The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: Review & Summary
Dive into Neil Gaiman's enchanting world with our review and summary of 'The Graveyard Book.' Uncover the magic, mystery, and unforgettable journey.
Welcome to an insightful journey through the world of 'The Graveyard Book - Review, Summary, & Analysis,' written by Muhiuddin Alam on the book recommendations and reviews site, ReadingAndThinking.com.
Over the years as a leading authority on literary expertise, I've created numerous book reviews, many of which can be found on this site. I'm also a regular contributor to other websites and publications.
I have received many requests to review the book 'The Graveyard Book' which was written by Neil Gaiman'. In response, I'm pleased to offer my expert Reviews, Summary, and Analysis in this article.
So, when I suggest this book, it's because I've read a lot and want to share the best ones with you. I'm all about making your reading experience awesome. Trust in a guide deeply immersed in the literary books and stories. I love books just like you do!
Introduction
A baby. A cemetery. The end of an assassination, the beginning of a legend. In the cemetery. There are ghosts. There are also mysterious guardians.
Even the god of death went on his own. (Don't worry. She is a kind lady.) In the human world, there are liars, villains, and ordinary people. There is also a naive little girl.
Growth story, magic practice. Adventure experience, the first love of a teenager. Throughout the book is the battle of assassination and revenge.
The gloom of the cemetery reflects the warmth of the ghost. The noisy world is indifferent and ruthless.
But in the end, the teenagers who grew up in the cemetery will still bid farewell to the past. Towards society. To adulthood...
Book: The Graveyard Book
- Originally published: September 30, 2008
- Author: Neil Gaiman
- Genres: Novel, Fantasy, Horror fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Children's literature, Young adult fiction, Paranormal fiction
- Illustrators: Dave McKean, Chris Riddell
- Pages: 312 (first edition)
- Characters: Nobody Owens, Mrs. Owens, Mr. Owens, Jack, Silas
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| The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman |
About the Author: Neil Gaiman
Contemporary master fantasy novelist, born in England in 1960. Neil Gaiman is a dazzling new star in contemporary European and American literary circles and is hailed as one of the top ten postmodern writers by The Dictionary of Literary Biography.
In 1989, Gaiman started his creation with the comic "The Sandman". Since then, his creation has gradually covered novels, comics, poems, scripts, and other fields. His representative works include "American Gods", "Nordic Gods", "Stardust", and "Good Omen".
Because of the unique style and imagination of his works, the "Miami New Times" believes that he has become a "rock star in the literary world"; Stephen King, the master of thriller fiction, believes that his "rich creative power and high standard of work are both magical" It's scary again."
"Graveyard Book" was conceived 23 years ago, and it is the greatest work of Gaiman's creative career. Gaiman believes that the "Graveyard Book" surpassed his expectations and even surpassed himself. The adaptation of the film is being produced by Disney.
"Graveyard Book" was inspired by the 25-year-old Gaiman who saw his 18-month-old son riding a tricycle in a nearby cemetery. Since then, the idea of writing a "Graveyard Book" has been fermenting in Gaiman's mind. In 2008, Gaiman completed the writing of Graveyard Book, and his son happened to be 25 years old that year.
Excerpts from the original text
Some people seem to hold the idea that books that you can enjoy and books that are good for you are opposed to each other, and you must choose one side, and everyone should choose the other side. But from the past to the present, I have always disagreed with this view. I still think that you have to choose your favorite book.——Quote from Neil Gaiman's speech at the American Library Association Annual Meeting.
Reasons for Recommending
The book has won 20 international awards including the Hugo Award, the Track Award, the New Burleigh Gold Award, the Carnegie Award, the Sevier Award, the Wozara Award, and the Horn Flute Award.
The author Neil Gaiman is a modern fantasy novelist. Representative works include "American Gods".
I am a person who is afraid of ghosts, but the cover of this book is very interesting and does not look so scary. I couldn't put it down when I opened it, and it took two days to finish reading.
"Graveyard Book," says that the family was killed and only one baby was left. The baby came to the cemetery by mistake. The ghosts took him back, named him Nobody, and raised him.
