Review: Neverwhere

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd heard the radio adaptation of this book a year or two ago and really enjoyed it. I was surprised to discover though that the book was based on a BBC TV series that Gaiman wrote... what was I doing in the mid nineties that I missed that completely!?

Despite having heard it on the radio, I had forgotten the end and thoroughly enjoyed finding out what happened again. (Crumbs. I just looked it up. I must have heard the radio shows five years ago! No wonder I'd forgotten most of it.) I enjoyed the way Gaiman reused and repurposed London place names: the way some things were taken literally (e.g. Earls Court) and how places became people (Old Bailey being my favourite - I couldn't help but hear Bernard Cribbins voice in my head when I read his lines).

As with the radio programme, the bit that worked least well for me was the character of Richard Mayhew, which is unfortunate since he is arguably the main character. He was so (unbelievably) slow on the uptake, he was clearly supposed to be a messiah type character but it was never clear why and the resolution to his story arc was easily guessable.

Despite that, I still enjoyed this book. Gaiman delivers some nice lines, for example, when describing London he says: "It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect..." and I, although I didn't laugh out loud while reading it, I often sniggered quietly. And if that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is!

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