Pages: 286
Goodreads Rating: 4.10/ 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Horror, Paranormal
"It's always easier to die gently, to wake in due time in the place you were buried, to come to terms with your death and to get acquainted with the other inhabitants."
Neil Gaiman, is an author who will forever have a home on my shelves. From his deep, pensive thoughts to his love for magical realism, Gaiman is an author who is undoubtedly true to both himself and his creativity. The uniqueness and the energy that Gaiman manages to breathe into his works are out of this world. Seemingly, effortlessly he brings his characters and his settings to life, and no matter how bizarre his characters and settings are, they never fail to feel familiar and relatable.
This was my second time experiencing The Graveyard Book and all of its uncanny characters and heavy meaning. I must say that there are definitely novels out there that require a second read in order to fully comprehend the message and the author's intentions. TGB is a somewhat loose retelling of The Jungle Book, with a very unique twist - a graveyard and all of its inhabitants.
"The graveyard kept its secrets."
Indeed, the graveyard did keep its secrets until the night that a family of four was murdered in their home. Except, not all four family members were killed. The fourth and final member of the family, a baby boy tottered his way out of and away from the home and up the hill that led to the graveyard that would become his home. Thus, leading us to the life and tale of Nobody Owens; a boy named "Nobody" because he looked like nobody but himself.
"It must be good," said Silas, "to have somewhere that you belong. Somewhere that's home."
Nobody Owens, Bod for short, was never meant to live an ordinary life.
Once, all of the inhabitants of the graveyard rallied together to protect Bod from his then unnamed pursuer and The Lady on the Grey gave her consent for Bod to receive Freedom of the Graveyard - the ability to walk amongst and exist amongst the dead even though said individual is very much so alive - Nobody Owens was named and claimed by the Owenses. Master and Mistress Owens were named his parents and the ever mysterious Silas was named Bod's guardian, since Silas was able to come and go as needed from both the graveyard and other planes of existence. It is never explicitly stated what Silas is but it would be a fairly good guess to say that Silas is a vampire. Regardless of what Silas is or isn't, his position within the Honor Guard and his dogged pursuit for justice are aspects of his character that lead to Bod's unwavering respect and idolization of Silas. Silas is a dark, mysterious, profound figure who fits in with neither the living or the dead. His existence is a lonely one, but one that is hell bent on redemption. Silas is without a doubt my favorite character from TGB.
"The dead should have charity."
And charitable they were. The inhabitants of the graveyard quickly became Bod's family, mentors, and friends. They taught him how to embrace the graveyard and his identity. The past is important and meant to be learned from and the future should be looked to eagerly and with a hint of skepticism, but it is the present that we should give our all to and immerse ourselves in wholeheartedly."The treasures of ten thousand years ago were not the treasures of today."
"You are ignorant, boy" said Lupescu. "This is bad. And you are content to be ignorant, which is worse."
While the inhabitants of the graveyard did an excellent job of instilling values, a passion for knowledge, and a love for books in Bod, Silas knew that it wasn't enough. That there was a world that was far bigger and much more diverse waiting for Bod outside of the gates of the graveyard. Silas knew that in order for Bod to be able to escape the impending danger, he would need furthered knowledge and experience. Enter, Miss Lupescu. Lupescu is another mysterious character. We come to know that she is from the Old Country and acts as a tutor (and protector) for those in need. Later on in the novel we come to know that Lupescu is a Hound of God, what we would refer to as a werewolf/lycanthrope. Lupescu's identity is revealed after she rescues Bod from the ghouls who ventured to coerce him out of the graveyard and onto the road to Ghulheim; the Gates of Hell. "It was a city that had been built just to be abandoned, in which all the fears and madnesses and revulsions of the creatures who built it were made into stone. The ghoul-folk had found it and delighted in it and called it home."
S: Silas walked across the path without disturbing a fallen leaf, and sat down on the bench beside Bod. "There are those," he said, in his silken voice, "who believe that all land is sacred. That it is sacred before we come to it, and sacred after. But here, in your land, they blessed the churches and the ground they set aside to bury people in, to make it holy. But they left land unconsecrated beside the sacred ground, Potter's Fields to bury the criminals and the suicides or those who were not of the faith."
B: "So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?"
S: Silas raised one perfect eyebrow. "Mm? Oh, not at all."
This quote is a part of one of my favorite passages from this novel. Silas explains to Bod that not everything is as it seems to be and that we cannot be so quick to judge others. People come with pasts and secrets that we know absolutely nothing about. People lie about other people's character and deeds. Good and bad are nowhere near as clear cut as we would like them to be. And the world, both living and dead, is not black and white. There is so much gray; so much uncertainty.
S: "And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence."
B: "They kill themselves, you mean?" said Bod.
"Indeed."
"Does it work? Are they happier dead?"
"Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean."
This quote is incredibly important, in my opinion. We all find ourselves feeling lost and unfulfilled at different points in our lives, some of us more than others, but the important thing to note is that this despair isn't a result of our surrounds or who is surrounding us. It comes from within; a deep, turbulent sadness that is as much ourselves as our souls are. We carry these emotions with us and it is up to us to decide if we will shoulder the pain or if we will allow the pain to become an anchor that weighs us down and forces us to remain stagnant and trapped in a sea of loneliness. Loneliness in the sense of being unfamiliar with yourself and afraid of the potential that we possess.
