THE GRAVEYARD BOOK
Korinna Garcia 10/13/14
HUM1
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is a prolific author best known for his legendary Sandman series, as well as other award winning novels and I with no hesitation can say that The Graveyard Book (also award-winning) is up to par with those standards. What initially intrigued me to read this book was when I learned that it was Gaiman’s nod to the classic, and one of my favorites, children’s story The Jungle Book. Like Mowgli, the protagonist, Nobody “Bod” Owens is orphaned. However, in this novel, The Jungle Book’s pack of animals is replaced by the ghouls and ghosts of a graveyard. In line with many of Gaiman’s work the book falls under the genre of fantasy and horror but also blended together with supernatural characters from legends and mythology to create Bod’s gothic coming of age tale.
As the title suggests the story is set mainly in a graveyard, to be specific, just up the hill at Old Town. The graveyard is actually a nature preserve however by night mist transforms it into a mysterious and haunting place. In terms of the time period the story takes place in, the graveyard is home to “some ten thousand souls” and as most of the characters reflect that, it almost feels like the story takes place in a hundred years ago. It is only Bod’s experiences in the living world that we are reminded that it is indeed taking place in the 21st century with the presence of certain types of technology, like cellular phones.
The external conflicts are immediately introduced in the exposition of the plot, where Bod’s family is murdered by a man named Jack wherein Bod, albeit luckily (as he was just a baby at the time), narrowly escapes to a graveyard. Followed by the conflict of whether or not the ghosts of the graveyard will be able to raise a human boy. It is only when Bod gets older that the internal conflicts arise. The rising action reveals the initial one being that he must cope with being a live boy
HUM1
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is a prolific author best known for his legendary Sandman series, as well as other award winning novels and I with no hesitation can say that The Graveyard Book (also award-winning) is up to par with those standards. What initially intrigued me to read this book was when I learned that it was Gaiman’s nod to the classic, and one of my favorites, children’s story The Jungle Book. Like Mowgli, the protagonist, Nobody “Bod” Owens is orphaned. However, in this novel, The Jungle Book’s pack of animals is replaced by the ghouls and ghosts of a graveyard. In line with many of Gaiman’s work the book falls under the genre of fantasy and horror but also blended together with supernatural characters from legends and mythology to create Bod’s gothic coming of age tale.
As the title suggests the story is set mainly in a graveyard, to be specific, just up the hill at Old Town. The graveyard is actually a nature preserve however by night mist transforms it into a mysterious and haunting place. In terms of the time period the story takes place in, the graveyard is home to “some ten thousand souls” and as most of the characters reflect that, it almost feels like the story takes place in a hundred years ago. It is only Bod’s experiences in the living world that we are reminded that it is indeed taking place in the 21st century with the presence of certain types of technology, like cellular phones.
The external conflicts are immediately introduced in the exposition of the plot, where Bod’s family is murdered by a man named Jack wherein Bod, albeit luckily (as he was just a baby at the time), narrowly escapes to a graveyard. Followed by the conflict of whether or not the ghosts of the graveyard will be able to raise a human boy. It is only when Bod gets older that the internal conflicts arise. The rising action reveals the initial one being that he must cope with being a live boy