample of the element in question. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well, for you, or your lab, or the city around it.) He just has such a dry style of writing:

Sometimes this kind of panic over scary chemicals is disproportionate; there are trace amounts of natural arsenic in all our food and water, and we handle those fine. This is not one of those times.

And then slightly later, describing the effects of building the sixth row of the periodic table:

The radiation levels would be incredibly high. Given that it takes a few hundred milliseconds to blink, you would literally get a lethal dose of radiation in the blink of an eye.

You would die from what we might call “extremely acute radiation poisoning”—that is, you would be cooked.

The seventh row would be much worse.

This tendency for understatement combines with a keen sense of meta-fictional absurdity that Munroe regularly demonstrates in his webcomic. Indeed, as if his delightful prose is not enough on its own, every answer comes complete with several xkcd-style illustrations that have the same cheeky humour of the comic.

What If? is awesome. Full stop. If you are not convinced of this and want to be convinced, go read the blog and the comic. Then buy the book. Then enjoy the hours of entertainment and education you will receive. Share it with kids, and make them love science. Even if it kills them.*



*Please science responsibly, especially if kids are involved. Do not blow things up unless you are a trained professional and have taken appropriate safety measures. Don’t try anything in this book at home. At worst it is very dangerous and would likely destroy the planet; at best, it is extremely impractical and would cost a fortune in electricity.

The world of The Giver, Jonas' world, is one without sunlight, without colour, without anger or love or indeed any strong feelings at all. Sexual urges are a suppressed by a daily pill. Jobs are assigned by the community's Council of Elders. The only one who remembers—whose job is, in fact, to remember—what life was like before humanity went to "Sameness" is the Receiver of Memory. And Jonas is the lucky new recruit for the job.

As a reader of hardcore fantasy, I noticed that Jonas' relationship with the Giver is as an apprentice's relationship to a wizard. The apprentice often does things he's not supposed to do, and as he learns, he begins to question the world around him, often with the encouragement of the wizard. Likewise, the Receiver's position in the community is as a sort of shaman, offering counsel based on what wisdom the "spirits," the memories he holds, can give him.

That's the key to the world in which Jonas lives. Despite their retention of advanced technology, people have chosen to live in a too-stable society, have deliberately engineered their world and themselves so as to ensure that society remains stable and "same" for as long as possible. The mentor/apprentice relationship of the Giver and Jonas exists for the benefit of the reader, so we can understand why this world is an undesirable one. And Lowry fleshes out this world in a subtle way, through Jonas' interactions with his friends and family, as well as a little exposition here and there. The result is a dual-layered story that makes The Giver young adult fiction adults can still enjoy. I saw "release" for the euphemism for euthanasia that it was long before Jonas learns about it, but one doesn't have to be quick to connect the subtextual dots to get something out of this book. I suppose that's why it deserves all these awards and whatnot. It makes kids think. I can go for that.

The Giver earns high marks for its depiction of a utopia. Almost from the first page, I was stuck in a cringing expression as every sentence went against the very core of my being, went against my ideas of what it means to be free, to be an individual, and to be happy. Upon closer scrutiny, her society isn't as seamlessly functional as Lowry tries to make it, but she still deserves praise. It was truly terrifying and a strong reminder of why I would never want to live in a perfect world.

But I can't shake the feeling that The Giver is missing something, something essential for me to rave about a book's quality. Was it the fact that Lowry doesn't explain why everyone chose to go to "Sameness"? Plenty of post-apocalyptic fiction never bothers to explain How We Got Here. Well, what about the lack of any real conflict until the end of the book? But that's part of the utopian vision Lowry's examining. No, it's the ending that bothers me. And here's why.

Utopian fiction often consists of an act by the rebellious protagonist designed to change society or at least make people "realize" that life can be different. Still, the outcome of the act can be ambiguous, with society remaining unchanged and the protagonist often defeated—the idea being that the author's intention is to provoke thought in the reader. (The former, "happier" approach seems more prevalent in movies. I think the studios think it sells more.)

In The Giver, Jonas succeeds in his rebellious act. We never really learn if it has the effect on his community that he hopes it will. (The fact that we don't learn what happens to Jonas doesn't bother me at all.) My issue, however, is that I had a "So what?" moment during the ending, because Jonas appears to be doing exactly what the previous, failed Receiver trainee did: leaving the community to deal with its memories itself. Granted, Jonas is going fugitive instead of euthanizing himself, but the goal is the same. After spending so much time explaining how the previous Receiver trainee's actions didn't have much of an impact, I was underwhelmed that Lowry's master plan was "more of the same, try it again."

With worthy themes and an interesting look at utopia, The Giver deserves some of its constant praise. Nevertheless, there's a weakness in its final act that undermines the book's narrative. Yes, The Giver is a powerful reminder of how much we like our sunshine. But it also makes me hope that if you ever have the chance to take down a utopian society, you come up with a better plan than Jonas does. The Giver sets the stage but is always grasping at ideas that seem beyond its reach or ability to convey. This is good utopian literature, but there is much better utopian literature, for kids and adults alike.

I actually don’t read Lightspeed all that much, so it’s hard for me to evaluate this special edition in that context. All I can say is that this is packed full of good content. In addition to original stories there are reprints, some good flash fiction (one of which is my all-time favourite of the volume), non-fiction discussions and essays, and a novel excerpt. It’s good times.

I didn’t like every, or maybe even most, of the original short stories. I’m starting to think that’s probably a good thing when reading a multi-author anthology. If I liked every story, then the anthology would only appeal to people with very similar tastes to mine. Rather, this indicates that the anthology might appeal to a broader audience, some of whom will have very different tastes from me and consequently like different work. Here’s a few highlights, according to my tastes.

Rhonda Eikamp’s “The Case of the Passionless Bees” was a cool take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos that I had never seen before. She swiftly captures the delicious irony that Holmes, like many great detectives, is so good at his job because he is so close to that line (though in this case, because Holmes is a robot, there is an emotional twist to that line of reasoning).

“In the Image of Man,” by Gabriella Stalker, posits an empty world in which we are reduced to arcologies within shopping centres, and suddenly any faith feels new and exciting.

Charlie Jane Anders once again demonstrates her ability to use strange technology to explore the boundaries we create in our relationship with “The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick.” Imagine you could download memories of your girlfriend’s ex so you don’t have to waste time learning her likes and dislikes? Now imagine your best friend does this with your ex’s memories to get closer to you. Yeah.

And “A Burglary, Addressed By a Young Lady,” by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall was just alt-Victoriana fun. I would love to read a novel set in a universe where upper class women have to burgle houses as part of their coming out into society.

