####Feburary 7, 2015 ###Participants

###Discussion ####What are your thoughts on Richard as the protagonist? * Chris: Is he just a character or is he a vehicle for us to meet the other characters? Perhaps he represents the trope of a boring Britishman? * Kathy: Yeah, he seems like a very ordinary character, definitely a vehicle for the readers. However, there were a couple of moments where he struck me as not a “go with a flow” character, like when he was helping Door? * Chris: When he was in Scotland, he sees the old woman in the rain and she seems to suggest that he’s fated to have something to do with doors. * Jenny: I agree with you guys, this also has to do with the relationship between London Above and Below - people from London Above seem to have an apathetic attitude towards those in London Below, hence why they can’t really seem them. Maybe Door “opened” something within Richard when she reached out for help and compassion? This would serve as a contract to Jess, who just thought Door was another drunk girl who would be taken care of by someone else.

####What about the other characters - Jessica, Door, Marquis de Carabas, Hunter, Mr. Croup and Vandemar, Islington, and the friars? * Chris: Gaiman is sometimes sexist with his characters, so maybe that has to do with Jessica being very career oriented. * Kathy: Yeah, what about the other female characters in this book? * Chris: Within the ethics of the London Below, Hunter is not bad - just within the ethics of London Above. * Jenny: Hunter struck me as very narrow-minded and self-centered person. She would abandon all ethical issues of betraying Door and letting Islington do what he pleases just to get a chance to fight with the Beast of London for personal glory. * Kathy: London Above doesn’t care for people in London Below, but I feel like there’s not much caring for people in general? Life seems sad… * Jenny: Speaking of other characters, the Marquis de Carabas is a total opportunist, which supports the fact that people are generally “selfish” and not very caring for others. This really sets Richard apart from the rest of the characters in the book. I was shocked that the Islington turned out to be Croup and Vandemar’s employer though! * Chris: Question with Islington is the broader role of religion in the text. Christianity is prominent in the book yet treated as another magical element. Like these friars who are at the same time a very important religious role in a society, and yet they seemed to be worried about tea… * Jenny: I thought the friars were weird - you would think that they could’ve told Hunter, Door and Richard that they had the key to Islington’s prison, and the fact that he is a terrible angel on a mission to take over the world. Why did they say that it wasn’t their problem to tell others this pretty important fact? * Chris: I wonder if it’s supposed to be a parody of modern bureaucratic office culture - when people fulfill their jobs and go through the motions and don’t really care about anything else. The friars were mildly shocked but not terribly disturbed by the fact that Richard actually succeeds. * Jenny: They even took a picture of Richard before he went in to do his ordeal, and stick it on their wall - that is kind of morbid. It was interesting how Gaiman ties in the religious aspect. Islington wants to go to heaven and take over and be God, but the book never mentions a specific deity that people worship. * Chris: Various forms of magic and religious magic is one of them. * Jenny: What I don’t understand is Islington’s motivation for doing all this. Seemed it was just because Portico laughed at him…was he out of his mind? Normally appears very angelic, but I remember he had this one moment of madness where his physical apparence changed. It makes me wonder if he’s insane and that his mind is breaking because he’s been in the prison for so long. * Chris: If he’s supposed to be a fallen angel, that might suggest some kind of embodiment of pure evil. If you think about Dante’s Inferno, one of the shocking features is that hell in the Inferno is not ruled by Satan. Satan is actually just a prisoner locked in the deepest part of Hell. Islington is a fallen angel that’s in prison, but even in prison, he can be a force for evil in the world. * Jenny: I wonder if he’s behind all of the things that he did - when Group and Vandemar talked about killing figures back during the Medieval times and through out history.