Seeing such a story, I am very curious about how Novati grew up in the cemetery, how the ghosts treated him, who killed his family, and what would happen to his identity when he grew up.
A mystery urged me to look down. Norbert has been to vampires and witches, werewolves and death gods, ghouls and fog people, high-altitude hunters, and god dogs, as well as the tomb of ghouls where people who encounter loneliness are hidden, sleepwalking, and learn horror.
The dance of the gods of death and the undead, as well as the very touching friendship and affection. Upon reading, you will find that there is warm and soft darkness in the tomb, and ghosts are more humane than living people.
I thought this book was about the growth history of children. After reading the last chapter, I realized that this is more of a "Parent's Book".
Author Neil Gaiman said:
"I finished the last page in the gazebo in my garden, and while I was writing, I managed to bear tears. Only at that moment, did I understand why I didn't write this book when I was a father.
Because before I created it, I had to First accompany my children through their growth process, nurture them, love them, and learn to let go at the end."
Therefore, if you have a growing child in your family, you can find the "parent's book" hidden behind the "childhood book". From the perspective of the child and the parent, the love and attachment in the cemetery are very touching.
If you are afraid of ghosts, this book will eliminate the horror that reflects the conditions of ghosts and gods.
Of course, if you have a long time and want to read simple and interesting novels to pass the time, it is also highly recommended. This is a book that is as powerful as the main text until the latter part of the book.
Short Comment
I finished reading this fantasy novel today. It's very beautiful, but I didn't expect Silas to be a vampire and didn't write any mistakes he made. I personally feel that the reason Jack wants to kill Bod is too ridiculous.
When I saw Bod leave the cemetery in the end, I felt so sad, although it was written that he left with a smile and expecting an unknown world.
Alas, life is like this. Growing up under the care and education of relatives, until the day of adulthood, you will always embark on the journey of life alone, and there will be fewer and fewer relatives along the way with the passage of time, the unknown road to the rest of your life, For good or bad, you have to brave yourself to the end.
Book Summary
Neil Gaiman mentioned an interesting detail in his speech at the 2009 American Library Association Annual Meeting. From the age of eight to fourteen, he would stay in the library all day long during school holidays and dabble in various subjects.
Books, and received a lot of care and help from the librarian. Regarding this experience, he jokingly said that the librarian told him not to talk about it, in case some parents mistakenly thought that the library was a place that could be used as a free daycare.
However, he unceremoniously fostered a baby in a cemetery until it grew up. This is the story told in "The Graveyard Book".
As a work about personal growth, "The Graveyard Book" skillfully and organically combines adventure, emotion, revenge, and separation, presenting readers with a story that is sometimes interesting and vivid, sometimes thrilling, and sometimes warm. work.
About adventure and warmth
Perhaps it's because Norberti was an unusual person. Except for the school days in Chapter 6, which involved campus bullying, the troubles he caused the rest of the time - of course, can also be said to be "adventures" - always seem so unusual.
When he was still a baby, he accidentally managed to escape from the clutches of one of the Jacks, and became a permanent resident of the cemetery through the encouragement of Mrs. Owens, the Slaughter Mother and the Pale Horse Queen;
He once led Scarlet into an ancient tomb and saw the power of the killer. He once fell into a ghoul's trap because of his anger.
He once took risks and was trapped by a greedy antique dealer because he wanted to build a tombstone for the little witch Lisa.
He was arrested by the police for picking up a bad boy, and in the end, he personally killed Jack, who wanted him to die.
While readers follow Norberti and feel the heartbeat speeding up again and again, they are also moved by the ubiquitous warmth.
Whether it was the guidance and protection given to him by the vampire Silas and the werewolf Miss Lupescu, or the warmth and care given to him by the Owenses and the Mother of Slaughter, as well as the education and guidance given to him by other people in the cemetery, he was deeply moved. People feel that this is an extremely warm place.
They had lived before but died due to some irresistible reasons. They were forever fixed at a certain moment in their lives, even if they were undead. However, the appearance of Norberti undoubtedly allowed their lives to continue again.