Of the reprints, I particularly enjoyed the first and last: “Like Daughter,” by Tananarive Due, and “The Cost to Be Wise,” by Maureen F. McHugh.

Perhaps unusually, the flash fiction section was my favourite. I am not a big short story reader, and even less so flash fiction (though I suspect that’s more a matter of opportunity rather than preference). So I really appreciated being fed some as a kind of coffee break between the short fiction main course and the non-fiction dessert. I enjoyed pretty much every piece.

Carrie Vaughn’s “Salvage,” is interesting because it belies the typical idea that overt conflict must drive a story. Stuff happens, but there is little conflict. It’s an almost entirely descriptive story driven by the protagonist’s narration. The only conflict is in the emotional fatigue of the protagonist.

“The Sewell Home for the Temporally Displaced” is a nice little time travel piece from Sarah Pinsker. (I know Sarah from here on Goodreads, and she is good people. But I single it out because I have a soft spot for fun takes on time travel that resonate in an emotional way.)

By far my favourite piece in the entire collection, however, is “#TrainFightTuesday“ by Vanessa Torline. As with many of the pieces in this collection, you can find it online—in this case, on Lightspeed’s website. Go read it—it’s flash, so it’s short. Enjoy.

Plenty of authors embrace the new wave of epistolary writing that email, blogs, and now Twitter offer up. Torline is not the first, nor will she be the last, to experiment with storytelling in micro-blogging form. But she just does it so well. “#TrainFightTuesday” is a pitch-perfect recounting of a bystander’s observations of a superhero/supervillain showdown in a city where this is the norm. Torline manages to make this world utterly convincing in a short piece of fiction. I like the idea of postmodern superhero fiction, but so far, most of the postmodern superhero novels I’ve read don’t quite work. Maybe shorter fiction is the way to go. Anyway, I was laughing out loud through most of this piece.

There is some good stuff in the non-fiction as well. I liked hearing some perspectives on how the field has changed from people like Ursula K. Le Guin and Nancy Kress in “Women Remember: A Roundtable Interview”. I think it’s important to remember that women have always been a part of science fiction. As exciting and excellent as it is to see so many new women authors receiving accolades and acclaim, we should also celebrate those whose voices stretch back into the decades.

That’s where the personal essays come into the picture. They are short, poignant, and like the rest of the collection, diverse and uneven and of varying appeal. This is what makes them valuable, particularly to me, as a man. I love science fiction, but I am lucky enough that, as a result of the way I perform gender, I have never had my SF fan or geek credentials questioned. No one has ever barred me from science fiction and said I couldn’t read it or write it or attempted to circumscribe whether I could write it “soft” or “hard” (how I hate those designations now). So I can mansplain about misogyny and sexism and barriers all I want … but at the end of the day, it’s academic in the most visceral sense, because the truth is, I just don’t know.

These essays, then, can help me understand, at least a little bit, what it’s like. Because it’s tempting—and the more privilege you have, the more tempting it becomes—to think that we have succeeded in equality for women, or for minorities, simply because authors who fall into those categories are more numerous and more visible. These stories make it clear that’s not the case. And while not every woman experiences discrimination in the same way or to the same extent, it’s there. And for those of us who identify as men, our duty is to listen to women when they tell us about that discrimination and believe them, instead of just shaking our heads and telling them to stop being so hormonal and worrying about nothing.

Do we even need an all-woman special edition of a science-fiction magazine?

The fact that some people are even asking the above question seriously in 2014 shows that we do.

That Women Destroy Science Fiction! happens to be a wonderful exercise in giving women SF authors voice and space doesn’t necessarily make it good. (The wonderful stories it contains take care of that.) It’s possible to laud this effort for its aims even if one doesn’t enjoy many of the stories. Likewise, it’s possible to enjoy the stories herein even if one isn’t as convinced as I am about the wider sociopolitical issues that led to its existence. (And if that’s the case, I hope you read the non-fiction section with an open mind and allow yourself to listen to the wider discussion, of which this work is only a small part.)

Really though, at the end of the day, we won’t truly be able to call ourselves equal and unbiased until we get a special edition of Lightspeed authored entirely by robots.

We can call it Our Gracious Machine Overlords Destroy Science Fiction!.

Robot rights: it’s the issue of 2015, people.

Saga first came onto my radar last year when it was nominated for a Hugo Award. (Volume Two was nominated this year!) In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was included in the Voters Packet.

I didn’t read it.

I don’t read many graphic novels. I understand why people like them, and part of me wishes I read more—but obviously that’s not a big enough part, or else I actually would. Simply put, I am a word person. I like massive blocks of text—the meatier the better, which is probably why Victorian novels are often my jam. When I see a page filled with pictures, and maybe a few speech bubbles, I skim. It’s a kind of inattention that others probably reserve for the opposite situation, when the only reaction to a wall of text is to read every couple of lines and interpolate. I feel bad for this reaction, because I’m aware that artists put amazing work into graphic novels, and I don’t want to devalue that work. I’m just wired to like and revel in words more than pictures. (This is why, despite having worked in an art gallery for six of the last eight years, I seldom spend much time actually looking at the exhibitions.)

When I read graphic novels, though—I’m saying this in my best Most Interesting Man in the World Voice—I read speculative fiction (but not, typically, superhero fiction). Saga is definitely in my wheelhouse in terms of what I want from a graphic novel. The actual motivation for reading it now is that I bought the first three volumes as a Christmas present for a friend. I like to give friends books I have read, so I can honestly recommend them; that isn’t always a realistic option, though, so sometimes I madly rush to read the book before I have to give it to them.

If anything, this first volume demonstrates the versatility and power that a graphic novel, unlike its literary sibling, wields in the hands of a good writer and artist. Since I spent a paragraph describing why I don’t prefer graphic novels, it only seems fair that I now spend some time talking about how graphic novels can do things that only the most sophisticated of novelists can accomplish with the written word. Fiona Staples isn’t simply illustrating Brian K. Vaughan’s story … she’s reifying a vividly imagined world of possibility.

The protagonists are humanoid. One has wings. The other has horns. They exist in a space operatic setting in which a planet and its moon are at war. There’s spider-like bounty hunters, lie-detecting cats, robot nobility with literal blue blood. The planet Sextillion features such weird imaginings as headless guards with mouths in their bellies (and rather … interesting codpieces). Saga is indubitably graphic, but in the most fascinating way. Perhaps the best way I can describe it is that Staples’ art comes as close as I can imagine to China Miéville’s words. Staples would do a good job illustrating New Crobuzon.

