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November 12, 1998

I, Door.

I finished Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere. It was a fairly fast read and I thought it was a particularly good novel. I have read some of his previous works like Good Omens that he wrote with Terry Pratchet and I enjoyed that, although I hardly remember what it was about. (Then again, my memory is a terrible thing.) The main character of Neverwhere is Richard Mayhew, a young businessman that it took me until the end of the novel to really sympathize with. He leaves the boonies of England to live in London. Before he leaves, he is warned by what appears to be a homeless woman on the street that accosts him somewhat. "Beware of doors," she says. He moves to London and begins to be completely unsympathetic. He is engaged to a woman that I find superficial and airheaded. The kind that makes me grind my teeth down. All she cared about what her appearance and the image that she presents to others. She bosses Richard around... and he takes it because she is a beautiful woman! Score minus ten on Eileene's sympathy chart. Anyway, he is going with his fiancee to a dinner date with her boss (in hopes to charge up his aspirations of wealth and power) when they run across a young girl, all battered and bleeding, on the sidewalk. She cries to them, a la the Good Samaritan story. Richard turns to help the girl while his heartless (bitch) of a fiancee tries to egg him on. He stops and helps her. A little fanfare goes off in my head. Those minus points vanish. He helps her as his terrible fiancee walks off in a huff, breaking off their engagement (see? THIS is why the divorce rate is so high. People these days get married for the wrong reasons). He brings the girl to his apartment where he tends to her wounds and discovers that her name is Door. With this meeting, his life goes topsy-turvy and it is like he no longer existed. He becomes one of those unseen vagrants walking the streets that "normals" like myself don't see. He gets drawn into the world of London Underground. It's a fascinating world and I'd love to read more stories set in the time period. Door is a wonderful character. She's interesting (the only surviving daughter of the previous "head" of a large portion of London Underground). She's got the ability to open any door that she wants, any portal to anywhere she wishes. Fascinating. I'd like to read more about her. Richard fumbles around in London Underground, filled with the prejudices of London Aboveground. I dislike him until the very end of the story, when he becomes an unlikely hero, although quite a bit predictable. It's a good read, certainly entertaining and I would recommend it to anyone searching for a new read (I don't want to give away any endings and there are a number of twists and turns in the plot).

© Copyright 1998, Eileene Coscolluela
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