(Image: A Gift from Old Bailey, Carl V., 2011)
It is with a touch of sadness–that satisfying yet melancholy feeling–that we say goodbye to Richard Mayhew and to Lady Door, to the Marquis de Carabas and to Old Bailey, to the two delightful villains Croup and Vandemar and to the world of London Below. It always pains me a bit to say farewell, after all these are friends of more than a decade who I have visited time and time again. The great pleasure of the written word is that you can actually return and visit your friends. With the passage of time you have changed, and so have they, and the discovery that despite those changes those friends continue to matter is one of the treasures of reading.
It was a great privilege to be able to go on this journey with Richard and Door with all of you. Some of you were returning for a repeat visit, such as I was, and others were taking this journey for the first time. Some of you were touched by the magic of Neverwhere, and others weren’t. This too is one of the treasures of reading–no two people experience the story in the same way.
I had decided that in lieu of specific questions this week, we would culminate this group read with each individual taking their own direction with what they wanted to share. I did suggest that I would be most curious to know how readers thoughts and feelings about particular characters were affected by the events in this final section of the book. Beyond that, let’s just chat about Neverwhere.