The plot of Saga, Volume One is simultaneously conventional and unique. Vaughan unites magic and technology into a single science fictional setting that is heavily reminiscent of Star Wars, if ILM had still done the special effects but somehow George Lucas had decided to outsource all the creative decisions to the directors of the Flash Gordon era of science-fiction filmmaking. Staples’ character design is iconic in its use of colours and shading—not only to create a brilliant sense of difference, as I describe above, but to create depths of tone. I love the expression on the characters’ faces.

The story is exactly what I want in a space fantasy opera, though: intense interpersonal relationships set against the backdrop of a larger, interstellar conflict. Alana and Marko just want their child to grow up and be loved—what parent doesn’t?—but neither Landfall nor Wreath can let that happen. Peace is too dangerous to their eternal warfare. It is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, gut-punching story. It is … a Saga.

I’m writing this review having finished the first two volumes; I’m about to start Volume Three. So excited. I am not a graphic novel reader, but Saga definitely got me hooked. It just goes to show that you need to keep an open mind and read widely, because every form and every genre has things to offer you.

My reviews of Saga:
Volume Two →

Not going to lie: I totally re-read this just because the movie is coming out soon. The trailer, with its stylized images and Florence + The Machine song, has me a little excited for it. But this is a review of The Great Gatsby the book. I read it when I was high school (just to read it, not because we had to study it) and didn’t like it too much. Now, I feel more charitable towards it. I don’t know if it’s just that my appreciation of quality literature has grown and changed as I’ve grown older, or whether my circumstances have made me able to appreciate Nick and Gatsby’s conflicts in a way I couldn’t when I was younger. In any event, I’m now happy to praise The Great Gatsby, not bury it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s choice of narrator, Nick Carraway, is interesting. At the beginning of the book, he is an outsider to the society where most of the action takes place. This allows him to criticize it with the outsider’s cynical but sometimes gullible eye. Though the book is ostensibly about Gatsby and Gatsby’s doomed love for Daisy, it needs Nick to build up Gatsby as this near-ineffable, mysterious figure. It would be a very different novel if Fitzgerald had decided to narrate it from Gatsby’s point of view or had just opted for a third-person narrator. Instead, we get Nick’s very personal—and not wholly objective, considering that Daisy is his cousin—take on who Gatsby might be and whether his actions are justified.

I love the character of Gatsby. I have a thing for books about confidence games, and hence for characters who are largely con artists, and you don’t get much bigger than Gatsby. The surface persona is so incredible, so larger-than-life, that you just want to believe it is true. The combination of his easygoing, cool manner with his opulence and extravagance make Gatsby a very attractive person, the kind of person who could actually pull off a flawless military career, big game hunting expeditions, and numerous other exploits. Gatsby uses his considerable charisma to leverage the various heroic figures of the 1920s in order to feed the fire of his own quiet celebrity, all in the name of pursuing Daisy.

And Fitzgerald’s presentation of Myth!Gatsby is an impressive feat of characterization. He provides a great example of how a reader’s impression of a character comes from three sources: what the character says, what the character does, and what other people say about that character. Myth!Gatsby throws impressive, over-the-top parties and then says very little, hinting instead at his past exploits. What’s more important is how other people perpetuate the myth of Gatsby. When Nick first attends a Gatsby party, he spends the first part of the evening wandering aimlessly through the house, searching for the host—at this point, he hasn’t even met the man and has no idea what Gatsby looks like. No one else seems to know where Gatsby is either, but everyone is certainly willing to gossip about him. Through these little rumours (“I hear he was an Oxford man!”), as well as his own efforts, Gatsby becomes a 1920s version of the most interesting man in the world.

The man behind the myth has his own impressive story, though. James Gatz’s origin is more humble, although like all great liars, he has based most of his lies on the truth. Fitzgerald portrays Gatz as an extreme version of the American Dream ideal of a man: he pulls himself up by his bootstraps and transforms himself into this rich playboy. And he’s doing it all to get the girl he couldn’t get as Gatz.

The Great Gatsby is captivating because of the conflict between its fantastic, Roaring Twenties atmosphere and its sinister tone. By every outward appearance, this is supposed to be a time of peace and repose. The parties and dinners that Nick attends, with or without Gatsby, are sophisticated affairs that just drip with supercilious and haughty boredom. Tom Buchanan and his ilk are the bland product of an upper-class society that is so exhausted after its brief foray into the Great War that it has thrown itself headlong into a bacchanalian celebration of life, lust, and the pursuit of happiness. Beneath this exterior of ecstasy lies the sinister realm of racism, misogyny, and violence that Nick slowly exposes in his narration.

There isn’t really a villain in this book, which I perceive as one of its strengths. There are certainly villainous acts, but one of the themes is that everyone has within them that capacity for both good and evil. Take Tom, for instance: he is abusive, adulterous, and generally boorish in his attitudes towards women. He’s happily racist and imperialist as well—essentially, he’s a one-stop shop for all the stereotypical failings of Old Money. Nevertheless, I would argue he genuinely loves Daisy, despite his infidelity. His attitudes and actions are largely a result of upbringing and influence—and this doesn’t excuse them, but it places them in a context where he is not so much a villain as a victim of those times.

Daisy suffers similarly. She is a sympathetic character who, like most of us, has trouble discerning what she wants. Gatsby’s renewal of his pursuit of her is very interesting, because it offers an option that was previously unavailable. By this I mean, if Gatsby hadn’t shown up, Daisy would still have to deal with Tom’s affair one way or another. She could have continued to ignore it, confronted him about it and possibly left him, or perhaps tried to have an affair of her own. Gatsby’s reappearance complicates matters but also gives her an additional choice. Unfortunately for Daisy, Gatsby might be nicer and more stalwart than Tom, but he builds his memories of her into a myth that she can’t fulfil. His disappointment when confronted with the real package is palpable and doesn’t help matters.

Gatsby himself, with his long con, is somewhat of a rogue as well. He establishes Myth!Gatsby and arrives in West Egg solely to be across the bay from Daisy and get her attention. That is creepy-stalker level of planning right there. It’s not too extreme to call Gatsby obsessed with Daisy, and if events hadn’t played out like they did, I wonder if he and Tom would have come to some form of more direct confrontation eventually. As it is, I love the awesome tension in the scene at the Plaza Hotel; the way it deflates and ends with a whimper, as everyone just “goes home”, speaks to the veneer of civility that characterizes Tom and Daisy’s society.

The combination of all these emotional elements creates a decidedly dark tone for the story. It’s a lovely, skilled journey in which Nick is seduced by Myth!Gatsby only to find himself caught in the middle between Gatsby and Daisy—one is a friend, the other his cousin, and while the two might be happy together, neither understands who the other really is. And it’s possible that the true plot of The Great Gatsby isn’t so much Gatsby pursuing Daisy as it is Nick trying to unravel the truth about Gatsby and decide how deep down that rabbit hole he really wants to go. He seems to make some progress in this respect, until Gatsby’s life is tragically cut short, and the whole charade falls down in shambles.

