Neil Gaiman

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Stardust

5 September 2009 in Novel | No comments

By Neil Gaiman.
Begun 15 June 2009; finished 22 June.
Review written 14 July 2009.

Neil Gaiman is good at writing timeless stories where there is no sense of time and and historical place, but the story could take place at any time you can imagine. That’s the quality of the Sandman graphic novels, and also Stardust. Gaiman’s fairy tale of a young man from a village who goes on a quest into Faery to bring back a fallen star for his beau — but discovers that desires and sentiments change, and he is destined for more than just a simple village life.

A fine fairy tale, mixing elements of various mythologies, and with a characteristically Gaiman ending — ambivalent, realist, and neither tragic or happily ever after. A good story, but like all of Gaiman’s other works, impersonal and a bit detached. I’ve never been able to warm to Gaiman’s stories or characters, and he’s never invited me to. So far I remain appreciative but indifferent to his writing.

I also had a chance to look at the graphic novel of Stardust, illustrated by Charles Vess. (It’s actually the novel with copious illustrations.) Vess’ artistic style doesn’t capture me, but it is colourful, intricate and fairy-like, and appropriate for the story. I also saw snatches of the movie adaptation, and whilst I can understand the movie’s very different ending, I prefer the novel’s ending much more.

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Coraline (movie)

20 March 2009 in Film | No comments

Coraline is one of those exceptional movies that doesn’t merely do justice to Neil Gaiman’s vision, but adds richness and depth to the novel by bringing the text into motion-picture life. I couldn’t have visualized Coraline better than the directors and storyboarders — indeed, the movie went far and above my expectations both as a movie-watcher and a reader. In other words, Coraline the movie was perfect, and I loved it from start to finish.

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Coraline

15 February 2009 in Novel | No comments

By Neil Gaiman.
Begun and finished 19 Jan 2009.

When she steps through a door in her new house, Coraline finds herself in a weird “mirror image” of her house, complete with an Other Mother, Other Father, and Other neighbours. Despite being very strange and inhuman, this Other World is recognizably like hers, and at first appears rather appealing. But Coraline soon discovers that the Other Mother is hostile and utterly evil, having created the Other World to trap her, and the story follows Coraline’s struggle to escape the clutches of the Other Mother.

Coraline the movie was recently released and I intend to watch it in the cinema, so of course I have to read Neil Gaiman’s YA novel first. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Sandman: first five collections

26 January 2009 in Collection, Illustrated | 1 comment

By Neil Gaiman.
Being Preludes and Nocturnes, The Doll’s House, Dream Country, Season of Mists and A Game of You.
Begun 02 Jan 2009; finished 09 Jan.

My (rather poor) excuse for not having read The Sandman earlier is that I couldn’t figure out where the story began. A friend kindly solved my impasse by lending me the first five story arcs. I won’t give a synopsis since the stories very complex; Wikipedia and others can explain it better.

I’d only read one work by Neil Gaiman prior to this, American Gods. That book revealed what a masterful author he was, and that fact was reinforced in The Sandman. Gaiman is a very imaginative creator, a careful writer. Commencing each story arc was like opening a window into a new land, which gradually unfolded before my eyes. The deeper I went into the story, the more detailed each character became; each element of the story — character, setting, idea, ambience — became sharper and more vivid, intertwined with each other in complex patterns; finally all the threads begun were connected, carefully tied off, and resolved into a marvellously detailed tapestry of story.

Gaiman takes his time to spin the tale, and the luxuriant slowness of the storytelling was tangible: I would surface out of the story feeling as if hours and hours had passed. (And sometimes, that was true.) Indeed, all the Sandman stories had a dreamy, faraway, mythical ambience — very fitting for stories surrounding the immortal Dream and his oneiric kingdom. Gaiman’s world-view is also quite evident throughout the stories, and some appear to me as vehicles to convey a particular message concerning the world. Even though I read The Sandman purely for the story, I’m sure I could’ve obtained some sort of moral message from it.

As for the stories themselves, they were wonderfully told, and Gaiman is undoubtedly a talented author and extremely clever at weaving mythology, history and fiction into new creations. But his stories did not move me, and whilst they were absorbing and worth reading, I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed them. So I’m currently impartial to The Sandman, and remain ambivalent about Gaiman as an author. If reading is a love affair, I’m still waiting for him to woo me.

So that’s all I have to say about The Sandman. This review definitely doesn’t do the graphic novels justice; there’s so much more to them and I’ve only given terse coverage of how I felt about the stories, but in this first pass I didn’t bother to read deeper into the philosophies and ideologies of The Sandman. I’m glad I read them, but the rest of the series isn’t particularly high on my list.

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American Gods

26 October 2008 in Non-Fiction, Novel | No comments

By Neil Gaiman.
Begun 30 Apr 2008; finished 09 May.
For the Author A-Z challenge.

The nice thing about the Author A-Z reading challenge is that I now have the opportunity (or obligation?) of reading authors that I’ve always wanted to read, but never got around to. Neil Gaiman is one such author, and I’ve finally read his double Hugo/Nebula award-winning novel, American Gods.

Briefly, the story is about a man called Shadow, and his experience in the underground twilight-realm of the pagan ‘Old World’ gods, who over the course of time have been abandoned and forgotten by their worshippers, and the impending war between gods old and young. The main characters are actually the deities; apart from the cursory role of a middle-man and errand-boy for the gods, Shadow primarily functions (and duly behaves) as an observer. As we journey with him, we discover how gods survive in the modern world in the twilight of their days, and their struggle to garner worship and adulation from a society that neither remembers nor appreciates them anymore.

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