Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere - Alice for adults...

I feel the need to get this Blog started. As myself and Ezra decided to call it 'The Floating Market' it only seems right that the first in depth and interesting piece on here should be about the amazing novel that is Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

Neverwhere, in my humble opinion, is one of the best novels ever written. I know that as an English graduate I shouldn't make sweeping generalisations like that, but I don't care. It is brilliant. So much so that I wrote my 10, 000 word dissertation on it. I think that the reviews on the back of the book sum up its brilliance:

'The sort of book Terry Pratchett might produce if he spent a month locked in a cell with Franz Kafka.'

- Wired

'I didn't ever want this book to end... Hunter, Islington, Door - these characters are part of my life now... I'm over the moon about this book.'

- Tori Amos

'Excuberantly inventive... a postmodernist punk Faerie Queen.'

- Kirkus Reviews

Neverwhere centres on the tales of Richard Mayhew (a young Scot living in London trying to balance a full-time job in security with a high-maintenance fiancee) and Door (a waif like girl who is the last remaining member of a noble family). Richard's life is turned upside down as he gets dragged into London Below, the world of Door and her associates.

London Below is the home of those people who 'fall through the cracks'. A world occupied by beggars and the homeless, Richard finds it extremely hard to adjust to his new environment. From the introduction of my dissertation:

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is a novel concerned with different spaces, notably London Above and London Below, and movement through these various areas. Originally written as a television series for the BBC, Neverwhere tells the story of Richard Mayhew, a middle class Londoner who finds himself on a dangerous adventure beneath the city streets. He must not only explore and become accustomed to his new environment, but he is required to view a space that he thought he knew in a completely different manner. Gaiman wrote the novel in the hope that it would become an Alice in Wonderland for adults...

Gaiman’s narrative explores the way in which different places are home to alternate forms of social ordering and the reader’s attitude towards this multitude of cultures. Through Richard, he takes the reader on a journey through his alternative London and questions their perceptions of the London they are so familiar with.

I've read my copy of Neverwhere so often that it is coming apart at the spine. There are some books that I find it hard to read on a regular basis, but I never tire of this one. And the BBC series isn't bad either. I love Laura Frazer as Door, she is such a beauty. Door is the kind of character that could be horrifically miscast, but Frazer is perfection.

I could ramble on about Neverwhere all day. Myself and Ezra will have to go on the Stroll in Old London at Dusk one day and take lots of amazing photos. But that's all about Neverwhere for tonight...