A happy childhood among the dead

On a hot summer's day, it's nice to slide into the shadows and cool off. The buzzing noises of heat recede, it's easier to breathe and you can think more clearly.

For a few days, my literary self has been taking it cool in the shadows of a cemetery, where the folks are more on the mellow side, the night time is the right time and no one's in a rush. In other words, I'm reading the wonderful The Graveyard Book by the ever-wonderful Neil Gaiman.

How's this for a premise: a toddler survives a massacre where a mysterious man butchers the boy's entire family. The good dead people of a nearby cemetery shelter and raise the boy as almost one of their own, until the unavoidable time comes when wings must be spread and the past confronted.

Macabre? Morbid? Not at all - not the way the book's written.

With this novel, Gaiman does many things at once. He tells a fable of a different childhood, creates wonderful scenes where the dead from different ages instruct the boy, pays homage to Mr. Dickens' "the education of an orphan boy with possibilities ahead of him" narratives (the old-fashioned English of many of the departed enhances this aspect), and ponders the rights and wrongs of human existence in a way that should please anyone over eight years of age (the book is at places too scary for little kids).

The Graveyard Book is categorized as fantasy, but like all good fantasy, it's all about the human drama, which is really what Neil Gaiman's entire output is about, from Sandman to American Gods to Coraline. The guy takes humanity and what it means to be human seriously, but the has the blessed gift of expressing himself in the most entertaining and enchanting way. Consequently, the life-and-death themes in this novel are not used as a blunt weapon but as a central structure that Gaiman decorates with wit, wisdom, humor and empathy for us all.

There will be a movie version, too, directed by Neil Jordan - a great  choice, given his impressive genre work in The Company of Wolves and Interview With the Vampire. But what about the title - will it be The Graveyard Movie?