Many books cross the neat borders that have been made to surround genres and groups of books. While Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book is clearly fantasy, it crosses the border between Children’s Literature and Young Adult Literature. However, considering the shiny Newbery Medal on the cover, mature readers can assume that the intended audience is children. It was with this frame of mind that I read Bod’s story. The fantasy genre entices young readers with worlds they haven’t seen and experiences they haven’t know. Developmentally speaking, children’s brains can finally understand the difference between reality and imagination. Through the recognition of the differences between our world and these other fanciful ones we can learn to understand the world around us. Bod learns to deal with one of the world’s universal struggles, death, with appreciation and peace; perhaps readers can walk away with the same feeling. How beautiful it is that the dead are shown as living a full and worthy existence. They are represented as having families, friends, loyalties, and parties. If I were a child who lost a loved one, this image is far more comforting than that of a ghost that haunts you. To give children credit, I believe that most that read this novel know that it is imagined, not reality. However, the portrayal of death in this book demonstrates that there is an alternative way of understanding the images of the dead. This alternative is one that we can appreciate and find peace in.
Apparently no matter where you go, whether it is a school, a street corner or a graveyard, you can not get away from bullying. The problem has been going on for as long as there have been children interacting. But in current society, bullying has become a buzz word, and rightfully so. Without climbing any higher on my soap box, I will just say that it is a problem that needs to be addressed in many ways and in many places. In Chapter 6 Nobody Owens’ School Days readers learn that even a boy that is raised by ghosts can become engaged in bullying. All books, fantasy books included, reflect a character that reflects some sort of struggle that readers can relate to. In bullying terms, Bod is a victim, bystander, and bully himself; all students can relate to one, if not all, of these roles. As a victim, Bod got stabbed by a pencil and complains that as a result of the unwanted attention he has “[become] a presence, rather than an absence”. While sitting in the library Bod overhears the bullies, Nick Farthing and Mo Quilling, harassing Paul Singh. Bod is the best kind of bystander because after he witnesses bullying, he does something about it by encouraging Paul to react. As a means of fighting back against the bullies, Bod scares Nick off by performing a terrifying Dreamwalk and threatens Mo with eternal haunting. He goes a step beyond just sticking up for himself and therefore becomes a bully who is threatening other kids. So what ideas about bullying does Bod, and therefore the readers, walk away with? Unfortunately, the messages readers get are conflicting. In the imagined world of Old Town
I find that my mind works like a crayon box. My mind sees everything in bright, bold colors. I surround myself in color: my clothes, my decorating, and even my organization. I have been known to describe my classroom as looking like “a crayon box threw up in it”. Because of this, I always notice the distinct absence of color and as I read I consistently thought about the lack of color in The Graveyard Book. It left me unnerved. The tone of the novel is eerie and gloomy. It was as though the entire book occurred under the darkest, stormiest cloud in which everything is dreary. Neil Gaiman begins his book with the line: “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” And there it was. Darkness. Not the darkness of other literature, books that are pessimistic, pained, and despondent. The darkness of this book was literal; Graveyard was void of light and color and occurred through various stages of night. As I was reading, I visualized it in shades of gray, some white, some black, and no color. Everything that traditionally has color, ivy in a graveyard for example, appeared in my mind as a darkened version of the color you would only see at night. Images of shadows appear throughout the book. However, as you flip through the book you run into Scarlett, the name of an important character but also a bold shade of red. You meet Indigo Man, a spirit, who is marked with bright purple rings around his eyes. The sky above the path to Ghûlheim is described as “…red, but not the warm red of a sunset. This was an angry, glowering red, the color of an infected wound.” Lastly, the brooch Bod takes from the Indigo Man’s tomb is described as “glittering silver; a crimson-orange-banded stone”. The colors appear so stark against the darkness of the story that they emphasize the importance of each of these items. These images of color create a welcome imbalance of the tone of darkness in the book.
The idea is far-fetched: a young boy is raised by ghosts in a graveyard and is given special gifts for protection and to help him survive. Yet I “bought it”, the whole story, from beginning to end because the characters had believable personalities and somehow the implausible became plausible. Mrs. Owens, Bod’s mother, has the same concerns for her child that any mother would have. Her motherly instinct kicks in when she learns that a baby has been abandoned and is in danger. She needs to protect the baby and proves her certainty by stating that she is “’sure as I have ever been of anything.’” Everyone has seen the same look on their mothers’ face that Bod sees after visiting Abanazer Bolger’s shop and no punishment is worse than obvious disappointment. “The look of worry on Mrs. Owens’s face had hurt Bod worse than any beating could have done.” Ghost or human, Mrs. Owens is Bod’s mother and readers don’t doubt it. Similarly, readers should have a harder time understanding Bod’s relationship with Silas. Silas is not alive, but he is not dead; he is undetermined. Yet, as you read, this detail doesn’t matter because Silas is such a caring character. He, too, acts disappointed in Bod but is quick in “enfold[ing] the living child inside his cloak” and bringing him to safety. In the end, we learn that as a guardian Silas has been protecting, in both presence and absence, Bod all along. The believability of these characters lies in the fact that they are people that we know. The characters, a worried mother, a protective guardian, even a jealous admirer (Liza Hempstock), are people that we believe in our daily lives, and therefore can easily believe in fantasy.