The United States of America of the 1920s is a period of history I’m not too familiar with (though, unlike the latter half of the twentieth century, at least we did study it in school). It’s fascinating to read a contemporary novel of that time. Fitzgerald creates a seductive portrait of a sickly society. He also creates complex characters whose decisions and deceptions drive the plot from its simple inception to its final derailment. I comprehend why so many laud The Great Gatsby as one of the great American novels and why its quality, combined with its length, make it a favourite on high school reading lists. I’m not going to call it the Great American Novel (my experience with classic American literature is too impoverished to really make such determinations anyway). But there is so much to see in this otherwise thin volume, and it truly is a masterpiece.

It’s not very often that I commend a blurb. I prefer to mock them, especially for their brevity or generic flavour—fantasy and science fiction are particularly guilty of this. For Homage to Catalonia I can make an exception: my edition has a blurb on the back cover from Antony Beevor, who calls this “an unrivalled picture of the rumours, suspicions and treachery of civil war.” This describes the book perfectly.

A couple of burdens of ignorance to confess before we begin here. Firstly, I had no idea there was a Spanish Civil War until I picked up this book. If any of the various books related to the early twentieth century or to World War II that I have cracked open since the days of Grade 10 history class mentioned a Spanish Civil War, such passing allusions have long fled my mind. I’m somewhat ashamed to have such a massive gap in my historical knowledge, but there you have it. At least I’ve filled it in with a firsthand account from one of England’s great twentieth-century writers!

Secondly, I didn’t realize this was non-fiction until I started reading the introduction. See, I didn’t set out to read this book. George Orwell is one of those authors whose oeuvre, at least these days, is overshadowed by one or two masterpieces—Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm in his case. For the vast majority of anyone who reads Orwell, one or both of those works are their introduction, and usually the totality of their Orwellian experience. His other works lurk on the fringes of popular perception. Some, like his essay, “Politics and the English Language” are more prominent than others. Suffice it to say: I had never heard of Homage to Catalonia until a colleague at school offered me a copy—she had accidentally ordered two. I don’t turn down free books, let alone books by George Orwell.

While my ignorance regarding history shames me, it also gave me an opportunity to approach Orwell’s account without many preconceptions. Unlike a student of history reading this for a course, or someone who is more familiar with the period, I had no idea what Orwell was prattling on about when he talked about Franco, the POUM or PSUC, etc. I understand the differences between the Marxist, Stalinist, and Trotskyist flavours of Communism, and I knew the names of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. As far as the political situation in Spain went, however, I was tabula rasa. This allowed me simply to embrace and go with Orwell’s explanation and opinions instead of fighting against any contradictions or additional confusion created by my prior knowledge. So, in some cases, ignorance can be a useful tool for reading comprehension.

Homage to Catalonia definitely improved my awareness of the complex political climate in Europe prior to World War II. I was about to say it “clarified my understanding” until I realized how silly a statement that would be. The dense, almost inscrutable explanations of the political situation in Spain during the Civil War in this book bely any claims that the politics are a simple matter of Left versus Right, Communist versus Fascist. Orwell himself was so frustrated by attempting to explain the matter that, in his errata for later editions of the book, he instructed editors to remove it from the main body and place those chapters into appendices, which is how they appear in this edition. This was a great choice, because I can’t imagine someone less interested in the politics trying to slog through this chapters and still finish the book. Tucked away as appendices, they are less intimidating but just as informative. (You really don’t need that information, however, just to enjoy Orwell’s personal account of his experiences in Spain.)

At its most basic, this is a personal account of an English journalist of socialist tendencies who went to Spain, enlisted in the militia, and fought in the trenches against Fascists. Orwell captures the vagaries of living in the trenches, particularly those engendered by a combination of poorly equipped, poorly trained soldiers and a lack of sound strategic leadership. He recounts the periods of endless waiting, the lines that were comically far apart—too far for their obsolete rifles to be effective—and the occasional thrill of real danger. Throughout those months, Orwell’s sense of idealistic enthusiasm for the Socialist/Communist movement fades palpably. And what’s left diminishes even further after he is wounded and returns to Barcelona, only to experience the street fighting and suppression of the POUM.

(I confess I enjoyed reading Orwell’s description of the sensations of being shot—in the throat!—and recovering afterwards. One can write about many experiences authentically without ever having to undergo them oneself, and that might include the experience of being shot. But there is a depth to Orwell’s account that comes out of that moment of certainty that one’s life is over. It is harrowing yet reassuring.)

Although the descriptions of trench life and criticism of the militia’s unprepared, unprofessional attitude are all well and go, I started to get invested in the second half of the book. Once Orwell returns from the front to recover from his wound, things get very interesting. Still technically a soldier fighting against Fascism, he quickly finds himself aligned with a party that has fallen out of favour. The other elements of the Communist aparatus begin to suppress and move against the POUM. Orwell goes from being a recovering soldier to an innocent observer to a “Trotyskist betrayer” who is wanted for arrest. Eventually, he and his wife end up fleeing from the very government and people he had so idealistically sought to defend when he first came to Spain.

Orwell’s political explanations are invaluable, and this is where his appendices prove most useful. Obviously, for someone unfamiliar with this event, it has provided me with a wealth of information. I can now comfortably ride out a mention to the Spanish Civil War in casual conversation—no longer must I feel the beginnings of a dry sweat in my palms and on my forehead as someone throws out a passing reference to Franco, fascism, or the PSUC! Yet Homage to Catalonia provides an education more general and even more important than mere familiarity with the events and political players of the day: Orwell’s deft political commentary is also a scathing indictment of propaganda and interventionist imperialism. Its message is still relevant in today’s political climate, where both Left and Right scream at us for attention, for exclusive allegiance, for polarized patriotism.

Consider, for example, how Orwell deconstructs the portryal of events in foreign newspapers. He criticizes British and other foreign newspapers for only showing one side of the story. He also criticizes journalists who went to Spain but just reprinted the official, accepted version of events instead of digging deeper for the truth. Within Spain, stories were murkier and more complicated—censorship was rife, and in the hands of the Communists and the PSUC, but there were still conflicting voices. Outside Spain, however, the Communist apparatus spearheaded by the USSR managed to spin events to their benefit. And it’s interesting that this spin was anti-revolutionary.

