 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is one of my two favorite Neil Gaiman books of all time. It was published in 2008. It won a whole mess of awards and medals and things. It was inspired by Gaiman seeing his son playing in a graveyard and it is loosely, very loosely, a retelling of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Adaptations have been considered but they have mostly been dropped and that's a big shame because I would love to see an adaptation of a particularly a stop-motion one like in the style of Coraline. Chef's Kiss, that would be amazing. Okay so in my experience people are often really surprised when you tell them that the Graveyard Book is meant to be a retelling of The Jungle Book but it's a graveyard instead of a jungle. And I think that's so funny because the title is so on the nose as to be like almost bad and once it's pointed out I think it's really obvious how Gaiman's story parallels Rudyard Kipling's but I also totally get why people miss it and that doesn't occur to them. I think I knew that like from the very beginning so I don't know if I would have put it together but I get why you wouldn't even though it's so obvious because it's also weirdly not obvious. But do you need to know that it's a retelling of The Jungle Book? No, not at all. It might help with understanding why he went for this kind of more like episodic short story vignette collection kind of structure to the book but you don't really need that structure explained. I mean Rudyard Kipling didn't have a reason to structure his book that way. And there might be some added enjoyment beyond that if you're familiar with The Jungle Book but like not a lot. It's not like you're going to be able to recognize all the characters and be like oh that's this character, that's this character, that's this character. This like vignette is meant to be a direct parallel to this other vignette. Some of it parallels a bit. If you are familiar with The Jungle Book you'll be like oh okay this is like kind of like that. It's fun to realize that it's meant to be like The Jungle Book but a graveyard but beyond that I think Gaiman's work stands on its own very well. In my opinion a retelling of The Jungle Book but it's a graveyard instead of a jungle that sounds pardon the pun bananas but it really works in my opinion anyway it really works. I mean a child being raised by something other than humans and it not being like a complete disaster that requires a substantial amount of suspension of disbelief just already and so then making it fantastical it's not that much more of a leap to get there and I think the stakes feel much higher and much more threatening. The Man Jack to this day is one of the creepiest villains to me that I've ever read and the story doesn't rely on the gimmick I think is another reason that it really works. It uses the gimmick of the graveyard and the inhabitants of the graveyard to certainly have some sort of comedic moments but mostly it uses this gimmick to explore fairly universal themes and ideas and emotions and experiences. The graveyard, its inhabitants, the protagonist experiences even his name. It all has a sort of metaphorical level to it that twines with the literal events of the story and it creates this really emotionally rich tapestry but the real answer for why it works is because gay men. Okay so let's talk about those themes. What themes are present in the graveyard book? I think you could pick out a whole lot but the ones that I think stand out to me most when I think of it are fate, found family, identity, parenthood and growing up, and death slash grief. The villain of the story is specifically out to get our protagonist and is undone by his pursuit of the protagonist. The shape of this as a story it's kind of reminiscent to me of Greek tragedies where heroes learn of their fate, learn of what is foretold, learn of prophecy, things like that and they try really hard to escape that fate and in so doing they manifest the fate that they were trying to escape. It's circular, it's inevitable and it speaks to the way in which we often are the authors of our own destruction. Found family, one of my favorite tropes in general, it takes a village. Just like the original the protagonist is raised by a village, not animals this time, it's dead people, ghouls which is etc but the protagonist is too young to remember the actual family that he had before they were killed by the man Jack and so the myriad personalities that look after him they are the only family that he knows. Throughout the book we see over and over again that it is the choice to be responsible for someone, the choice to be present for someone, the choice to care about someone that bonds them to you, not biology or genetics and the inhabitants of the graveyard they look after the protagonist and he as he grows and becomes able to he gives back and he looks after them in turn. It is they've decided to be there for each other, no one made them be but that's a stronger bond. Identity I think is actually a really huge theme in it and one that's kind of like hiding in a plain sight. The protagonist is called Bod, his name is Bod which is short for nobody, nobody Owens. This is both funny and important so his name being nobody it's of course played for laugh sometimes but the scene where he gets named the inhabitants of the graveyard are trying to think of a name for him and the these dead people they keep explaining over how much his infant looks like this or that other person that they knew