Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman : Is Neverwhere Wonderland?

I have read far fewer Neil Gaiman books than I should. I always enjoy them, and yet I haven’t gotten deep into his library. I have read “American Gods,” a couple of books of non-fiction and now “Neverwhere”. And just like all the others, this book manages the balancing act of being both fun and smart at the same time.

What is Neverwhere about?

The core idea of “Neverwhere” is that there is a sort of second London that is more or less invisible to the citizens of London Above. It is where the people who have been forgotten go and is made up of runaways and homeless people and those who have been there their whole life. It has magic and strangeness and is far more dangerous than London Above.

The main character is Richard, an average guy who has an average life in which he thinks he is happy but really isn’t. He is engaged to a woman who doesn’t really like him, has a job that doesn’t really mean anything to him, and spends most of his free time doing thing he doesn’t enjoy.

One day while going to meet his girlfriend’s boss for the first time, they come across a young woman named Door who has been injured. His girlfriend tries to convince Richard to leave her or at least just call the ambulance but the girl asks him not to call the police so he instead takes her back to his place. A move that infuriates his girlfriend enough that she leaves him.

Then something strange begins to happen. A few days later he wakes up to find that no one notices him and everyone who should know him has forgotten him. He no longer has a job, his apartment is rented out to someone else, and his fiance barely remembers his name and does not know they were in a relationship.

He remembers Door, the woman he had saved and knows she will be at the floating market and so begins the first part of the adventure. From there the book reminds me of nothing more than “Alice in Wonderland” but with a more modern take. He meets strange groups of people and faces odd threats in his attempt to get to the one person in London Below that he knows.

The problem is that her life is also in danger and she almost leaves him behind, convinced that he will make it less likely she will survive. But she eventually takes him with her and they go on the next part of their strange trip looking for the Angel Islington.

There are more fights, more adventures, some plot twists and more, but mostly there are more strange characters and we see more of London below. Richard, who until this point has been floating through the story, is forced to grow up some and eventually helps to save the day.

Finally, in the way of the hero’s journey, he leaves behind London Below to return to his safe and pleasant life. A life which is far better. He gets a better apartment, a promotion and a girlfriend who in the little we see her seems far more pleasant. It is everything he has ever wanted, but he has become someone who no longer wants that.

The Characters of Neverwhere

There are far too many interesting characters in Neverwhere to begin to explore them all. So I will focus on those who take up a significant amount of pages in the book. Starting with two of the most fun villains I have ever read.

Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar

The primary threat throughout most of this book they are assassins who have been hired to kill and then not kill Door. They are both a dangerous threat and the comic relief in a way that it’s hard to explain. They revel in destruction and pain so much that it actually is funny, even though you also know that they’ll willingly kill anyone. In one of the more entertaining bits of character development, we discover he collects fine china, and he makes a deal to get a piece that he then intentionally breaks and eats as soon as the deal is done.

Marquis de Caribas

Mostly a normal human, though one that is quite competent. He is the person who Door calls on for help when her life is in danger. He spends much of the book trading for favors and is described as a tad shady, the way a rat is a tad covered in fur.

The Angel Islington

Early in the story Door finds a message from her father telling her she can trust Islington. And most of the book is spent trying to get to him. He is, as his name implies, an angel. He is also the real villain of the book. He is an angel, but one that fell when he judged and then destroyed Atlantis. He has been sealed and trapped since, and his only goal is to escape. Once he does, he intends to return to heaven and attack it. One can assume that won’t go well, but it hardly matters because it’s the destruction he does in the attempts that are so vital. What makes him pleasant is that he acts like you would expect an angel to act. He is friendly and appears kind.

Door

The second to main character Door is the last living member of a family who could open doors. This lets her move from place to place simply by going through a door as well as actually opened locked things. The pain she feels from the death of her family is her major plot point, but like Richard she is less interesting than most of the side characters. A necessity as you need some way to tether the story to reality.

Richard

The main character of the book he is more or less Alice with Neverwhere being Wonderland. Simply trying to survive in a world where the rules no longer apply. He is intentionally a cipher and the primary thing that makes him interesting is his reaction to everything that he comes across as well as his character arc, which is satisfying even though there was never much doubt how it would end.

The Best Things about “Neverwhere”

The world building and characters of “Neverwhere” are impossible to separate. The world is London in many ways, except that it is filled with strange people. You get pictures of this strange funhouse mirror version of London through the characters and places they visit, many of which I am confident in saying are real places and likely real, if exaggerated people. I have compared it several times to “Alice in Wonderland” and it does well in that comparison, both because it’s a more modern story and one that was written for me rather than a twelve-year-old Victorian girl.

What Doesn’t work in “Neverwhere”

There is nothing I would actually consider bad in “Neverwhere”, but the plot is the weaker part of the story. Much of it is simply a travelogue exploring the world. That’s great for worldbuilding, but as a plot simply trying to get to somewhere will never blow my socks off simply because people have been doing it since “The Odyssey”.

Conclusion

I need to read more books by Neil Gaiman. He is both a great writer and someone who has many of the same interests as me. His understanding of comics, books and TV match up pretty well with mine and the books he writes almost always feel as if I’m the intended audience. “Neverwhere” is certainly no exception, and I highly recommend it to anyone.