Eden

I thought at first I wasn't going to be able to get into the art. Most of my experience with reading graphic novels comes from manga, with pretty boys and pretty art all the time, not like this. Which isn't to say that I didn't see the value of this art, I'm just a sucker for pretty things. Now I've actually read this first volume and I'm used to the art style, I can see how perfect it is and I'm quite enjoying it. I like Dream's character design, but so far his sister, Death, is my favourite in terms of design. And she's pretty awesome: "You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification on this or any other plane!"

The story in this feels very much like an introduction. Here is Dream, here are his things, here is Dream going on a quest to regain his power, here is Dream with all his power. I think it was quite a good way to introduce us to a main character, and the final story -- "The Sound of Her Wings" -- is a nice way to wrap up the volume.

You can definitely see the "pushing and pulling" Gaiman mentions in the afterword, and the exploration of different genres, but it more or less comes together into a whole, and he definitely does find his voice with the last story. Hopefully from here on it'll all be... not like that, but settled into the right voice for it.

I got The Graveyard Book for Christmas, yesterday, and devoured it in a single day despite also reading other stuff, watching movies, going shopping, seeing friends and all those things you do when you're home for Christmas. It's lovely. I like some of Neil's other books, like Neverwhere and American Gods, better, but at the same time this one has its attractions. It feels more... bite-size. Easily digestible.

I haven't actually read The Jungle Book, so I can't make comparisons with that original inspiration, but I do love the idea of this: a boy gets raised, in a graveyard, by ghosts. In some ways, I wish there'd been less Bod and more Silas, but on the other hand it was quite nice to feel that there was a whole world of stories there and we got glimpses into many of them. I liked the episodic sort of form; I wish there'd been more episodes, though. I also liked that although we are given many, many hints about Silas, the word "vampire" is not used once.

The strength of this book for me was the voices. The narrative voice included. The dry little comments about Silas, the parenthetical dates of births and deaths... it all added up to make me smile often and giggle a few times. Silas' character was lovely, and the glimpse we got into his feelings in the last chapter was fascinating. The Owenses were good, I could virtually hear their voices as I read their lines -- helped, of course, by having listened to the recordings of Neil Gaiman reading this aloud.

Not my favourite book in the whole wide world, but nonetheless a keeper, something easy and smooth for when I'm not feeling up to a mammoth undertaking.