I think it is safe to say that nearly everyone has gotten the impression that all of the world’s crazy is taking place somewhere just out of reach.

Beckoning us from just beyond the curtains of the world stage is Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere,” a book that decided to show us where all of it got to.

Richard Mayhew is your average London salaryman—work all day, go home to the apartment and the fiancée, get back up and do it all again tomorrow. One day on his way back from work he finds a girl bleeding out in an alley and offers her some help.

It turns out that the hand he offered in aid was the hand that pulled him off the stage, so to speak.

He wakes up the next day to find that his existence has been entirely forgotten—his bank accounts vanished, his apartment is being toured to prospective owners, his job station is empty and nobody questions it. In an effort to get some answers, Richard ends up plunging into London Below, a world existing in a mishmash of London throughout time and Grimm’s fairy tales.

He finds himself tagging along with the girl he helped, a newly-made orphan named Door, as she attempts to find her own answers about the circumstances of her family’s death.

Complicating matters are the machinations of an unknown third party, the manic plotting of Door’s advisor, the Marquis de Carabas; and the strange assassins Croup and Vandemar seeking to finish what they started—namely, murdering Door as gruesomely as possible.

Things get strange to say the least, and downright surreal might be more accurate.

Since this is a Neil Gaiman novel, he brings his usual fare of poetic and dreamlike descriptions, but where his other stories lean more towards whimsical or sarcastic in tone, “Neverwhere” feels more like an extended nightmare.

Mayhew finds himself exploring a world where it is not unusual to find the words “fatal” and “consequences” in the same sentence, and his unfamiliarity with the social mores of London Below means he spends a lot of time acting foolishly in front of things he shouldn’t.

The villains of the piece are once again one of my favorite parts. Croup and Vandemar make for amusing foils to each other—one an intelligent schemer, the other a simplistic brute filled with raw cunning.

Don’t let the humor deceive you, though, these two are described as human-shaped and cheerfully inform people that they have no redeeming qualities. They’re prone to making failed cronies disappear, possibly by eating them.

Gaiman creates a fantasy world in which much happens beyond the view of the protagonists, but because the world is based on references to stations on the London Underground it’s nearly incomprehensible to American readers. There’s a sort of meta-level frustration that comes from reading about places that ought to be significant to you but aren’t.

Mayhew himself comes off as a very bland and passive protagonist. He just sort of wanders around with Door and rarely undertakes action of his own accord. Part of this may spring from how he’s nearly died or gone crazy every time he’s moved away from the group and a deep shock that hasn’t worn off yet, but it gets to the point where he’s actively terrified of two-thirds of his group but won’t do anything about it.

Is “Neverwhere” worth reading?

The book is slow going, as there’s little levity to brighten the ride and the narrator’s density can become aggravating. If you think you can stick it out, more power to you. All told, it isn’t going to earn a recommendation from me.