fastidium

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is in part a satire about the state of homeless people in London. The story is about Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, who discovers another part of London after helping a wounded girl named Door. He becomes trapped in an alternative London, known as London Below, or the Underground. Once he steps into it, he finds that his normal life no longer exists. The only chance of getting his old life back is to accompany Door on a dangerous mission through London Below.

Its a satire because London Below is the place where people who fall through the cracks of society end up. They are the vagrants, the homeless, and the jobless who lose the things that made them “someone” in London Above: professions, money, possessions, etc. Now that those things are gone, they are no longer authentic, they no longer exist in that world.

Consequently, after losing his previous identity and finishing his journey, Richard Mayhew comes to the realization that his life in London Above was planned out before him. In London Below, life is unpredictable, it is dangerous, and, more importantly, it is real. Things like hunger and love and family don’t get overlooked. Finding your next meal is a matter of life and death.

As we wrote about recently, our existence today is mediated. Its mediated by the television, by all the presentations around us (grocery stores, places of employment, our homes), by the latest gadgets and fads. Richard Mayhew found out that those things make life less real. Perhaps Gaiman was trying to communicate on this level as well as make a statement about homeless people. The story is certainly a great explanation of the difference between optional and real.