The following quote is the one of the first of many interactions that Bod will have with Liza Hempstock, a young girl who was labeled a witch and drowned and burned under false accusations. She is buried under the unconsecrated ground of the graveyard without a headstone to mark her presence. Aside from becoming one of Bod's closest companions, Liza will come to Bod's aid countless times and save him from quite a few sticky situations. Liza will also be somewhat of a first crush for Bod in his later years.
B:"What's your name?" he asked.
L: "Got no headstone," she said, turning down the corners of her mouth. "Might be anybody. Mightn't I?"
B: "But you must have a name."
L: "Liza Hempstock, if you please," she said tartly. Then she said, "It's not too much to ask, is it? Something to mark my grave. I'm just down there, see? With nothing but nettles to show where I rest." And she looked so sad, just for a moment, that Bod wanted to hug her.
"That's the difference between the living and the dead, ennit?" said the voice. It was Liza Hempstock talking, Bod knew, although the witch-girl was nowhere to be seen. "The dead dun't disappoint you. They've had their life, done what they've done. We dun't change. The living, they always disappoint you, dun't they?"
Yes, Liza, we humans are impossibly fickle and unappreciative of our ability to live in the moment. We overlook the little details and take far too much for granted. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Liza was often the push that Bod needed to remember to embrace life and while he may have been brought up in a graveyard, he was still very much so alive.
"Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I."
A few of Liza's parting words to Bod. Life is meant to be lived to the fullest not spent making preparations for death.
B: The the smile stopped and he looked grave once again. He said, "But you'll always be here, Silas, won't you? And I won't ever have to leave, if I don't want to?
S: "Everything in its season," said Silas.
Bod may have been living amongst the dead, those who never change, but that didn't stop Bod from growing and changing. And with each new year of life, Bod became more and more aware of these changes. Primarily the fact that he had difficulty seeing and hearing some of the inhabitants in the graveyard. Their lives had stopped and his had only just begun.
The Dance with Death, Dance the Macabray, comes around when the winter blossoms bloom. The dance is a sign of unity between the living and the dead, and is supposed to bring comfort to those who have lost loved ones. However, the dance is to be kept quiet so while the living and the dead do come together for a night every few years, the living aren't permitted to retain any memory of the dance. Bod included, much to his frustration. While at the dance, Bod meets The Lady on the Grey; who is heavily implied to be the personification of death itself.
B: "Hello," he said, as he danced with her. "I don't know your name"
LG: "Names aren't really important."
B: "I love your horse. He's so big! I never knew horses could be that big."
LG: "He is gentle enough to bear the mightiest of you away on his broad back, and strong enough for the smallest of you as well."
B: "Can I ride him?" asked Bod.
LG: "One day," she told him, and her cobweb skirts shimmered. "One day. Everybody does."
B: "Promise?"
LG: "I promise."
Quite the morbid interaction, which Bod still having a fair amount of childhood innocence was very much so unaware that he was actually inquiring about riding Death's steed from the plane of the living to the plane of death.
The danger that Bod had always been in due to the man who had murdered Bod's birth family was beginning to become more and more threatening. But one cannot live their live within the perimeters that fear constructs. So, in the face of danger, Bod ventured off to school in the living world for a "human" education and socialization with other living children. And of course Silas had a few wise words for this new development in Bod's life. "You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished."
The adventure of school lost its glamour when Bod put two bullies in their place and the interaction between the dead and the living became far too muddied.
Enter, the mysterious murderer. A man named Jack Frost, who is associated with an organization called The Jacks of All Trades. This is the organization that Silas and the rest of the Honor Guard have been fighting for years. But the demise of the Jacks comes at the hands of our very own, Nobody Owens - along with some help from his friends of the graveyard, of course. I won't describe the Jacks downfall, some things are better left for the reader to experience first hand. However, I will mention that their fall can be primarily chalked up to greed and fear. "Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they're scared for the fear the become real."
And now Nobody Owen's life within the graveyard has begun to come to a close. But his life amongst the living has only just begun.
"He would go somewhere no one knew him, and he would sit in a library all day and read books and listen to people breathing."
Me too, Bod. Me too...
"But there is only one perfectly safe place for your kind and you will not reach it until all your adventures are over and none of them matter any longer."
Before Silas, I never thought of death as being a safe haven from life...
"If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained."
"People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer."
"You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"If I come back, it will be a place, but it won't be home any longer."
Home isn't a place. It's where the heart it is, Bod.
And last but not least, our parting words with The Graveyard Book: "Face your life, its pain, its pleasures, leave no path untaken."
Ah, Gaiman, you incredible author, you! How you manage to break my heart, speak to my soul, and restore my hope is beyond me. But, I'm hooked.
Excellent, excellent writing and characterization. A wonderful, playful pace. TGB is easily a five star rating for me. My Goodreads Rating: 5/5 stars.
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