from when they were alive but the Owens is insist that he looks like nobody, he looks like nobody by himself and so that's what they call him they call him nobody so Gaiman has taken the word nobody which would typically mean an absence of identity and has reversed it and made it in fact represent individuality. Parenthood and growing up of course are very strong themes in the graveyard book nobody Owens like most children he's like a sponge just absorbing all the knowledge and influences that are around him obviously the knowledge and influences around him are a little bit different from what most kids have but they shape him and by the end of the book just like Mowgli who has to return to the world of men Bod has to leave the graveyard and it makes me cry every time he can no longer define himself by where he lives he has to be able to define himself by himself for himself and the figures that have taken care of him and have tried to guide him they have to have faith that they did a good enough job they have to have faith that he's gonna retain what he learned from them what they taught him what they tried to impart to him and they have to let him go most people don't have to leave a magical graveyard when they grow up but we all of us do have to leave behind the home that raised us for better or for worse strike out on our own leave behind the the things that shaped us and for anyone that's going to be a trial and that puts to the test how you were raised it puts to the test the values that were that were instilled in you that's how you find out if you were adequately prepared for the wide world outside of the safety of your home and family and of course death and grief it's a graveyard bod is surrounded by death bod is raised by the dead or the dead adjacent and so the topic comes up but as usual gay men trust kids to be able to handle darker things and to want to be able to handle them bod is surrounded by death so it's natural that he doesn't really fear it the way that a normal person would which means that he can have conversations about it that other people and other young people in particular might not be comfortable with and through him children who are reading the book can also contemplate these things and feel more comfortable with them because this scenario makes it seem less frightening and so it's like a it's like a the training wheels version of discussing mortality but it still remains really accessible to a younger audience i think a gay man tackles pretty heavy subjects including unaliving oneself in a really approachable way as i said in the beginning this is one of my two favorite gay men books of all time the other one is actually quite similar to this one in a lot of ways um ocean thin the lane even has a character that may or may not be related to one of the characters that's one of the inhabitants of bod's graveyard i love stories that deal with um the liminal nature of childhood and just liminal spaces in general such as a graveyard similar to the neverland in peter pan bod's graveyard is a place of wonder and adventure that he can only access and enjoy while he remains a child and when he grows up he has to leave and he won't ever be able to come back and experience it the way that he did when he was a child and i love the way that once again gay men intertwines the mundane and the extraordinary a boy is orphaned which is really real and tragic but he's saved and adopted by ghosts and ghouls the boy is surviving on prepackaged and canned foods which is really unromantic and sad but they are procured for him by his mysterious vampire guardian the situation is completely fantastical and in that sense it's not relatable at all the characters and their relationships their worries their cares their fears their affections those are all really relatable and really realistic and those are the things that lie at the heart of the story the magical graveyard is just set dressing but what set dressing none but gay men could write a graveyard so lively and so endearing and so terrifying all at once let me know your thoughts about the graveyard book have you read it did you always want to read it have i convinced you to read it i do highly highly recommend it also there are a couple of audiobook versions of it and personally i prefer the one that's just read by neil gayman there is another full cast audiobook that is very good don't get me wrong it is really good but i prefer neil gayman telling it by himself there is also a graphic novel version of it if you're interested in that and then also that's not the copy wait this the the us one is also illustrated but um even though that's not the one i'm holding up i always recommend getting the chris redell illustrated editions of all gayman books um he illustrates not all button are you possibly most but definitely many gayman books for the uk so like choraline the graveyard book fortunately the milk odd and the frost giants like so many of the books that are illustrated for gayman in the uk they are illustrated by chris redell and i think his art style really suits gayman so even though i have the hardcover the american hardcover here i recommend getting the uk version of the graveyard book um because the illustrations i think are so good but anyway let me know your thoughts about the graveyard book if you've read it if you want to read it whatever you want me to i try to post videos on saturdays but other times as well so like and subscribe to my patreon if you feel so inclined and i'll see you when i see you bye