After all, the first thing one learns about communism as a political philosophy is that it is the result of a worker revolution against the wealthy bourgeoise. Orwell illuminates how Communism—that is, the movement as it was expressed in Russia—had already become compromised and corrupted by that need for any form of government to perpetuate its own existence and interests. It was in Russia’s interest to have a Franco government, albeit a capitalist one. It was in Britain’s interests to have a Franco, capitalist government. These titanic powers of the European stage intervened (or, equivalently, chose not to intervene) and spun the story to ensure the outcome that was favourable to their interests, regardless of the effect this would have on the Spanish population. It’s the same old story, and it still happens today. Observe the recent revolution in Libya, which garnered American support despite the United States’ previous close ties to Gaddafi. As political winds shift, so too do attitudes towards intervention. And Orwell makes clear his disgust for this.

Orwell’s conclusions will be familiar for anyone who has read Nineteen Eighty-Four: don’t trust what you read in the papers. Bias is everywhere. The only innoculation is to read more than one perspective, to piece together something that might be closer to the truth through a synthesis of conflicting accounts, and to be aware of the possible biases of the writers. (This is why the single voice of the state in Orwellian England is so pernicious.) He also provides a healthy reminder that neither the Left nor the Right have the monopoly on propaganda or bias. As a liberal, I’m making a mistake if I assume that only the “right wing” sources of news are the ones presenting a biased view of events and that leftist or centrist news sources are somehow more reliable.

Furthermore, it would be overly naive and optimistic to assume that the Internet somehow alleviates this problem. While it’s true that the Web has provided some unique opportunities for peer-to-peer, uncensored communication—Google and Twitter’s assistance to the Egyptian revolution is one example—the problem remains that the Internet is not fundamentally democratic. I do believe it can be a powerful tool for democracy—that is to say, it’s no more anti-democratic by nature than it is democratic. But, as Evgeny Morozov has repeatedly argued, it is not a magic bullet.

Orwell’s obvious disillusionment with Communism as a movement in this book provides key insights into his later novels. Both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are not exactly subtle in their messages. Nevertheless, Homage to Catalonia sharpens those messages, providing a historical context that makes it more evident why Orwell was motivated to write those two books. He was clearly reacting strongly against what he perceived as a betrayal of the very principles he supported, and he wanted to convey the danger of that betrayal to everyone.

I’m very glad Homage to Catalonia found me. It educated me about an important event in recent European history. It gave me insight into the personal life of a great author of the twentieth century. It emphasized the dangers of propaganda and the necessity of questioning the motives of external actors in larger world events. And it sharpened my understanding—and appreciation—of the power and importance of Orwell’s two major novels. Both compelling on its own and as a companion piece, Homage to Catalonia is a gem.

I’m teaching part of an AS Level English Literature class this year, including the creative writing component. As I finally got around to reading this, I couldn’t stop thinking, “Why didn’t I read this at the beginning of the school year? I could teach practically the whole class using this.” As it is, I ended up photocopying three of the essays for my students to mull over. About Writing, despite its embrace of the traditionally generic title, stands above many other “how to write” books. Samuel R. Delany brings the same skill he has for fiction writing to his non-fiction, making for passionate and intelligent discourse on the art of writing.

And I mean discourse. The letters and interviews portions of the book are Delany responding directly to someone—whether it’s a single person, or the questions posed by an interviewer or panel. Most of his essays, too, are framed as some kind of response. Delany brings to bear his considerable experience not just as a writer but as a critic and a professor of literature. As a result, he delivers advice at a very high level, using concepts and syntax that would definitely daunt the beginning writer (or reader). This is not a book for a beginning writer! For writers looking to deepen their writing, however, and for readers who would like to think more explicitly about what makes writing good, Delany has produced in this a book a valuable voice in that discussion.

I love how authentic Delany sounds. He never professes to have the one true word on what makes writing good; he never says, “These are the rules.” Instead, he leads the reader on a didactic journey in which he models different types of writing—good and bad—and analyzes for us why some writing works and other writing does it. He emphasizes that it all comes down to the effect the writer tries to achieve. Perhaps more importantly, he reminds the writer that it’s the reader doing most of the work—and the reader isn’t always going to assemble the same vision for a story that the writer has in their mind.

This model of the writer–reader interaction is a valuable component to About Writing. Delany takes a very psychological approach to storytelling. It’s not sufficient to put interesting words on a page; the writer needs to anticipate how a reader will react to those words. There is no way to force a certain reaction, no guarantee that the reader is going to see a character or a scene the same way that the writer does. Instead, the best a writer can do is hint and manipulate with all the tools at their disposal.

Delany extends the idea of the model to encompass different methods of constructing novels. This is consistent with that acceptance of a multiplicity of ways of writing. There is no one perfect structure. Rather, what matters most is that the writer acknowledges such structures exist and internalizes those structures by reading them. Then one can recreate the structure one wants to use, or create new variations. And though it’s fine to experiment, Delany emphasizes time and again that the writer needs to anticipate the reader’s reaction—and readers like structures that they can figure out.

Delany’s discussion of the story process, the literary marketplace, and the importance of such entities as the “canon” all take place at a very high level, verging at times upon the academic. This is not a beach read. It’s not even something I would recommend reading all the way through in a few consecutive sittings. Its very nature—seven essays, four letters, five interviews—makes it very easy to read over a few weeks, maybe a month. I didn’t do that, of course, because I am an incorrigible, impatient bibliophile who swallows books whole and burps out the bindings. But you should know better….

About Writing also provides insight into Delany himself, of course. I find this valuable because his fiction is so interesting but also often challenging. Now that he has made explicit some of the choices he made while writing it, I feel like I might understand it more if I go back and re-read it (or tackle another one of his works). Moreover, now I can see that his work is even more intertextual than is initially apparent—and though I am quite well read, I am far behind Delany in that regard, and I have a lot of work ahead of me if I ever want to get most—let alone all—of the allusions and symbolism latent in his text.

Indeed, this is an excellent book for writers who want some guidance on how to think about their craft. (Notice I didn’t say, “aspiring writers” or “beginning writers”. I wish I read this book before teaching creative writing, and I’m sharing some of the essays, but I would never just toss it in the hands of a new writer and say, “Read it.”) Yet About Writing is more than a book for writers: it has a lot of value for active readers as well. Readers who are interested in the aesthetics of the craft, who want to think about how and why writers make the choices they do, will learn a lot from this book.

Highly recommended for writers and readers alike, About Writing is one of my favourite works of Delany’s that I’ve read to date. And now I feel more prepared to read some more.

I saved this book for a weekend. I knew this was not something I wanted to read in bits and pieces of time snatched, sneaked, and cobbled together during the commute to and from work or the hour before bed. My previous experiences with Jhumpa Lahiri’s sumptuous prose meant I would need a certain type of stillness in order to appreciate this book. I needed the luxury to linger over each page and absorb the words, rather than skim and skip as I might do with a different type of novel. So, the weekend before last, I sat down to enjoy this, not entirely sure what to expect in terms of story. Lahiri does not disappoint, though. The Lowland is magnificent in its breadth and depth.