####The Marquis de Carabas tells Richard that London Below is “inhabited by the people who fell through the cracks in the world.” What does that mean and what do you think of this world? * Jenny: The story is pretty similar to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz in the sense that Richard falls down a rabbit hole to this magical and bizarre world. * Chris: There’s a lot of homeless and insanity going on in London Below, and begs the idea of, what if in someone’s insanity or homelessness, there’s actually some truth? I think there’s a documented fascination with an underground secret society. * Jenny: Why do you think is there a fascination with these “other worlds”? * Chris: In modern urban times - seeking an explanation for hidden things that go on in the corners of the urban landscape that we see brings a sense of adventure. It’s like what John Watson experience with Sherlock in the TV series. People walk around London and don’t notice all that’s going on around them, but Sherlock is able to pick up on these minute details, and in return, brings John on these great adventures. * Jenny: Yeah that’s a great comparison, especially since BBC Sherlock pays homage to London as a great modern city. Sherlock has his “homeless network” and knows all the nooks and cranny of the city, and it was great to see John’s reaction to seeing these things that are actually around him everyday. Plus, there are a lot of places with strange names, and Neil Gaiman was able to play with names and create fantastic settings from them. * Chris: There’s this really large office building in Rome, built in the 70s, but you never see people going in and out of it. There are lights sometimes at night but there doesn’t seem to have any activities going on. The architect says it’s actually a water tower disguised as an office building. * Kathy: Yeah, and it makes you wonder what’s going on in the building spaces above the shops in Manhattan? They can’t be vacant, but we also don’t know who lives there and if these are just normal apartments. * Chris: I’ve heard of statements on the invisibleness of these groups of people - you pass beggars all the time and you start to ignore them, and they become invisible to you. Is this a statement on society as a whole, and does this thread apply to other aspects of the book? * Jenny: There’s this great quote from The Wasteland by TS Eliot: > A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
> I had not thought death had undone so many.
> Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
> And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Living in the city, after a while you just become another part of the city and in a sense, you lose your individuality. * Kathy: It’s a common theme in literature - alienation in the city. But wouldn’t it be more apparent in the suburbs? In a way, if people don’t notice you, don’t you have more space to recreate your individuality? * Chris: The people of London Below are invisible to London Above, but do they really mind? They seem to prefer it that way. * Jenny: Richard obviously minds but the other people seems to be satisfied with the status quo.

####What about Richard’s decision to return to London Below at the end of the book? * Kathy: I think this is the case where you have an experience that seems too thrilling at the time and you just want to return to your familiar zone, but then after a while, you’re overwhelmed by the boringness of “real life.” * Jenny: Yes! I think this was exactly why Richard went back to London Below at the end of the book. * Chris: Excitement issue is bound up by another question - materialism. People down below always spend time gathering things for themselves, but they just start trading junk. What’s the purpose of these markets? Is the real currency of the underworld a sense of adventure? * Jenny: You’re right, they’re not getting a bargain for whatever they’re trading…I wonder if the Floating Markets are just excuses for various people of London Below to see more “cool” items from all over the place, as opposed to a real trading market. * Chris: Vandemar was really into the Tang sculptures - what’s to stop a character like him from just going into all of the museums and taking them, instead willing to give up sacrifices and information for these things? JS Yeah, plus after he got the statue, he immediately destroys it. Perhaps it’s all just a rouse to trick the Marquis. On the note of materialism, when Richard got back to London Above, he demanded that his landlord give back his stuff. It turns out that they’re just in a storage place, but when he gets them back he doesn’t unpack. This reminded me of the homelessness, since if he’s not going to unpack, he might as well not have them. This was exactly how people operated down in London Below - everything is just transient.

####What was your thoughts on the Ordeal of the Key? * Jenny: The “test” part of adventures usually excites me, but the Ordeal just seems really creepy. * Kathy: It was scary - if all of my friends start telling me that I’m insane, it would be hard for me to hold true to my own conviction. Stepmother in Jane the Virgin frames Jane as insane, and I found this as crazy, the idea that no one believes that they’re insane. In terms of the plot, it strikes as a typical challenge that demonstrate growth. * Jenny: To me, the Ordeal also ties in with the theme of mental illnesses, hallucinations, or writers with vivid imaginations - how does it feel for people to not see what you’re seeing? * Chris: what exactly is the Ordeal? You could just say it’s a test to convince people that they’re insane, and that they should just commit suicide. Richard has had this anxiety and questions whether everything is real or not to begin with, even after he got back home to London Above. Everyone has some sort of anxiety - perhaps an ridiculous amplification of our worries and mental states. * Kathy: It’s true - our greatest struggles are internal. * Jenny: Just like how Jessica at the party was overly anxious about making an impression on her boss, but what exactly was there to fret about? * Chris: It gets us into the question of what is Jess’s character? Does she have a real character other than the superficial career goals that she has? * Jenny: Is Jess just some person who provides a contrast to Richard’s character? * Kathy: Good question - why is Jess into art museums? * Chris: Maybe the author is making a point about things we don’t want to admit - maybe art museums are just boring, and it’s common to fall asleep at boring musicals. * Kathy: Reminds me of clubbing - you go clubbing not to go to the clubs, but just so you can say you like clubbing? * Chris: Is it possible to have interests that are not purely for show? How many people really enjoy drinking the wine because they actually like it, or because of the reputation of people that ordered it? * Jenny: But we have this concept that going to the art museums or seeing opera signifies that one is “sophisticated.” Must of what we do stems from social pressure or some kind of expectation. I guess working for someone as big as Stockton makes you one of those people who need to have these hobbies, and maybe after a while, they just become part of Jess’s personality. * Chris: What if you contrast Jess’s interest with Croup/Vandemar’s interest in torturing people? They seem genuinely like they enjoy that… * Jenny: Can we say that London Below people are less superficial? They seem to be pretty straightforward with what they like and dislike. * Chris: Maybe the point is that everyone is superficial, but some of us are pretending to be deep.