Neverwhere

My copy of Neverwhere ended with an interview of the author in which he mentioned that I had just read the American version (as opposed to the UK or international version) of the book. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the book for me concerned descriptions London's geography, and in fact Gaiman embellished these for the benefit of those who aren't intimately familiar with London.

Neverwhere was originally written as a television script, and Gaiman saw the novelization as an opportunity to more fully realize his own vision of the tale. For me the book felt like one of the coolest plot outlines I've ever read, but, the novel failed to feel fully fleshed out. Epic events took place in the space of a few pages. Based on the book's intriguing premise, the compelling direction of the plot, satisfying world building details, and what Gaiman had told us about the characters, I often perceived the weight of a scene intellectually, but failed to feel the tightness in my chest, the wrench in my gut, that meant I had connected with the characters on an empathetic level.

In his interview, Gaiman mentioned that his protagonist was meant to be an Everyman, dull and plain, with a good heart and good intentions. Richard Mayhew fits the role Gaiman intended so well, that parts of his anatomy could be snapping off and I found I simply did not care. Door, the girl for whom Mayhew gave up "his life, his identity and everything else" is described by Gaiman as heroine, "for want of a better word." With the exception of a scene in which she walks through her murdered family's magical home, and in which she has a necklace made by a blacksmith, Door certainly didn't seem like a heroine to me, and rarely seemed worth all Richard's trouble.

The ideas, the world, and the main plot points of Neverwhere were the stuff of an enchanting adult fairytale. These elements deserved a longer treatment, with more engaging protagonists and pacing that took the time to make the reader squirm.

London Smog

When the yellow pea soup of London's famous fog came up in two different books I was reading this weekend (Neverwhere, Niel Gaiman and Thunderstruck, Erik Larson), I had to look into the phenomenon.

The most interesting article I found on the web was from the EPA. The EPA was less interested in yellow pea soup as grounds for creepy historical ambiance than as an early environmental crisis. London's noxious fog was produced by burning soft sea coal- a cheap alternative to burning wood (or later, the harder anthracite coal). The soft sea coal gave off about as much smoke as it did heat, and belched out the chimneys of homes and factories to blend with the hovering water vapor, and coat the city in thick, yellow smog that sometimes lurked for days.

The EPA article cites London's first environmental legislation at 1272, when King Edward I banned the use of sea coal literally on pain of death. But the EPA article points out that by then wood was scarce (forests had already been plundered to build the city and to heat its dense population's wood burning stoves), and because wood was scarce, it was expensive. Despite the fact that Edward actually had the first sea coal-burning offender put to death, folks kept on using sea coal. See, the king couldn't kill the whole swarm Londonders who didn't have the money to keep warm any other way. The pressure of their need and numbers overrode environmental legislation, and continued to do so until 1952, when a four day immersion in yellow pea soup killed about 4,000 people.

The deaths, the phenomenon of indigent children hired to light a pedestrian's way through the fog, and the pea soup nickname, have become a way for modern writers to evoke the ambiance of London's past. But imagine living through that smog. Imagine being Tolkien, imagine being Shakespeare (The EPA article points out that Shakespeare lived through these fogs, and its influence is evidenced by Macbeth's witches: "fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air"). Pea-soupers weren't some quirky phenomenon from the past, they were the smelly smoke of poverty, of deprivation and environmental catastrophe that you could taste on your tongue, wipe from your skin. It settled in your clothes and hair, penetrated lungs and brought out great coughing wads of mucous. It was the cost of building a great city, and the cost of surviving there and maintaining a decent standard of living.

Talk Talk

Don't let the title of T.C. Boyle's 2006 novel fool you. The book isn't about talk, it's about communication. Boyle uses a deaf protagonist to show how words can get in the way of human understanding.

In harmony with his theme, Boyle uses reference as his main means of communication with his reader. I could relate to each and every one of Boyle's references. From the J.A. Henckels knives I thought about buying around Christmas, to my favorite new white wine (Sauvignon Blanc), to a reference to Diana Krall, Boyle didn't refer to a single aspect of modern life that didn't resonate with me. The literary magic of this book involves placing the reader in the shoes of his hero (and anti-hero) by referring to locales, situations, objects, ideas, and states of mind familiar to the reader.

This contemporary fiction magic is made more poignant by its mortality. Cultural references change so quickly, will Boyle's novel mean anything to readers ten years from now? Twenty? Fifty? Not unless it children are forced to read it in school, and buy Cliffs Notes that explain the socioeconomic implications of the references at the time Boyle wrote. Even still, the barrier of time will remain between author and reader, leaving Boyle's audience with an intellectual understanding, but not the visceral understanding that made Talk Talk something special.