Week Eight: Writing Assignment

The Graveyard Book was probably the most riveting story I've read so far in class. I'm a huge fan of Gaiman's work and have been ever since I read Neverwhere way back when. Interestingly enough, I had never picked up The Graveyard Book and I jumped at the chance to read it this week. Gaiman's worlds are always wonderful and fantastical. He confidently rights about mystical lands and fairy tales placed into modern times. They are urban fantasies that allow you to cross right into the land of make believe along with the main characters. 

In The Graveyard Book, the narrative opens on a grisly scene. A man has just broken into a house and slaughtered the small family inside. On his way to deal with the baby upstairs, he discovers that the child is missing. Luckily enough, the child has wandered away from the house and up the hill into a nearby cemetery. The man pursues, intending to finish off the child. When the young boy arrives in the cemetery, all of the ghostly residents join around him to figure out what to do. The ghost of the boy's mother briefly appears as a desperate last act and pleads with the ghosts to shelter her son and protect him from the man. One of the ghosts quickly agrees and the boy is ushered into the graveyard and disappears from view of the murderer. Unable to find the boy, the murder stumbles upon the caretaker and is ushered out of the graveyard. In this way, the young boy, given the name Nobody or Bod for short, grows up into a young man. He learns from all of the residents of the graveyard and his caretaker Silas. 

The Graveyard Book tells more than a creepy account of a boy's time in a graveyard, but also a tale of family and growth. Gaiman takes all we know about ghosts and flips that on his head. The ghosts in his writing are full of love and character and retain thoughts after going through the great beyond. He also takes all of the abilities that one would associate with ghosts, walking through walls, disappearing, chills, etc. and turns them into abilities that Bod learns as he grows. The "myth" of ghosts is visited in such an innovative way in this story that I feel like I can just keep coming back to it.