Sussex, England. 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. (from goodreads)
i do now and always have absolutely loved fairy tales. it seems so innate and natural to me that there is more to this world than we can manage to perceive. whether you call it magic or science, i don’t really mind, but i lean a little more towards magic. one of the things neil gaiman does so well is exploring things at the edge of our understanding, and just dipping into the other side. this book is just a perfect example of that.
it is a daydream of mine to imagine hayao miyazaki making this into a movie (even though he’s technically retired… but he’s retired before and come back to makes movies, right???). it has several hallmark features of his movies: a sassy and powerful grandma, a sensible and resourceful girl, an eerie and unsettling villain, and scads and scads of adventure. anybody got an in with hayao miyazaki? wanna pitch him my daydream?
(EDIT: oh my gosh! whilst searching for an image of the book cover after writing this post, i found out that focus features bought the rights to this story, and joe wright is going to direct it!!! ahhhhh! excuse me while i run around fangirling and squealing! it’s still technically in developement… hopefully it doesn’t get backburnered and forgotten about.)
ifandany 