Neil Gaiman "Neverwhere" (Hodder Headline)
Imagine, if you will, that Charles Dickens is kidnapped by time travellers and brought to modern London; that after being given a lengthy tour of the city and of modem culture, he is given Lewis Carroll, Norton Juster, and a selection of 'Gothick' novels to read; finally, that he is asked to re-imagine Alice Through The Looking Glass entirely in his own style. It is not too far-fetched to speculate that Neverwhere might be the result...
Richard Mayhew, a mild and unassuming young man, is on the way to a Very Important dinner date with his beautiful but manipulative girlfriend, Jessica. Nearing the restaurant they encounter a young girl dressed in shabby clothes, lying on the pavement severely injured. Jessica barely registers her, but Richard stops to see if he can help. Much to Jessica's anger, he ignores her ultimatum, abandons dinner, and takes the girl back to his flat, tends to her wounds and offers her refuge. A few bizarre incidents alert him that this is no ordinary girl. Before he knows what has happened he has "fallen through the cracks" into a parallel London, 'London Below', a place where rats are revered and have their human translators, rat-speakers.
Although written in a style to appeal to teenagers especially, this is a book that finds a wide audience - its colourful cast of characters, dramatic narrative that owes much to its origins as a TV series, and its depiction of a locale both familiar and yet unfamiliar, hold the reader's attention well and lead us via varied cliffhangers towards a satisfying denouement.
Yet this is no mere childrens' fantasy. It explores many adult issues - of good vs. evil (rarely portrayed in simplistic terms); of facing up to fears leading to self-knowledge and growth; of trust and betrayal; of learning to see beyond the outer appearance of things. It is also a satire on modern urban society, and how some people really do 'fall through the cracks' - the homeless, drug addicts, the poor, misfits, those who live alone.
For readers of all ages there are a series of quests, which only rarely resolve in an expected manner : the search for a magic key; revenge for murder; a personal obsession with slaying the Beast of London; release from 'eternal imprisonment'; and Richard's quest to return 'home' to London Above. All these events take place beneath the familiar London - in the sewers, the Tube system, in long-forgotten stations, up in dark courts and alleys of London Above; and in the regularly staged Floating Market, held overnight in a different London landmark, leaving no trace behind, and where a rigidly observed truce ensures no violence or crime can be committed within its bounds.
It is the characters that make this novel such a success, particularly the way so many of them are drawn from familiar London place-names : there's the friend of the birds, rooftop dweller Old Bailey; the ageing dementia-ridden Earl and his Court; the Seven Sisters, the Black Friars, Hammer Smith, and the angel, Islington. Then there is the heroine, Door - what is her past, and what is the limit of her powers? Who is the Marquis de Carabas, and can he ever be trusted? Never to be trusted are the two agents of villainy, Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar; dressed like shabby Victorian undertakers, their pleasure is to maim, to kill, but most of all, to cause pain. They appear, often silently, on either side of their hapless victim who has fled, thinking he can outwit and outrun them.
London Below occasionally intrudes upon London Above, but it is an oddity that the residents Above, though they can see the residents from Below, simply do not register the fact, and though seen, they are quickly forgotten or ignored as though they did not exist. This is part of the satire of the novel - how so many inhabitants of modern cities do not 'register' to other citizens : the homeless on the streets, the beggars, etc.
Neverwhere belongs to a long and respected list of what can be aptly described as 'one-off moral fantasies', in the manner of Alice Through The Looking Glass, The Phantom Tollbooth, Erewhon, Gulliver's Travels. But unlike many such creations, it can be enjoyed superficially on its own narrative terms, as an exciting and absorbing fantasy novel.
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