Bod is the hero of the story, and like all heroes, he has to go through a long journey to win in the end. His journey is broken up by the chapters in The Graveyard Book. Each chapter gives readers the impressions that they are separate short stories that could stand alone. I had the feeling that each detail, Scarlett and the Sleer, Liza Hempstock, and learning to Fade, would all come together in the end, but I couldn’t imagine how it could possibly happen. As it turns out, each of Bod’s stories outline knowledge he had to gain and tasks that he had to master. Ultimately, he was able to use all that he had learned to overcome evil. Sound like other books you’ve read? Ultimately, Bod’s quest resulted in his complete understanding of the world around him, inside and outside the gates of the cemetery. He used his knowledge to outsmart the Jacks, and therefore ridding the world of a most terrible evil. Bod’s unique quest proved again that good wins out over evil and that knowledge is power. Neil Gaiman’s book is a great example of how age-old struggles can be retold in new voices and in unique stories.
I liked your discussion about the familiarity of the characters in the novel. It is interesting to point out how even those these people are not "human", they still possess the familiar characteristics of a mother, father, admirer, guardian, etc. I think that is what made this book so easy to buy into. It is also why our group stated that it was low fantasy. It seemed that even though the book took place in a unrealistic world where dead people could talk and walk around, the situations and the themes of the book were not that different than what we experience. The characters in the book seemed like real people, only they were more static because they were dead and could not “develop.”
ReplyDeleteYet, while I think that the overall situations and characteristics of the book were not that far away from reality, there were moments in the book that were definitely high fantasy. I think that these were the moments that you described as individual stories where Bod learned about the ways of the world. Moments such as when he visited the ghouls or the indigo man, stood out to me as being very distant. They were very different than the graveyard and they demanded an entirely new setting to be developed. While I thought that the graveyard itself seemed to be very similar to our ways of life, there were worlds within the graveyard that required a greater stretch of the imagination to be understood.
With that being said, how did you feel about those moments? You said that you felt like these moments were great in preparing Bod to win out over evil in the end and prevail. I guess I agree with you now that you mention it. I see how these events taught Bod and helped him to grow and understand the world. However, I still felt like they were too separate. I had a hard time engaging with them and taking the time to delve into the new setting. Because they were so separated from reality, they required a lot from the reader and I guess that I did not think that they were worth my time. I did not feel that they mattered to the story as a whole. However, you do mention that they come together in the end. In a sense, they do. However, I still wish that they would have been thread into the book without as much separation. I wanted their significance to be greater in terms of the plot and themes of the book. I didn’t like that they were confined to these single chapters.
I liked your discussion of the darkness of the book. I think this illustrates the author's ability to create setting in the text. As I mentioned, there were many moments in the text that required the reader to adapt and visualize an entirely new world. This use of color, detail, and theme helped to do this. It is interesting that you point out about the moments when color enter the scene such as with Scarlett and the indigo man. Do you think that this shows something about the significance of these moments? Or it is simply because they are outside of the graveyard?
If it is because they are outside of the graveyard, then what is it about the graveyard that demands that it be dark? Is it just because there are dead people there and death is often associated with darkness? I found this interesting, because I saw the graveyard as a place of enlightenment and security. It was in the graveyard where Bod learned about helping others and not being restrained by social conventions. It was in the graveyard where Bod could develop his own ethics and morality based on his own sense of good and justice. It was in the graveyard where he was safe. So why was it dark? Because it was unattainable? Mysterious? Different?
I guess, my comment was too long. Here's my last thought:
ReplyDeleteFinally, I never thought about how the book represents bullying. I kind of put Bod on a pedestal as being the ultimate good and just human being. However, you are right. He does resort to bullying. Perhaps, I could say that he is beginning to understand the ways of the human world and he is understanding how to get a point across. Who knows, perhaps it is impossible to keep our own sense of ethics in check when we enter into society. Perhaps it is impossible to survive without conceding to the social expectations and ways of the world. If we want to get heard, we have to abide by certain rules and ways of life.