This short novel is a nice little fable about a little boy who finds himself in some magical trouble. His parents own a ramshackle estate in England, one that they can’t quite afford to keep. Danger comes when a lodger arrives and starts a chain of events that draws mystical attention to the neighborhood, a kind of baffled intrusion by something very old from another world.
Fortunately, the three generations of women at the end of the lane, the youngest just a few years older than our narrator, come from that far place themselves, or somewhere near, at least, and have ways of dealing with the supernatural. They’ve become a bit cavalier in their power, though, and the girl takes the boy along for the ride and ends up setting loose the very trouble they’d hoped to bind.
The bulk of the book involves the boy trying to outwit this ghostly foe, finding a way to turn to his magic allies for help. At the same time, the struggle becomes an elaborate metaphor for adulthood. Gaiman explores the mysterious power that older folks hold in younger eyes as well as simultaneous realization that this aura of strength is just as much a facade as the faerie realm our narrator contends with.
Gaiman doesn’t seem to fully trust his reader’s ability to pick up this metaphor; he can be overexplicit in making his characters voice it. But while the subtext occasionally rises to become text, the story moves along propulsively, especially when our forces are set in opposition.
Gaiman’s narrator here isn’t always the most compelling voice; he’s a 7-year-old, unpopular, a reader, given to withdrawal and fantasy. At times he doesn’t sound much like a child, even one being filtered through the memory of his older self. But he’s ultimately resourceful enough to seek help and sturdy enough to make his move.
His allies, the Hempstocks, are nicely magical, filled with old-fashioned ways and even older abilities. They’re equally at ease with milking cows and exiling wayward spirits, although they don’t do anything as vulgar as cast spells. “Recipes” are the closest they come, its said, but they’re making magic nonetheless.
If you’ve read “Sandman” or any John Constantine, this world of faerie will feel familiar, but it’s still enjoyable. What it lacks in surprises it makes up for in comfort, even if our narrator’s plight is anything but comforting. Still, the Hempstocks stand by him, although at the end they seem to blame him for the trouble they exposed him to. That bit of characterization seems irresponsible, but maybe it’s just a case of the veil slipping, the gods revealing how they view humans.
“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” is a brisk read and an enjoyable one. It may not be Gaiman’s best work, but it’s not a bad place to see what he’s all about.