The book spans most of the twentieth century and stretches tentatively into the twenty-first. It doesn’t concern itself with charting or documenting India’s tumultuous decades following Independence so much as it uses those events as a cultural backdrop. Only the Naxalite movement itself figures prominently in the story, whereas other significant events, such as the Emergency, are only mentioned. Much of the book takes place in the United States; again, however, major historical events are mere signposts, ways of keeping track of time, than elements of plot. The Lowland is relentlessly character driven in its story, much more so than almost any book I’ve read.

As such, the story defies easy summary. The term plot becomes quite basic—that which happens. And that which happens is, for the most part, the ordinary give-and-take of daily life, punctuated by those momentous events that shape and define our existence. Subhash returns to India following his brother’s death at the hands of overzealous, anti-communist police. He finds his parents mistreating Udayan’s widow, Gauri, who is pregnant with Udayan’s child. So he marries Gauri and takes her back with him to the United States, where they intend to raise the child as his own. It is a marriage of convenience, not of love, never of love so long as the spectre of Udayan hangs between them.

Through Subhash’s experiences in the United States, first as a bachelor and then as a husband, Lahiri creates an effective and poignant juxtaposition of two cultures. She presents much of Subhash’s experiences as decisions, moments where he must choose between the American way and the Indian way. For example, when his friendship with an American woman becomes something more, he feels that he has turned his back on his parents’ plans for a traditional, arranged marriage. Even after this romance flickers and fades away, there is a sense that Subhash has irrevocably changed. His decision to marry Gauri, certainly against the wishes of his parents, only confirms this transformation. No longer the calm and deferential son he was in youth, Subhash has become a more independent individual. Yet for all his adoption of certain American habits and perspectives, he still has deep roots in India. In this way, Lahiri subtly emphasizes the complexity of life as an immigrant, immersed and steeped in more than one culture.

She builds on this picture through Gauri’s own adaptation to living in the United States. At stake for Gauri is more than cultural confusion: hers is a crisis of identity. In India, she had been Udayan’s wife and then his widow. Until recently, her role had been clear: she would be a mother and a companion, and she wanted both of these things. Udayan’s death changed that, and she certainly wasn’t happy any more, but she still had a clarity of purpose. Moving to the United States dispels that clarity, and Gauri has the difficult task of reforming her identity as the wife of the brother of the father of her child. When this doesn’t work for her, she starts branching out and becoming her own person again, rediscovering her interest in study, in philosophy.

Gauri struggles to reconcile her desire for independence with motherhood. She finds living with Subhash uncomfortable, awkward, and the baby’s birth only intensifies this feeling. Ultimately, she is unable to truly embrace being Bela’s mother, and the consequences are heartbreaking. There is one significant series of events when Bela is a child, playing on the living room floor. Gauri finds they are out of milk. Telling Bela she is popping out to check the mail, Gauri goes out to the convenience store, returning as quickly as possible. She is nervous the entire time she does this and relieved when she finds Bela safe and unaltered—yet the thrill, the sense of satisfaction, soon motivates her to leave Bela alone again and again, often much longer than that. I can still remember feeling so shocked that she would do this. And then when Subhash discovers that Gauri is doing this….

In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy says, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Put simply, The Lowland is about an unhappy family. Gauri is a mother who resents the burdens of motherhood. Subhash loves Bela but is always reminded that he is not really her father—for though he raises her, she develops an independent and mercurial restlessness that is more like Udayan than anyone else. The tensions and disagreements eventually drive all three apart, Gauri leaving and Bela striking out on her own, with Subhash the one, true to his character, remaining at rest.

The Lowland eschews quotation marks or any other delimiter of dialogue, even an em-dash. Instead, dialogue must be inferred. Ordinarily this is a dealbreaker for me; I like the explicit, conventional signals and punctuation marks that have arisen to help the reader of the novel understand what’s going on. There is an exception to every rule, though, and in this case, the lack of delimited dialogue works. It helps that there is very little dialogue—more and maybe I would have had a harder time. This book is mostly description and narration; characters and people speak infrequently, adding to the dreamlike atmosphere of the story.

There’s a certain element of voyeurism to fiction, and particularly fiction like The Lowland. Readers are observing the lives of characters, people who are unaware of our presence or interest. But with this observation comes the ability to sympathize with and understand situations that we would never otherwise experience. I’ll never know what it feels like to nurse a child from my body or the complex interplay of emotions and hormones that accompany it. If I’m lucky, I’ll never experience the type of unrest and repression that Udayan fights unsuccessfully. Yet thanks to Lahiri’s skilful portrayal, I can see how these things change people and why they are driven to do things that they later regret—or celebrate.

Subhash and Gauri’s drama is not larger than life, not fantastical or incredible. Yet Lahiri unfolds it with a complexity and richness of detail that allows us to examine it from multiple angles, to sympathize with all those involved and lament that, sometimes, being human means not everything can have a happy ending. But we can’t stop reading, can’t tear ourselves away. We have to find out how it ends—though, true to real life, there is no proper, neat ending to The Lowland. Loose ends dangle. Here, as in reality, the story is never finished; only chapters come to close. No matter how bad it gets, how incredible it seems that a series of innocent choices has led to a state of abject unhappiness, there is always a reason to hope.

Roommates lending books they love can be a dicey proposition. It wasn’t that I was worried I would dislike Skallagrigg; I just worried I wouldn’t like it enough. This feeling stayed with me for the first part of the book, because it didn’t seem very straightforward at first. There was cryptic foreshadowing that would make sense towards the end. Thankfully, after the first few chapters, the book changes tack and becomes much easier to like. William Horwood deftly balances the excitement of the vista of 1980s computing with the challenges that being physically disabled presents (in any era). Skallagrigg is a canvas of hope and disappointment and all the states of being in between.

Esther Marquand has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair. At first, her father, Richard, is unsure what to do with her. She is a reminder of losing his wife, and like most able-bodied people, he isn’t sure how to interact with her. For a while, he remains distant—but he can never bring himself to abandon her completely. That’s all she needs. Gradually, Richard takes a more active interest in Esther’s life and development, eventually purchasing a more suitable home and moving her out of the place that is caring for her. As they learn how to communicate, Richard and Esther’s relationship becomes more like that of any father and daughter, complete with the occasional conflict over Richard’s affections, Esther’s future, and grandparents. Horwood is very skilled at creating characters who are sympathetic because they are three-dimensional. Richard is nice; he loves Esther and has her best interest in heart. But he’s not perfect, and sometimes he doesn’t understand Esther’s choices. Similarly, Esther spends quite a bit of time being rude to Richard’s girlfriend, despite her grace and courtesy. It’s a typical rejection of someone she feels is usurping the affection that should be hers. While Horwood carefully depicts the challenges Esther faces, being dependent on others for the most basic necessities, he also makes it clear that, mentally and emotionally, she undergoes the same developments and changes that we all do.