For example, the Owens found the joy of having a child through Norberti, Silas felt the beauty of being needed through Norberti, and Lisa began to be remembered and gained others because of Norberti. recognition and the fact that other residents want to teach Norberti knowledge has given their lives a new meaning again - this kind of love that penetrates both ways makes people feel heart-warming and happy.
Neil Gaiman is like a magician who makes the dilapidated, unfamiliar, and cold tombstone full of life and vitality again; makes the desolate, gloomy, and uneasy cemetery once again surrounded by love and warmth.
As a reader, I even envy Norberti, hoping to get to know those lovely souls under the cold tombs like him and listen to their stories about the past.
About Norberti's love
As the male protagonist - although he is still not very old until the end of the story - if he is not given a romantic love story, the author would feel that the author is too cruel.
For Norberti, Scarlet was his first love. This relationship was young and beautiful. Although the separation of the two in the end was sad, it was also reasonable. After all, they may have fallen in love because of a moment of intoxication. mind, but if you want to continue on, you have to face reality.
Perhaps Scarlet felt that Norberti was extremely cruel, and the other party used her to lead one of Jack into the tomb and make him fall into a trap, but she did not realize that this was the only way under the circumstances.
The only person that the cemetery can really protect is Norberti, and the Jacks will undoubtedly use the girl who escaped into the cemetery as bait to lure Norberti out.
If she is not hidden in the most secret ancient tomb, she will undoubtedly become a burden and end up killing everyone. As for using the Slayer to kill one of Jack, it was more like the result of Norberti's flash of inspiration.
Therefore, the so-called "Norberti took advantage of her" is just an excuse for Scarlet to escape from Norberti. After all, she is just an ordinary girl living in the real world.
What she really cares about is that she has There was no such thing as a cell phone, and everything about Norbert was beyond her comprehension—invisibility, night vision, communicating with ghosts, that sort of thing.
Her reaction was the same as that of most normal people, seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages; she could not accept Norberti like this, so she would naturally choose to run away. Rather than saying that Scarlett is cruel, it’s better to say that Norberti really didn’t find the right person.
In comparison, the little witch Lisa is much wiser. Although it is not explicitly stated in the article, it seems to some extent that she also loves Norberti, but she knows that life and death are separated, and they cannot be together after all, so she chooses to wait silently, and she is always by Norberti's side.
she will only show up and speak out when a crisis arises, and more often she chooses to remain silent, using the excuse of "we are quarreling, so I won't talk to you" - maybe she doesn't want to talk to her.
Norberti has too many ties. She knows that the other person will no longer belong to her. The only thing she can do is to cherish the time together and help the other person let go at the right time.
About parting
I remember when Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Shoplifters" was released, many people who watched the movie couldn't help but sigh.
Even if the composition of this family is not compliant, even if their lives are full of illegal activities, as for everyone It is undoubtedly the most beautiful day, but it is a pity that such days are always as short as a dream, broken at the touch of a finger, and fleeting.
As a living person, Norberti will eventually face the problem of parting with his ghost family. Neil Gaiman is somewhat less cruel.
At this moment, he arranges the setting for Norberti so that "he gradually loses sight of those ghost friends", making all this have to happen, even if he doesn't want to, he has no choice but to do so.
However, Neil Gaiman is also cruel, because even if Norberti returns again, he will not be able to see his ghost relatives again and chat with them.
However, for Norbert, who is about to explore a new world, there may not be so much time for sadness and melancholy.
Although "The Graveyard Book" ends with Norberti's longing for the future, Norberti's story continues. He will definitely return to his special home again after traveling around the world.
Maybe he will find a way to Repair all the tombstones - after all, there are many people that only he still remembers and knows. And when he is about to die in old age, he will ask his descendants to bury him in this ancient cemetery so that he can be with his relatives forever.
We have too many reveries and unspeakable conversations about this cemetery written by Neil Gaiman. Since separation is inevitable, maybe we can think of a further story so that this love can continue in the end.
About others
Several named ghouls in the book are considered the author's personal property.
