The Ocean at the End of the Lane
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what. A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
11mentions
10people
2013–2023years
64% recommend36% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A pair of books I’d recommend for 2024, which I didn’t get the chance to reread this year, would be:
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Gaiman), which is beautiful in a way I can’t quite describe
- Century Rain (Reynolds), which is best described as a hard boiled 1930’s noir hard science fiction novel.
Books I read this year which I really enjoyed:’
- Exploding The Phone (Lapsley): Super engrossing description of the phone phreak scene almost from its start to its end
- Hyperion and sequels (Simmons): Probably one of my favourite science fiction series now, and I’ve already felt the need to go back and re-read passages from it. Also really enjoy how each part of the series (Hyperion, then Fall of Hyperion, then the Endymion books) re-invent the style and the story.
- The Annotated American Gods (Gaiman, Klinger): 1000’s of footnotes is a great way to revisit the story :)
- Ocean at the End of the Lane is a great 2nd to read if you enjoyed Neverwhere!
I was also listening to Evan Doorbell’s telephone tapes [1] as I read Exploding the Phone, which was super interesting because you can see the events of the book line-up with some of the comments Evan and other phreaks make on the tapes (like phone company security agents harassing them at their schools)
- Online content is often low-quality, highly commercial in nature and very ephemeral. Books, the real kind, when they are good can stay with you for a very long time.
A well-written story, be it fiction or non-fiction can have a long lastig impact and even an emotional connection that I have personally never experienced with anything 'online'.
If you don't read books, you are missing out. Even only 1 or 2 books a year is a world of difference, even if those books aren't the best ones out there. This (as posted before) also has to do with the time investment and realtime one-to-one (you and the book) time.
If you are having a hard time getting started, or keep reading a book to the finish, start with something light and perhaps... generic. Like a Dan Brown book. (and I know opinions vary wildly) Even a smaller book that might be more targeted as a children's book such as Neil Gaiman's 'Ocean at the end of the lane' are perfectly fine to get something going. Not everything will engage you, but making it easier for yourself to get started and enjoy some reading time is all it takes to enrich yourself. (which is perhaps not the best wording... but I'm no writer)
- [cont'd]
Michael Frayn, Democracy. A compulsively readable play about an episode in the politics of West Germany in the 1970s, a subject I didn't know could be made so interesting to me. Superb.
Michael Flynn, Eifelheim. Excellent and profound SF/historical novel about aliens crashing in the Germany of the Middle Ages, and how that would work out. Avoids cheap tricks, very strong on historical research and verisimilitude.
Ross Thomas, The Cold War Swap, Cast a Yellow Shadow, Chinaman's Chance. Very well-written thrillers, typically stories about spying or political corruption. I'm usually bored by this genre, couldn't put these down. Will read more by this (hitherto unknown to me) author.
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wizard of Earthsea. (reread) Still as good as I remembered it to be.
P.K.Dick, The Man in the High Castle. (reread) Very inventive and weird in a good way, but I wish the characters would be a little different (everyone is the same highly neurotic mouthpiece for the author), and the obsession with I Ching does nothing for me. Still worth reading.
Robert Ryan, Dead Man's Land. A Sherlock Holmes novel in which 90% of the action is with John Watson rejoining the Army to help in World War I at his late middle age, and Holmes appears only briefly. Works quite well. Very detailed on day-to-day trench warfare and medicine at the front.
Michael Frayn, Noises Off. A funny short play, very meta, not as good as his "Democracy".
Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Better than his two long novels of the 2000s. A self-contained fairy tale, fun to read and well-written, but not beyond that. Gaiman's unsurpassed masterpiece, to me, is still The Sandman.
Michael Swansick, Chasing the Phoenix. SF, set on a future Earth where computers and electronic communication are outlawed following problems with runaway AIs, but there's lots of high technology (e.g. genetics) otherwise. Funny and amusing, a light read.
[edit: deleted about 20 books I didn't like or hated]
- Leave it to Psmith - 10/10
Anna Karenina - 8/10
The Code of the Woosters 8/10
Fooled by Randomness 7/10
Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life 8/10
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia 9/10
Reluctant Fundamentalist 9/10
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes 8/10
The Last Question - Asimov - 9/10
The Magic of Thinking Big - 6/10
The catcher in the Rye 8/10
Models 7/10
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby 8/10
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman 7/10
The Surrender Experiment - 10/10
Untethered Soul - 9/10
The Autobiography of a Yogi - 7/10
Raja Yoga - Swami Vikekandanda - 7/10
Something Fresh, something new - 7/10
Karma Yoga - Swami Vikekandanda - 8/10
Thinking, Fast and Slow - 9/10
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates 10/10
The Pearl by John Steinbeck 7/10
- Lexicon - Max Barry. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman. Channel Skin - Jeff Noon. The Long Earth - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter. The Difference Engine - William Gibson.