Esther becomes interested in stories told by other people with CP. They describe a boy with CP, Arthur, and his experiences in a hospital. Over the years, a mythical character named the Skallagrigg repeatedly saves the day. Arthur and his friends never seem to meet the Skallagrigg directly, but they also credit him with the save. Esther becomes convinced that the Skallagrigg and Arthur are real people who might still be alive. She begins collecting the stories, searching for clues as to Arthur’s whereabouts. Her research takes her along a dark path into the history of Britain’s treatment of people with disabilities. It is not pretty. In this way, Skalligrigg exposes the inadequacies of Britain’s treatment of and education of people with disabilities. As I learnt, through Esther, how bad it really is, I felt a growing conviction that we have to do better; we have no excuse for not doing better. The idea that people with physical disabilities are mistakenly diagnosed with mental disabilities simply because we haven’t found a way of communicating with them is not just frustrating; it’s gobsmackingly negligent. It’s an indictment without being pedantic, because it all happens in service to this wonderful story.

Skallagrigg also captures the excitement present in 1980s computing, when having a personal computer meant one had to do a lot more programming than one does today. Richard owns a computing company that recognizes the importance of computing to businesses. He brings home a computer for Esther and her friend to try, and they become captivated by its possibilities. Esther finds the patterns and logic behind programming comforting; as a mathematician and programmer myself, I can relate. She also discovers, thanks to the help of a creative engineer, a way to communicate using a specialized keyboard that allows her to express herself like never before. Never underestimate the power of having voice.

Horwood uses gaming as a way for Esther to express the emotional impact of her research. She begins work on a game called Skallagrigg, which is a maze/puzzle adventure that asks its player difficult, non-obvious questions along the way. It’s this game that the narrator has played, in which he finds clues Esther scattered to bring him to this story. As someone who loves computers and understands their appeal in a way Esther does, I really enjoyed this part of the book. Even if you don’t, however, it remains a powerful metaphor: Esther is creating, she is taking control in a computer-based world because she has so little control in this world. It’s exciting and amazing, but at the same time one has to think about why she is making the game and what she puts into it. She doesn’t just pour in her wonder and appreciation for the Skallagrigg; she puts in her frustration with her disability, her disappointment in the system and its history, her depression and worry that her destiny is not in her own hands.

I blubbered quite a bit reading this book, never outright crying but definitely verging on tears. There were a few awkward train rides where I had to stop reading for a while until I could pull myself together. I think it’s fair to say that some of the scenes in Skallagrigg are sappy—but that works here. Horwood is able to tug the heartstrings because he creates something that is mostly believable. Esther is smart and capable but at a big disadvantage, physically. She is lucky in that she has a father who both cares about her and has the resources to help her, in stark contrast to Arthur, whose mother had no such recourse. Life isn’t fair, but it still seems like the tribulations Esther undergoes are more unfair than many people have to suffer. And this is all with an awareness that Esther is actually quite privileged. If countries like Britain can barely care for disabled people properly, imagine how less well-off countries fare.

I’ve chosen to label this book as science fiction, because it is. Firstly, as some of the footnotes reveal, it is set in the future (well, relative to when it was written)—2019 or later. Secondly, Horwood’s use of gaming and the Skallagrigg game itself are science-fiction set pieces. Science fiction doesn’t have to be set in the future, and it doesn’t have to involve any technology more advanced than what we already have. It just needs to take the technology we already have and look at it through a slightly different lens. Horwood does that here; he asks how a very carefully-created, complex text-adventure game might be used to communicate across generations and speech impediments. He is somewhat ahead of his time in recognizing how monumental video games will be as ways of transmitting stories and memes. For these reasons, Skallagrigg is science fiction—more along the lines of Atwood than Asimov, though, and therefore such a label is no reason to avoid it.

No, the only reason one might want to avoid this book is to avoid the tears that might be spilt over its pages. I can promise, though, that some of those tears will be of joy. It’s not a depressing book, just a starkly realistic one. Horwood doesn’t pull punches, but at the same time he rewards the reader for sticking through it. Like all great literature, Skallagrigg simultaneously tells a story while also making the reader think, and think not just about the issues the book raises but about their own beliefs and convictions. Because it’s one thing to read books, and it’s another to have the courage to let books change you.

I admit there was a bit of a high-pitched shriek on Twitter the day I found out Neil Gaiman had a new novel coming out. Mind you, this is about on schedule for him—he seems to have one steeped and ready every four or five years. Gaiman is a prolific author but has never confined himself to any one genre or form. Indeed, as I glanced over his bibliography page on Wikipedia, I was surprised to see that he has written much more in the way of juvenile fiction than adult novels. I guess, since I became more aware of Gaiman as an adult, I’ve always thought of him as a writer of adult novels that happen to also have an audience in children. The Ocean at the End of the Lane carries on in this tradition, though there are some additional nuances to this idea that I’d like to explore later on.

My original plan had been to buy this book right away (because I couldn’t wait) but save it for my flight home at the end of July—I like to take a book I’m confident of enjoying and savouring, and this seemed like just the thing. I severely underestimated my willpower. I rationalize my decision after the fact by pointing out that at this edition’s 248 pages, it would not last very long on my eight-hour flight. In any event, I dug into The Ocean at the End of the Lane over the weekend and enjoyed almost every minute of it.

The narrator is a middle-aged man who “makes art” and has returned to the village of his childhood for a funeral. This awakens memories probably best left forgotten, memories of a time when he was seven years old. A misadventure with Lettie Hempstock, an ostensible 11-year-old living with her mother and ancient grandmother at the end of the lane, results in them letting something loose into the world, something that isn’t meant to be here. The narrator (whose name we never learn) is the door; he is integral to getting the creature to return from where it came, and the creature doesn’t want to go back.

I just love how Gaiman explains things in the seven-year-old’s voice:

I wished I had never let go of Lettie’s hand. Ursula Monkton was my fault, I was certain of it, and I would not be able to get rid of her by flushing her down a plughole, or putting frogs in her bed.

Having gone on an adventure, the children fail to follow the golden rule—whether it’s to stay on the path, or not to look back, or not to let go—and this results in something very bad happening indeed. In this case, as is often the case it isn’t really the narrator’s fault; he’s just a scared little kid who is too far out of his depth. Sometimes, these problems are inevitable.

