Wed 29 Jul 2009
For chapter one of this review, click here or else click on the The Graveyard Book tag in the tagcloud in the bottom right hand column.
If you have not already done so, watch Neil read chapter two here.
Chapter 2 The New Friend
Chapter two is a curious chapter. For one, it’s a very upbeat and witty chapter as compared to the first, which was less so. But it also has a lot of quirky features that one might not notice when the chapter is read at face value.
The chapter begins with exposition of the boy Bod as he has changed from the baby that we met in chapter one. Bod has grown enough for him to walk, talk, pester the graveyard’s inhabitants with questions and argue with girls who are meanies. He is a boy with grey eyes and accompanying tousled mouse-coloured hair.
At sunset, Bod often waits at the Old Chapel to ask Silas questions. Questions like ‘Why amn’t I allowed out of the graveyard ?’, ‘How do I do what he just did ?’ and ‘Who lives in here ?’. After having corrected Bod’s grammar, Silas patiently explains that it is not safe for Bod outside the graveyard and that while he is there he can see in the darkness, walk some of the ways that the living should not travel and that the eyes of the living will slip off him. That some skills – like fading, sliding and dreamwalking – are learnt and some just don’t come in life. And that Bod should learn to read so that he can discover the epitaphs and their dedicatees for himself.
Bod’s peace and quiet is disrupted with the arrival of The New Friend. Scarlett is a bright curious young girl of five who roams the graveyard whenever her parents will let her while waiting on a bench. Soon Scarlett decides that Bod must be five too and talks to imaginary friends, but after that first meeting, it was never Scarlett who saw Bod first. (I wonder if that is the acquired fading skill of Bod’s that Silas talked about.)
The pair of them go exploring and discover the oldest grave in the yard, the one mound that stems from Celtic times. There are several accounts of people going into the mound and coming out changed… or not coming out at all. While exploring, Bod indeed shows that he can see where Scarlett cannot and soon they test their courage when faced with the guardians of the mound, the Sleer. The Sleer keep the tomb of the master and his possessions. They are the guardians of the brooch, the goblet and the knife. How and where the Sleer will play their part, I don’t know, but I’ll wager that they’ll be back before long !
The great thing about this chapter is that Neil has managed to introduce us subtly to the new concepts of fading, sliding and dreamwaking and has shown two of them already in a very unobtrusive way. I’m looking forward to seeing the third.
Some other things to think about. In one of the expositions on time spent between Bod and Scarlett, Bod tells Scarlett about ‘how Sebastian Reeder had been to London Town and had seen the Queen, who had been a fat woman in a fur cap who had glared at everyone and spoke no English‘. When I read that I wondered which queen Neil had referred to and set out to see if I could find out. Funnily enough, it turned into somewhat of a personal quest for me and ended abruptly when I came across an interview in which Neil talks more fully about it. Unfortunately I lost the link after a computer crash and a new search has failed to turn up that particular interview, but I’ll continue to search.
Since Sebastian Reeder died in 1583, the queen in question is most likely one of the wives of Henry the VIII, but none of them fit the bill. Excluding the wives of English birth – of whom we can expect English language skills – leaves Katharine of Aragon and Anne of Kleves. Katharine doesn’t fit because she was a beloved queen by the English people, whom she reigned for almost 24 years. She has been known to speak and write perfect 16th century English. Anne of Kleves would be a good candidate if it were not for the fact that she was not fat.
This portrait had been commissioned by Henry the VIII of Hans Holbein the Younger before Henry’s and Anne’s betrothal, with specific instructions to represent her as accurately as possible and not to flatter. It is therefore unlikely that Anne would ever be the ‘fat queen‘ of Reeder’s description.
Because the passage does not specify that the queen was actually English, I had come to the conclusion that the most likely candidate was Mary, Queen of Scots. But then I read the interview in which Neil himself admits that he doesn’t quite know which queen Reeder describes and that he had always liked to think it was in fact Anne. This passage is a glorious reminder that even an author does not always know everything about the story they write !
Lastly, some more interesting Silas bytes; When Bod says to Silas that he wants to be like him, Silas responds; ‘No, you do not.‘ Silas, like Bod, has the freedom of the graveyard, but for Silas it is a mere Right of Abode. Silas also reads Latin. Unfortunately, nothing here to confirm he is a vampire, but I’ll find it !