Runner Up: Online Book Review Contest
The Graveyard Book by Anum Fatima
Even as adults, we have that small child inside us who loves
fantasy and imaginary worlds. Every once in a while, I relieve myself with a
book that crosses the boundaries of realism and lets me step into a world very
unlike my own. Neil Gaiman is surely one of those who would take you on a
journey of another beautiful, hidden yet connected world.
Darkness
turned into beauty:
Ever since childhood, we have a fear instilled for graveyards
and a possibility of roaming ghosts in there. We find the world we live in safe
and home-like. But this book goes the other way round. A child who comes to the
graveyard as a toddler makes it home and his foster parents are ghosts of a
couple, dead for centuries. (I am not mentioning his name deliberately, because
I would like the reader to experience and love his naming session as I did). He
is loved, taught and cared for in the graveyard. He learns his first words
there and knows the ghosts as his own people. He has been taught to do things
living people cannot do. The boy grows up in the graveyard and has more courage
than most people, living and dead.
His experience spans over years. “In History he’ll throw in little made-up details, stuff not in the
books” but that which he heard from people who were present at that time. His
mannerisms were polite and he impressed the dead people from past many
centuries as well as the living ones of the present “because he could greet people in over nine hundred years of changing
manners.” And, naturally or unnaturally, death has become an ordinary
phenomenon to him, as he says “It’s only
death. I mean, all of my best friends are dead.”
He is well-loved in the graveyard, but the world outside it
has dangers lying in ambush for him. Although he wants to go out in the world
and experience all the world outside, he loves the graveyard and calls it home.
He does step out eventually, though, and faces different kinds of people in the
world of living people and learns to fight for himself. But can he fight
everyone who means him harm?
Excerpt:
When Bod (the protagonist’s nickname) fell in an unmarked
grave:
“….containing
a rather excitable medical gentleman named Carstairs who seemed thrilled by
Bod’s arrival and insisted on examining Bod’s wrist (which Bod had twisted in
the tumble, grabbing on to a root) before he could be persuaded to go and fetch
help.”
Perfect
combination:
This story has all the elements to amuse and amaze. You will
find emotions, fears, humor, suspense and mystery packed in all the pages. It
is a wonderful collection of words to take you in a whirlwind of sentiments,
where you witness a child growing up among elders who love him but are too
protective about him.
It is a vivid piece and you can almost feel and see all that
is going on. You can see a tomb and a headstone, the ivy growing all around the
places, and hear the music at the “dance of Macabray.”
Would I
recommend it?
That is not even a question. I definitely recommend it to
anyone who has a shred of imagination and enjoys reading, exploring and
versatility. If you appreciate a combination of suspense, humor and sentiments,
this book is surely going to take a place of honour on your shelf.
0 comments