Response to Graveyard Book

Jennifer Sherman
Fantasy

Response to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The only book that I have ever opened and failed to finish was Harry Potter. It was many years ago, before the movies and the immense popularity. Over the years, as I have heard about how amazing these book are, I have often thought that I should return to that book. I have hoped that I have grown as a reader and that I could invest myself into this new creative land and I could connect to the honor and the adventure of Harry Potter. After reading the Graveyard Book, I’m beginning to think that I might just not have it in me.

When I started this book, I was intrigued. I liked the mystery that was set up with the man Jack. I instantly wondered why is he called “the man”? Why is he killing this family? When the boy moved into the graveyard, I suspended my disbelief. I was able to adopt this new world and I was able to visualize this setting. I could see the ghosts deliberating about whether or not to keep the child. I could buy into the fact that the Owens were able to take care of him and give him the Freedom of the Graveyard. I even was intrigued about Silas. I believed that he was able to live with the dead and the alive, and thus he was able to negotiate between the needs of Bod and the needs of the ghosts. I was also intrigued about who he was and what he was. For the first 100 pages, I entered inside this world. However, as soon as I had invested myself into the fantasy, I found myself slipping away.

I simply could not get into this book. I don’t think that it was the fantastical setting, as I was interested in how this world was created. I enjoyed reading about the creation of the setting, how the ghosts functioned and lived, how it differed from the world that I know, and how these people went about their everyday. I loved looking at life through a different lens. I think that creating this fantastical world allowed for a more investment in the book because if forced me as a reader to completely invest myself into the narrative. In order to buy into a fantasy book, you have to let the world consume you. I feel like other books allow for more wiggle room and detachment. I think that I can read a realistic fiction book and I can look for themes and character development. I can analyze the entire book and yet not have fully entered that book. Yet, with a fantasy book, I think that in order to really gain anything from the story, you have to let the world take over your mind and you have to leave the real world in order to enter the new one. You have to experience reading in its most purest and magical form.

With that being said, I suppose I was not fully able to enter. I found myself bored as we followed Bod into his miscellaneous adventures around the graveyard. I could not connect to all of the mini stories that were imbedded in the larger narrative about the ghouls, the witch, or the adventures inside the hill with the Sleer. I knew that Bod was not going to die, as these events were occurring in the middle of the book. Furthermore, I had a difficult time connecting with any of these characters. I kept missing the point of the narrative. With the scenes like the one with Liza the witch, I thought that it was an interesting moralistic tale about not judging a book by its cover or reinforcing stereotypes. However, beyond that I did not know how it added to the plot. It was really the same thing with the ghouls and the hill. While they were reintroduced at the end of the novel when Bod used them to get rid of the Jacks, I did not understand why so much time was dedicated to their discussion. What was the point of the Ivory man? Why could Scarlett see him? I felt like I was missing something as I was reading this and this just left me discontent and uninterested.

Despite my moments of disinterest, I did see ways in which this book utilized the literary techniques of suspense and mystery in order to push the plot forward and to attract the readers. I thought that the book did nicely by immediately engaging the readers. Immediately, we are taken to a scene with the man Jack who is killing these people that we do not know. Shortly thereafter, Bod enters the world of the dead. However, there is not a discussion of these murders until much later in the book. While I found the conclusion rather disappointing and I would have liked to have the mystery of Jack elaborated on throughout the book, I still hung onto each page wanting to know why Jack wanted to murder this family. I wanted to know if Jack was ever going to find Bod and what was going to happen. It was worth turning each page in between because I had that fuel of that mystery pushing me forward.

The ability to build up this suspense was demonstrated magnificently in the chapter entitled, “Every Man Jack.” In that chapter, Scarlett met a mysterious man in the grave who called himself Mr. Frost. Now immediately, as a reader we are to think that this is Jack. The title of the chapter set it up this way, let alone the fact that there is all of a sudden a man who is dusting off grave stones and taking and driving young girls home. However, then as the chapter went on, I began to doubt this assumption. When Scarlett asked him about the murder, I was screaming at the book to have her keep her mouth shut. Yet, then when Mr. Frost began to tell her truthful and detailed information about the murder, I thought that perhaps he was just a historian. Still, when Scarlett brought Bod to the house, I was again screaming at Bod, telling him that the man was going to kill him. However, then once again I saw the man actually taking out the board on the ground and I wondered if maybe he did want to show Bod something. But why did he keep asking if Bod was the baby? I am constantly going back and forth, screaming at the book and then reading forward to see if my screaming was misapplied. The chapter was crafted skillfully in slowly building on the suspense and positioning the reader in a state of disorientation.

Fantasy books are often used as a key outlet for discussing larger social issues. Because they take place in a world that could never actually exist, they become a safe ground for discussions of things that do actually exist that may be controversial if looked at more explicitly. I think that this book did utilize this approach in the sense that it imbedded larger and interesting themes into its development and plotline. It was very interesting to see the juxtaposition of the living and the dead. Throughout the book, they make the comment that the living and the dead are to remain separate. They cannot interact. On the night of the dance when they all came together, they could not even talk about it afterwards. When Bod pesters the ghosts about why they will not admit that they danced with the living the previous night, they say, “Because there are mysteries. Because there are things that people are forbidden to speak about. Because there are things they do not remember” (164).

This separation between the living and the dead brought about interesting ideas about multicultural lines and segregation. The two sets of people are too different to coexist. Yet, still they came together in that one dance and it was magical. Why can’t they coexist? Surely it is possible as Bod is able to interact with them and they are able to dance together on that one night. Is it physically impossible for them to be together or it is a mental distancing? Bod’s ability to live with the ghosts exemplifies an ability to enter into another world and to live with those that are different. Yet, at the end of the novel, even Scarlett proclaims to Bod, “You aren’t a person. People don’t behave like you. You’re as bad as them. You are a monster” (286). Scarlett sees something different in Bod. Yet, as readers we understand that he was protecting himself against the evil. Again, is Bod unhuman? Is he not able to live with both groups at the same time? Did living with the dead change him? Is Bod a monster? Or is Scarlett simply unable to accept the differences and to accept Bod for being who he is? The book raises these interesting questions. While it does not interject firm answers to them, I think that the main point is that it provides a point of access for these questions to be risen. The greatest form of critical thinking lies in the formation of questions.