The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I like myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.

Adult stories never made sense, and they were so slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets. Masonic, mythic secrets to adulthood. Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?

While not properly a myth, there is a mythic quality to The Ocean at the End of the Lane. This slim volume is magic. Just magic. It struck me in a very personal place. Between lines like

I was not happy as a child, although from time to time I was content. I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.

Coraline

The Graveyard Book

I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me and I was certain, stock-solid unshakably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was.

The Ocean

grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.

The Ocean