mercoledì 10 luglio 2013

The ocean at the end of the lane - Neil Gaiman

IL LIBRO IN PILLOLE: La meraviglia. Pura e semplice meraviglia.

 









**Ho letto questo libro subito dopo Fangirl. Pensavo che la cosa mi avrebbe influenzato e che non lo avrei apprezzato quanto dovuto, e invece no. Le cose sono due: a) l'effetto benefico di Fangirl mi accompagnerà per un bel po' o b) Gaiman è Gaiman. Punto. (opto per la b), con tutto il rispetto che ho per Fangirl e voi sapete quanto io lo abbia adorato!)**

Ho finito il libro da almeno cinque giorni ma non riesco a scrivere una recensione decente.. Questo libro è divino; questo libro è Gaiman allo stato puro!!!
Gaiman torna finalmente ai romanzi per adulti e l'ho fa in modo scoppiettante, geniale e assolutamente indimenticabile.

Per darvi un'idea di quanto lui mi piaccia: Gaiman è uno di quegli autori di cui si leggono (con piacere, gioia ed emozione) anche i ringraziamenti. (view spoiler) Uno di quegli autori che una volta finito il libro, ti lascia dentro un vuoto incolmabile e ti fa sperare che ne scriva presto un altro..

Meraviglioso.

Da brava scimmietta ammaestrata che ha perso l'uso della favella, questo è il massimo che sono in grado di produrre.

Fidatevi a prescindere di Gaiman e fatevi un favore: leggete questa meraviglia. Lasciatevi incantare da Gaiman, amatelo come l'essere meraviglioso quale è!!

Per rendere un minimo di giustizia a Gaiman, vi lascio due link che a me hanno deliziato, commosso, divertito e affascinato:

Intervista a Neil

Recensione del libro sul blog di Amanda, sua moglie (c'è così tanto di loro! Che meraviglia!!)

Praises for Neil Gaiman

Gaiman is, simply put, a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him’ Stephen King

‘There’s no one quite like Neil Gaiman. American Gods is Gaiman at the top of his game, original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive, a picaresque journey across America where the travellers are even stranger than the roadside attractions’George R R Martin


The cake had a book drawn on it, in icing. My mother, who had organised the party, told me that the lady at the bakery said that they had never put a book on a birthday cake before, and that mostly for boys it was footballs or spaceships. I was their first book.

I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

I was sad not to have won thousands of pounds (I already knew what I would buy with it. I would buy a place to go and be alone, like a Batcave, with a hidden entrance), but I was delighted to be in possession of a fortune beyond my previous imaginings. Twenty-five pounds.

‘Mother!’ she said. ‘Giving the boy honey. You’ll rot his teeth.’ Old Mrs Hempstock shrugged. ‘I’ll have a word with the wigglers in his mouth,’ she said. ‘Get them to leave his teeth alone.’ ‘You can’t just boss bacteria around like that,’ said the younger Mrs Hempstock. ‘They don’t like it.’

By the fireplace, the kitten lapped at a saucer of creamy milk, and purred so loudly I could hear it across the room. I wished I could purr too. I would have purred then.

I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid, unshakeably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was. Even so, I understood what I was seeing. The hunger birds would – no, they were ripping the world away, tearing it into nothing. Soon enough, there would be no world. My mother, my father, my sister, my house, my school friends, my town, my grandparents, London, the Natural History Museum, France, television, books, ancient Egypt – because of me, all these things would be gone, and there would be nothing in their place. I did not want to die. More than that, I did not want to die as Ursula Monkton had died, beneath the rending talons and beaks of things that might not even have had legs or faces. I did not want to die at all. Understand that. I let go of Lettie Hempstock’s hand and I ran, as fast as I could, knowing that to hesitate, even to slow down, would be to change my mind, which would be the wrong thing, which would be to save my life.

‘You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.’





Trama 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. A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

12 commenti:

  1. Lo voglio *-* era da tanto che Gaiman non scriveva qualcosa per adulti :D

    RispondiElimina
    Risposte
    1. Eh, infatti!! E' tornato agli antichi fasti.. A me è piaciuto anche in versione bambino eh.. Ma qui altri livelli proprio!!

      Elimina
  2. Risposte
    1. Imprescindibile!!
      Nella mia ci è entrato da sè ahahah!! :D

      Elimina
  3. preso!non potevo farmi scappare Gaiman..per nulla al mondo;)

    RispondiElimina
  4. Anche io amo Gaiman, ma per ora ho letto solo le sue pubblicazioni dedicati ai giovincelli. Devo rimediare :/ Per fortuna ho già tutta la sua bibliografia completa in ebook xD

    RispondiElimina
    Risposte
    1. Davvero?? Allora the best is yet to come!!! :)
      Un po' ti invidio! Leggere per la I volta "Nessun dove" è un'esperienza sublime!!! :)

      Elimina
  5. Adoro questa cover *-* ma in Italia sarà pubblicato???
    Io ho letto solo Stardust di Gaiman, per continuare quale suo titolo mi consigli???

    RispondiElimina
    Risposte
    1. Sì sì verrà pubblicato sicuramente! Anzi, mi pare abbiano già un titolo.. :)
      Solo Stardust?? Nooo!!
      Assolutamente "Nessun dove" e "American Gods"!!
      Poi tutti gli altri anche!! :D

      Elimina
  6. Questa recensione è bellissima e sono pienamente d'accordo con te!

    RispondiElimina