(submitted as a requirement for my Specialized Writing: Review class wherein writer, playwright, and UST historian Jose Victor Torres was my professor)
CAN THE living find refuge in a place full of dead people?
In the chilling new children’s novel “The Graveyard Book” (Harper Collins, 2008), author Neil Gaiman takes his readers on another adventure-packed journey, even more promising than “Coraline,” with a boy who lives to tell his share of tales from the crypt.
Equivalent to “The Jungle Book’s” Mowgli by Rudyard Kipling, Nobody “Bod” Owens was adopted by a ghost couple in a graveyard after the toddler managed to escape from clutches of his family’s murderer, a man named Jack. He was then raised in the company of ghosts and his guardian, an undefined creature of the night named Silas.
As he grows up, he encounters a few odd characters from both the worlds of the living and dead such as befriending a witch, dealing with a black market trader and dancing with a lady suspected to be Death herself. He also learns a few tricks in the graveyard such as opening and closing a ghoul gate, Fading as the dead faded and Haunting as the ghosts haunted the living. He utilized these lessons in a final face-off with the man who killed his family, but will it be enough to defeat a skilled assassin?
Compared to Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” Gaiman’s new novel was more interesting and much more insightful as choosing a setting such as a graveyard will inevitably lead into subtle hints of discussions involving life and death.
Silas points out the infinite possibility a living, breathing human being has to Bod, who, at one point, did not care anymore if his pursuer would kill him as he said that “all of my best friends are dead” and didn’t understand what difference would his death make.
Just like the “Jungle Book” that used the animals as anamorphic symbols of different kinds of people, Gaiman did not moralize in his discussions of life and death but instead focused on his narration on sending out the importance of living to readers. Needless to say, he lets the readers realize the morals behind Bod’s story through his storytelling.
Although the novel began with a foreboding plot and ended with a resolution of that failed murder, what would get readers hooked in the book is the middle part which is where the meat of Bod’s adventure lies. A reader becomes interested in how the young boy would be able to escape as captive of the ghouls before he rots in Ghulheim or what would Bod get for a headstone to mark his witch friend’s grave. In fact, Bod’s adventures are so gripping that they can stand on their own as separate short stories. But being the typical master storyteller that Gaiman is, he weaves each story into a unified whole. All stories seemed to have a significance save for Chapter Five which is the Danse Macabre. A scrupulous reader can’t help but get the feeling that this was just a filler chapter because none of its elements were introduced in the beginning nor was any mentioned in the end.
Common for any book that has a child for its protagonist, there will always be this wise elder who will take in the hero for his apprentice and teach him the ways of the good. In this novel, Bod’s guardian, Silas, was this wise voice. He becomes Bod’s longest connection to the world of the living for Silas is neither living nor dead and knows much more of each than anyone does. Gaiman did not overuse this character though as he also utilized the old age, dating back to the Renaissance period, of some of the graveyard’s resident ghosts as a source of the book’s quotable quotes.
Mother Slaughter, for instance, tells of the ivies that blossom once in every few decades, “Things blossom in their time. They bud and bloom, blossom and fade. Everything in its time.”
But even though the book has the depth that can be enjoyed by mature readers, the voice of Bod as a child is retained throughout the narration. When he was small, he was inquisitive with the graveyard-folk. As is the nature of every child, he was stubborn and was eager to learn everything. When he grew up to become a teenager, he has grown accustomed to the ways of his home and had accumulated considerable knowledge about the world of the living. He had also been more distant to the child ghosts he used to play with, he had become more contemplating often expressing concern that he wants to go out and venture into the world.
Doing a good job with Bod’s character was not the only thing to be applauded in the book, the content of the book itself was well-researched. It gave historical tidbits about the ghosts who lived and died in different eras. It told of the history and the ancient magic that pervaded in England even before the Romans conquered the land.
However, there were also some cons that needs to be noted about the novel. Firstly, it was not clear where this graveyard was in the beginning. Although it was good that Neil Gaiman made the reader think based on his knowledge of world history (as England was occupied by Romans and before that, the Celts), it would have been better if he just said somewhere in the text that the setting was in England for the readers might find that the graveyard could also be in Scotland.
Secondly, being a growing kid, isn’t it harmful for Bod’s health to have an irregular sleeping pattern? When does he sleep anyway? He’s awake at night when the ghosts of the graveyard wake and he’s also awake during the day when he guards the graveyard or plays with Scarlet, a living friend of his when he was young and who he will meet again when he’s grown.
Thirdly, one can’t help but ask the question, why do the ghosts wake only during the night?
But these small inconsistencies can be forgiven as the book can easily conceal these because it has more to offer.
For children, “The Graveyard Book” is a delight. For more mature readers, it is a novel that makes them realize the worth of life and how one should make the most out one’s time.
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