Neverwhere

As I just had the honor of finishing my first Gaiman novel, today is review day!  Though I have always known about Neil Gaiman, for some reason I have never settled down with one of his books.  I saw the film adaptations of Stardust and Coraline and considered them to be wonderful, fantastical fairy tales.  He was always on my To Read list, but had never made it to the top.  The other day a friend and I were discussing putting together a bibliography of fairy tales for adult readers, and Gaiman's name came up.  This conversation prompted my decision to finally read one of his books.  I started Neverwhere.

(Blurb taken from www.Goodreads.com) Under the streets of London there's a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.
Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: Neverwhere.

To begin, I loved the book.  Gaiman's writing style is very original in that it is so conversational.  He writes like people talk - interruptions, misspeaks, stammers, and everything.  There is nothing pompous about it, nothing intimidating.  It makes his writing very easy to read.  I also liked the fact that Gaiman has the ability to talk about nonsensical things, like people who can speak to/understand rats, and the fact that there is a whole second, subterranean London, and have it seem completely believable.  A second London subway system no one knows about?  Sure, Nail Gaiman, why not?  I totally believe you.

I also love Gaiman's characters.  They are delightfully quirky, believably flawed, and sometimes perfectly wretched and annoying.  Richard Mayhew, the protagonist in this novel, is an ordinary man thrust into an extraordinary world.  And he remains an ordinary man throughout the course of the novel.  He does not magically become gorgeous and brave, or super-smart and irresistible - he begins as, and ever is, Richard Mayhew.  I loved this.  To me, it goes against all the cliches in books today about ordinary people first transforming into something extraordinary, and then doing something wonderful.  Not so here.  Here, Richard accomplishes great things, but they happen either with the help of those around him, or completely by accident. The supporting cast is a dirty rainbow of London Below urchins who utterly charm.  My personal favorite was the Marquis de Carabas.  He is unpredictable and moody and brave and slightly shady.  And that's all I'll say about that, because I don't want to give anything away.  But each and every character in the book plays an important part, each has its purpose. 

To say that my first foray into the world of Neil Gaiman was a success would be an understatement.  To make matters more wonderful, when I finished the print version of the book, I got it on CD and listened to it.  The version I had was narrated by Gaiman himself, and his voice reading his words added a whole new level of magicalness.  If you are reading this and prefer to listen to your books, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you get the version read by Neil Gaiman.  And for everyone else, give this book a try; if you like moody adventure stories with a bit of murder, a bit of magic, a bit of bravery, and a bit of darkness you won't be disappointed.