Reading Response 27/02/2012

Response time! Continuing with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, I found a quote I found quite unusual: "Nice, in a bodyguard, is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters. He looks dangerous." Now, I'm not too sure why Gaiman decided to use this as a comparison, because there's so many other things he could have used. This particular one caught my eye because of how strange and random it is, however it also really enhances what the speaker is saying, because what usefulness is the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters, in all seriousness. As I continued reading, I realized Gaiman uses a lot of comparisons, because I found yet another one: "Richard could see Hunter and the marquis waiting for them at the tunnel's mouth. The marquis looked as if he had been forced to swallow a pulped lemon." In this book, the marquis is a person who isn't particularly cheerful and doesn't like Richard very much, therefore he is quite sour towards him. Describing that he looks like he ate a lemon enhances that fact. A few pages down, the characters are still walking down the tunnel and Richard makes a diary entry in his head about how much he wants to go home, and how he's "walking around a couple hundred feet under the streets of London with the projected life expectancy of a suicidal fruitfly." I like how he makes the diary entry mentally. It kind of makes him seem like he's going insane, which is what I think Gaiman could have been trying to portray. This book is continually interesting and I admire Gaiman's work a lot. It always seems to have quotes that make you think.