This story is short. I read it in a few hours, but yet it doesn't feel small. The story is as full as it needs to be. You aren't left feeling like there could have been more. It's a perfectly formed novel.
The narrator of the book (I'm sure he has a name, but I can't remember. Maybe it's never mentioned. Either way it doesn't really matter) starts the tale leaving a funeral and killing time before the wake, decides to take a drive and finds himself driving to the house in which he grew up in. But as he drives on past he realises that it isn't where he was driving at all. He was heading to the Hempstock farm at the end of the lane. Once there he sets out for the pond or 'ocean' as the little girl (Lettie) who used to live there called it, and remembers the first time he came to the farm. A lodger at his families house stole his Dad's car and committed suicide in it, setting in motion the strange events that would follow. We follow his narrative as he uncovers these repressed memories, seemingly for the first time. The Hempstocks are the classic three Wyrd witches, the old hag, the beautiful woman and the child used in old British folklore (and a million other people since including Shakespeare and Gaiman himself in previous novels) and they lead him by the hand (quite literally) as the suicide cracks the edge of reality letting in some otherworldly nasties.
I don't want to talk too much about it, as you should just read it for yourself as this is a beautiful book, sad and poignant. One that you will dive into like the ocean, finding the waters refreshing, deep, and dark.
No comments:
Post a Comment