The creature takes on the form of Ursula Monkton and insinuates herself into the narrator’s household as a housekeeper, ingratiating herself with everyone else except the narrator. He sees through her thin disguise right away, which causes the creature to panic and think up new and inventive ways to make his life miserable. They engage in the classical arena between monster and child: a battle of wits and will. No one except the child recognizes the monster for what it is, and the monster promises that nothing can ever save the child. Ursula slowly twists the child’s family members, turning them away from him. The mother is out all the time, working a second job or raising money for a charity; the sister loves Ursula and is all-too-ready to side with her against her brother; the father becomes smitten with Ursula, and we get to watch that progress through a child’s eyes.

Gaiman refers to this as “a novel about survival” (the back cover of this edition gives him space for a brief statement), and I can see why. This is not a typical childhood adventure; there is no quest or journey here. It’s a raw, primal fight against an external force that amplifies the mundane concerns of childhood: the loss of attention/affection from one’s parents, the loss of hope against seemingly impossible odds, the vague sense that actually attaining the future seems to be more difficult with each passing year. Children, as the Maurice Sendak epigraph reminds us at the beginning of the book, experience some impressive nadirs of fear and uncertainty that adults, in our quest to idealize the supposed innocence of the past, are so eager to forget or marginalize. Gaiman takes these experiences and puts them front and centre.

The sense of dread builds palpably during Ursula’s reign of terror. The fact that the narrator obviously survives into adulthood doesn’t undercut the tension; we don’t know how, or what price he pays. We don’t know if he vanquishes Ursula or if he has merely run away, only to have to face her now, as an adult. Gaiman demonstrates the power that flashback has to frame and provide context for a story, even while it keeps the ultimate resolution ambiguous right until the end. It’s a very well-plotted, exquisitely crafted endeavour.

I think it would be a mistake to call this a children’s novel, or a young adult novel, just because of the age of the narrator. It’s no such thing. It is, perhaps, a novel that could appeal to a certain age and attitude of young adult. Simply put, though, The Ocean at the End of the Lane isn’t about childhood; it’s about the relationship we, as adults, have with our childhoods. That’s why the story is told as a flashback, bookended by the narrator’s contemporary presence at the Hempstocks’ farm. That’s why the emphasis is on memory. The complex, ever-changing solution to the unbalanced equation of identity, of what it means to be “a child” or “an adult”, is at the centre of this book.

It’s there in the very first sentence. The adult narrator describes his presence at the funeral: “I wore a black suite and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult.” Despite being grown and having kids of his own, he still feels like wearing such adult clothing marks him as an imposter. This theme, that we never really “grow up”, continues throughout the book. It’s the reason the narrator can’t seek help from any adults (aside from the Hempstocks, who are exempt):

Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.

The idea that you “grow up” and somehow life gets easier is a lie. Childhood has its pitfalls, and I quite like being able to eat as much candy as I want and stay up as late as I want. But getting older doesn’t mean I’m any more sure of what I’m doing than I was when I was seven. If anything, I’m even less sure: the awesome reality of the obstacles in my way is now a solid, dense wall instead of the diaphanous, hardly remarkable fence that it was back in the day. We all have dreams, but those dreams are far less tangible—and therefore much easier to entertain—when you haven’t paid for years of schooling to make them happen. When the narrator says, at one point, that “Adults follow paths. Children explore”, he means more than just walking. There is a sense of playfulness that most of us have as children, and that playfulness tends to atrophy as we get older. I think some of the happiest, most well-adjusted adults are those who manage to hold on to that playfulness even as they nurture the maturity and self-control that age hopefully conveys.

So, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is decidedly an adult novel about childhood. Gaiman plays with the conceits of having a child narrator. His prose, although always packed with interesting turns of phrase and dazzling description, has the spare, lean quality of someone recounting a fuzzy, faded memory. It meanders slightly and is sparse in some areas. I really enjoyed the act of reading this book for these reasons—a lot of books about childhood have an intrusive, adult narrator who tends to inject so much of their own hindsight into proceedings.

And then there’s the Hempstocks: Old Mrs., Ginnie, and Lettie, in order of generations. It’s significant that the Hempstocks are named while the narrator and his parents are not. They are that important, not just to the story but to this entire world. They seem to be, at least as far as we know, unique entities—not quite gods, but something more than human. Hence the clipped references to world-walking and reality-shaping, the all-too-on-the-nose “wormholes” and, of course, Lettie’s deceptive, eponymous ocean. Lettie appears to be a child but is also implied to be very old, once again emphasizing the notion that childhood and adulthood are more closely related and far less binary notions than we might believe.

If Ursula is the Big Bad Monster of the story, then the Hempstocks are definitely the Forces for Good. They are just comforting in the way that only a knowledgeable grandmother like Old Mrs. Hempstock can be. When the narrator finally makes it to them for help, you just want to run into their embrace with him, relieved in the knowledge that you are, at least for the moment, safe. They bear much resemblance to many of Gaiman’s similar supernatural creations, such as certain gods from American Gods, or some of the beings who populate the world of the Sandman series. (For all we know, the Hempstocks are somewhere, out there, and have run into the Endless once or twice.)

I don’t want to get too far into spoiler territory discussing the climax of the book. I am very intrigued by the relative responsibility that the narrator and Lettie have for the narrator’s survival. In this battle, the narrator is hopelessly outmatched: he has none of the knowledge, none of the power that the Hempstocks can bring to bear against these other beings. The only thing he can trade on is himself—his life, his soul. And perhaps the willingness to sacrifice that is the proof that he is worthy of being saved….

Anyway, I suppose you should take all this with a grain of salt, since I can’t deny being an avid fan of Neil Gaiman’s work. I love all of his books and stories that I’ve read, even those I didn’t feel that I could give five stars to. In this case, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is worth those five stars. I should mention, I suppose, that the short length doesn’t bother me. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed when I found out it wasn’t four- or five-hundred pages. But it’s just the right length for the story that Gaiman tells, and with any book, such serendipity of writing and editing is a gift.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane fulfils all my expectations, but in utterly surprising ways. Gaiman fills a comfortable niche in the intersection between modern-day fantasy and literary fiction, providing a story that is enchanting and deep but also very familiar. The fantastic, here, is simply a dimension to our lives that is particularly prominent in childhood. Exposing it in effect exposes the changes that we undergo during that tenuous transition into the adult world. Uncovering it helps uncover those memories we have lost, or chosen to forget, simply because it’s easier. The best thing that a book can do for me is make me think. The Ocean at the End of the Lane has given me a lot to think about when it comes to childhood, memories, and our own uncertain past.