- The Duke of Westminster is a wealthy family in the UK. Today, the seventh generation Hugh owns 0.22% of the land in the UK and owns half of London. He owns the two most famous wealthy areas in London. The person mentioned in the article may be the grandson of the first Duke of Westminster. He is the richest man in Britain. He is rich enough to buy the entire London and has been married four times. What is most talked about by later generations is that he and Chanel were lovers.
- The Bishops of Bais and Wells are probably related to the Black Death. In October 1348, the plague spread widely in Dorset County and reached its peak in December and January of the following year. Subsequently, the plague spread to Samoset and other places in the western counties and lasted for three years. For four months. Dorset and Somerset are part of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and scholars estimate the population loss in this diocese to be between 35% and 52%.
- Archibald Fitzhugh was not found, to be added.
- The 33rd President of the United States was Harry S. Truman. During his term of office, the use of atomic bombs against Japan in 1945 quickly brought the Second World War to an end.
- Victor Hugo had this statement in his "The Man Who Laughs": There is no woman of status who is not free from abnormal psychology. In every Agnès there is a Melousin. They are women during the day and become ghouls at night. They went to the execution ground and kissed the freshly severed heads on the iron pillars.
In addition, Neil Gaiman mentioned in his speech at the 2009 American Library Association Annual Meeting that he liked to read "Meg's Adventures in Time and Space: A Wrinkle in Time" when he was a child.
Finally, I would like to thank the Mystery Monthly and Readers for this reading opportunity. I look forward to more of Neil Gaiman’s works being published continuously through the Readers platform to benefit readers!
Book Review
As a mother with considerable seniority, I am no stranger to recent popular lists such as "Where is the best place to be a mother" and "Which country is the most child-friendly"; as a bookworm, sometimes it is inevitable to wonder: Where did the children in the literature grow up?
The child's name is Nobody (Nobody, meaning "no one"), from The Graveyard Book. Yes, he grew up in a cemetery.
The first time I read "Graveyard Book" was almost a year ago, and I still remember the joyfulness of reading the book with full consciousness without letting it go. This book is the work of British writer Neil Gaiman, published in 2008, and belongs to children's fantasy.
After publication, he won the 2010 British Carnegie Award and the 2009 American Newbery Award (the Carnegie Medal and Newbery Medal are the highest awards for children's literature in the United Kingdom and the United States respectively), and the winner of the 2009 American Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Award Hugo Award.
But when I was reading it, I didn't care about these titles. I just thought this story was so wonderful and it suits my appetite.
It opens with cold-blooded murder. The first sentence is "There is a hand in the dark, holding a knife in his hand." The killer washed the Norbert family with blood. Norbert, who was less than one year old, escaped by chance and finally came to a cemetery.
The style of the painting has changed here, and the background is still dark and horrible, but the cute ghosts have appeared. The ghosts in this cemetery come from different historical periods and have different personalities.
Just like ordinary people, they heatedly discussed whether to take this little baby in. One of them, a couple named Owens, finally adopted him against the crowd and named him Nobody Owens (Nobody Owens), nicknamed Bod.
The ghosts also agreed to give the child the right to be a "free man in the cemetery" so that he could go in and out of the cemetery freely and be able to see the ghosts. As for the basic problem of what to eat and what to wear, Silas, a vampire who resides here, takes care of it.
Silas is the coolest character in the book and the godfather of Birds. He said:
"Mrs. Owens and her husband have taken the child under their protection. It will take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will…… take a graveyard." ("Mrs. Owens and Her husband took the child in. But only one or two good-hearted ghosts can't raise the child. It depends on the entire cemetery.")
This sentence is both humorous and reasonable. The author played a word game and changed the proverb "It takes an entire village to raise a child" by one word and replaced the village with a graveyard.
This proverb means "raising a child requires the whole village to work together", which is equivalent to "raising children is the responsibility of the whole society."
As a result, Little Bird thrived in the company of the ghosts of the cemetery.
The structure of the story is neat and tidy. Each chapter is a relatively independent chapter, which tells about an important event that happened to Little Bird at each stage of growth. Each event is about two years apart, paving the way for each other and echoing each other.
