Fafnir (Mar 2017)
‘Back to the Real London’; or Mapping the City of the Past in Gaiman’s Neverwhere
Abstract
Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed novel Neverwhere belongs to the rapidly growing sub-genre of urban fantasy. Set in 20th century London, the novel evokes fantastical and supernatural elements to paint the history of the city and encompasses its historic memory. The city is divided into two separate spaces, London Above and London Below, that are parallel to one another and mirror each other. Lower London contains all that is suppressed by London Above and inhabits all that is lost and forgotten (certain moments in history, those in need, broken objects, etc.) The repressed ‘things’ eventually haunt the city of London Above and exist within their own terms of fantastical reality in London Below. This paper focuses on Gaiman’s emphasized allusions to the 19th century as the main influential era on the city’s development as both asocially oppressive space but also a fantastical one. Therefore, associating it with neo-Victorian fantastical genres; steampunk and gaslamp fantasy. Drawing upon known Victorian symbols, such as the London Underground or the London fog, Gaiman renders them into having double meanings and thus, deepens our understanding of the city’s historical and social memory. The dichotomy of classes and societies presented in both versions of London stresses the cultural and social gaps of the city. Examining the purpose of the fantastical and the way it functions in the novel with relation to history (the 19th century in particular), leads to a thorough understanding of the city’s social milieu in past and present.
