Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere: A Review
Neil Gaiman’s novel, Neverwhere, which has been referred to by critics as a dark and dangerous journey through the alleyways and sewers of Alice’s Wonderland, starts off slowly, as we spend several chapters gaining an understanding of Richard’s position in his world, in his London. It begins so slowly, in fact, that this writer had a very difficult time convincing herself not to toss it aside and find something else. The payoff will be worth it, I told myself, and I was right. The second half of the book was, indeed, well worth the time and effort expended to get through the first half.
At no point in the progression of the story do we see fewer than four stories unfolding at once. On one level, we have Richard and all that is happening to and around him. Then we meet Door, an inhabitant of London Below whose name describes her perfectly; by merely placing her hands on a wall, she creates doors where there are none and unlocks those to which there are no keys. Their two worlds collide when one of these doors leads Door to fall in a bleeding and unconscious pile at Richard’s feet and for much of the rest of the novel, their stories unfold together.
The third of these unfolding stories is that of the two, almost mythic, hitmen, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, working for an unnamed, unseen boss who, in the beginning, wants the Lady Door dead, but, as the story progresses, decides that scared is a much better way for Door to be and orders the hitmen only frighten her, but do not harm her. Watching Croup and Vandemar exist is, in fact, truly comical, despite the fact they are monsters (real ones who don’t feel pain and who have claws) who have been performing murder for hire for hundreds of years. Their wits are dry and their hobbies (and, yes, “hobby” truly is the most accurate word) gruesome; we watch, in one scene, Mr. Vandemar affix his hand to a wall with a knife, simply to see if he could.
The marquis de Carrabas is another of the major characters. The marquis is the low friend in high places that everyone wishes they could have in their corner but who gained that status through treachery and therefore must be watched carefully. Sometimes we see his story as he maneuvers London Below alone, other times we follow him with Richard and the Lady Door as he repays his debt to Door’s father, having promised to take care of her, should she ever need his services.
Beyond the exquisite molding of characters and their stories, London Below, as well, becomes, as you make your way from cover to cover of Neverwhere, as real as the pages the book was written on. Not only can you truly see everything that poor, displaced Richard sees, you begin to believe that everything he is seeing, everything he is experiencing, may really exist, that there really is a place, beneath, or rather almost parallel to, every city in the world, for the people who have fallen through the cracks.
Well crafted, imaginative and full of superb imagery, both fantastic and fantastical, Neverwhere offers a little bit of something for everyone. There is a moment of sexual tension between Richard and Door, leaving him to question his reverberant feelings for his fair Jessica whom he left in the “real” London. Of course in following along behind Croup and Vandemar, one is sure to see a fair amount of bloodshed and violence to suit their tastes. There is humor and a few moments of sadness as characters are killed, or simply disappear, seemingly, into thin air, although the truth may prove to be far worse. My only complaint is with the ending, but I cannot share that with you here. It would spoil the fun.
If I took anything away from this novel it was a desire to read Gaiman’s other works, especially his Sandman series, something I had shied from because of its format (I haven’t read a comic book since I was eight years old and even then it was Archie). I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a journey into an intricate fantasy world through which the creator himself has obviously spent a significant amount of time traveling on his own.