The tone of each chapter is different. Some are bright, such as "New Friend", which tells Bird to make friends with a little human girl; some are mysterious, such as "The Dance of Maicoby", which describes a magical carnival full of magical colors. Some are magnificent and magnificent, such as "The Dog of God", which is a thrilling adventure that Bird experienced during the rebellious period.
In the last chapter, Bird has grown into a calm boy after training. He loses the ability to wander the yin and yang, leaving the cemetery and stepping into the vast world, which is extremely melancholy. At this time, you want to pounce on the window of the author's house with a brick in your hand and order him to write a sequel.
The wording of this book is concise, and the length is not long, it is an out-and-out children's book. Throughout the book is Neil Gaiman's wild imagination, gorgeous and funny language, and exciting narrative skills. This is a pure growth story.
Although it is full of ghouls, werewolves, ancient tombs, bullying, murder, and suspense, its core is the wholehearted love of Byrd’s adoptive parents, Silas’s follow-up teaching, left to right Under the kind care of the tomb, he explores the process of the world's self-understanding.
Since the setting is a cemetery, there are many interesting details. For example, Bird's way of learning the alphabet is to familiarize all the tombstones. He went to an invisible class, and the teacher shook his head at him, saying that he was too "ceramic" to learn from it. Later, he went to a regular school for human beings outside.
The teachers found that his historical grades were excellent, but they also found that he was very unobtrusive and almost non-existent. It turns out that he is certainly "ceramic" compared to ghosts, but after all, he has learned some invisibility skills.
I think this kind of technique is something that all introverted nerds are yearning to possess (XD). There are many similar details, making the reading full of surprises. Not much to say here.
As a mother and teacher, when I was reading this story, I especially liked Silas's love and precepts for Bird. He always takes the various questions raised by Bird seriously from the child's perspective and psychology and patiently gives him appropriate answers. Bird asked: "How can I be like him?" This "he" is another ghost.
Silas replied: "How do you do it? Some skills can be learned, some can be practiced, and some can be learned when you grow up. As long as you work hard, you will soon be "invisible", "sliding" and "sleepwalking".
But there are some skills that a living person cannot learn. You have to wait a little longer. However, I have no doubt that you will definitely learn it one day."
This encouragement to learn really impressed me. Five-body cast. He gave the child full trust, but he didn't make a bad check. There are specific goals, but also limitless possibilities.
It's all in the vernacular, and the child can understand it. And the sentence "some abilities living people can't learn, you have to wait a little longer", thinking about it is both humorous and sad.
With such mentors and helpful friends, Little Bird grew up in the cemetery but lived much better than Harry and Yang. "Graveyard Book" is traditional in nature. Its charm comes from the ingenious setting, the author's brilliant writing, and the accumulation of British history and folklore.
Of course, the warm core is also very moving. Speaking of inheritance, Neal Gaiman made it clear that this book is a tribute to The Jungle Book (The Jungle Book) by the British writer Joseph Rudyard Kipling at the end of the 19th century. Not only is the title similar, but the chapter structure also imitates "The Book of the Jungle" and adopts the form of nursery rhymes and poems.
Gaiman said he was deeply influenced by The Book of the Jungle. "The Book of the Jungle," tells the story of people and animals in the Indian jungle. Most of the protagonists are children.
So, back to the question at the beginning: where did the children in the literature grow up? Where is the best place to raise a child? The conclusion is that children in literary works can grow up in various places, whether in a cemetery or in a jungle.
I recommend this book to all parents and children who like fantasy, curiosity, and a little more reading taste. This story is also expected to be made into a movie in the near future.
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About Muhiuddin Alam
Muhiuddin Alam is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ReadingAndThinking.com. He serves as a consistent contributor to various websites and publications, including Medium, Quora, Reddit, Linkedin, Substack, Vocal, Flipboard, and Amazon KDP. Alam personally read numerous books and, for the past 10 years, has been providing book recommendations and reviews. Find Me: About Me & Google Knowledge Panel.
