Katabasis Rewritten: Liminal Space and Urban Topography of Horror in Neil Gaiman’s novel Neverwhere

This paper proposes a view on the novel Neverwhere written by Neil Gaiman as a postmodern reinterpretation of the myth of the catabasis. Here, the classic catabasis motif is a principle that structures both the fictional world and the protagonist’s experience, not just a plot device about the travel into the underworld transposed into a contemporary urban setting. The analysis main focus is the relationship between two cities of London as a system of liminal spaces where the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur. London Below does not function as a simple alternative to the world Above, but as a parallel city with its unique rules, whose topography takes the form of a labyrinth concealing layers of the uncanny and danger. In this sense, the protagonist’s descent—much as in the myth of Orpheus—signifies crossing the boundary between orders of reality, though it is embedded in the urban experience and linked to the issue of social invisibility. The horror here stems primarily from the transformation of everyday space into something alien and unsettling: the urban infrastructure becomes an oppressive, labyrinthine structure. The myth thus functions to organize space while disorganizing the protagonist’s life and generating an experience of fear.