Reading Response #4 04/04/2012

It's a little late, but here it is. I'm about halfway done Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. One sentence I found different was "The only noise to be heard was the gentle, gasping almost-groan of wonderment that people make when they watch fireworks: the sound of awe. Then a grubby young man and a dirty-faced girl in a huge leather jacket walked into the light show and vanished." I thought it was unusual that he described Richard and Door as if they were new characters or unimportant people that were just being seen and described, instead of just naming them off like one usually would. It gives it the feeling as if it were the start of something new; that something important was about to happen. Contrasting to the quotes that generally help me visualize something and understand better in my mind, there was one that I could not picture for the life of me. "The figure seemed to be moving slowly, but it must have been walking very fast, as it was only seconds before it was standing beside them. It had golden hair and a pale face. It was not much taller than Richard, but it made him feel like a little child. It was not a man; it was not a woman. It was very beautiful. Its voice was quiet." I couldn't seem to picture quite what he meant. There were so many opposing words in the description for this figure that it just stops the mind from visualing it. The figure it was describing was an angel, who gave Richard and Door some sort of liquid while saying: "When one tastes it, I like to imagine that one is actually tasting the sunlight of bygone days. A toast: to former glories."Along with this figure, I couldn't figure out if what he was saying was supposed to be happy or mourning from better days. Along the chapter, it still doesn't clear up what the angel is feeling or what its views on the worlds' current situation were, which I'm hoping will clear up later in the book.