The one where I gush about Neil Gaiman and think about the rebirth of the author

So if you don't already know that I'm a Neil Gaiman fan, welcome to my blog for the very first time. Those of you that have been here before will understand that when I bought tickets yesterday to seem him in Sydney in August I was BESIDE MYSELF. At work yesterday, I kept saying "I'm going to see Neil Gaiman!" to anyone who would listen (and quite a few people who wouldn't).

I'm not the sort to be star-struck. I think Neil is probably the only person on the planet who could send me into a fluster. I've already started stressing about what I will say if, for some reason, I have the opportunity to shake his hand at one of the events I'm attending. A man as talented as Mr. Gaiman hears strangers tell him how much they appreciate his work all the time.

If you haven't heard of him before, you'll have to take my word for it. His writing talent and his imagination are awe-inspiring, and he has a cult following of over a million fans worldwide. His creativity is matched only by a kind of intellectual rigour rarely found outside academia. When you read a work by Neil Gaiman, you know you are in the presence of a keen awareness of mythology and tales most of us have long forgotten. I think it's telling that a quote from his Sandman comics was recently misattributed to Shakespeare. I'd like to gush some more but I won't, because a.) I would probably bore you and b.) Charlie Orr has already said it anyway.

Instead, I'll just mention that I've been thinking a lot lately about the similarities between William Goldman's The Princess Bride and Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

Neil has said in interviews that Stardust was partly inspired by The Princess Bride- or by a lack of book similar to The Princess Bride. Both are fairy tales sold primarily to an adult audience, and they have a similar humour about them. Both were made into films with plotlines more romanticised than those in the original books.

There is, however, one significant difference: The Princess Bride is metafictional. Goldman continually interrupts the story to say what he thinks of it, and this is part of the story. He talks about his wife and son, their reactions to the text and the process of abridging the original text of The Princess Bride. This is all part of the fiction, though Goldman mixes in enough truth to confuse the reader a little.

I've been thinking about this because I'm writing my Honours thesis on a certain philosophical problem regarding fiction, and I'm using metafiction (specifically The Princess Bride) to illuminate the problem. It occurred to me the other day that while Stardust the text isn't metafictional, it was created in a postmodern world where we have access to authors' opinions of their work. Fans interact with Neil all the time, on Twitter or on his blog. They ask him questions about his work and his life and he answers them (though I've never seen him offer an authoritarian interpretation of one of his works).

It's a joy to read, mostly because it's well-written and he's such a nice guy. And it makes me wonder. There are lots of authors with blogs these days. How does this affect they way we see their work? Roland Barthes famously told us that the author is dead. Could it be that when authors enter our online communities and interact directly with the fans of their work, the author is reborn? Not as a authoritative figure, but as a member of the community discussing the work he happened to create.

Stardust: Child vs. Adult

I've just been listening to a podcast found here about Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Most of the discussion in the podcast revolves around what makes the book a 'fairytale for adults'.

Stardust, as you know, is one of my favourite books. Gaiman describes the premise of the book:

"I wanted a young man who would set out on a quest - in this case a romantic quest, for the heart of Victoria Forester, the loveliest girl in his village. The village was somewhere in England, and was called Wall, after the wall that runs beside it, a dull-looking wall in a normal-looking meadow. And on the other side of the wall was Faerie - Faerie as a place or as a quality, rather than as a posh way of spelling fairy. Our hero would promise to bring back a fallen star, one that had fallen on the far side of the wall.

"And the star, I knew, would not, when he found it, be a lump of metallic rock. It would be a young woman with a broken leg, in a poor temper, with no desire to be dragged halfway across the world and presented to anyone's girlfriend."

In the same article, Gaiman mentions that he loved The Princess Bride when he was young, and wrote Stardust with the wish of creating another story that was "unapologetically a fairytale, and just as unapologetically for adults."

Much of the podcast discussion revolves around the single sex scene and the single swear word found in Stardust. Are these what make the novel one for adults? Or are they just the elements which make adults able to claim a fairytale as their own without embarrassment?

This is my favourite book in all the world

I'm currently rereading The Princess Bride, and I'd forgotten how much I loved it. Actually I'm going to spend my whole year loving it (I hope), because I get to write my Honours thesis on it. I'm a little excited about the project.

Anyway, rereading one of my favourite books made me realize that I've never shared my favourites on here. So, here they are:

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
I love this book because of its playfulness and its truth. I love so many of the characters- Inigo, the vengeful Spaniard, is my favourite. How can you not love the dialogue? (Much of which is in the film. Don't tell me you haven't seen the film. You'll break my heart.) And how can you not love Goldman for continually taking the piss out of his own work?
This book is pure satire, in all its sarcastic, entertaining glory.
First line: "This is my favourite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

The Emily series by L.M. Montgomery
I first read these when I was seven years old. If there are any books which define me, these are it. I quote these books continually, I've internalised them. They're by the author of Anne of Green Gables, but where Anne is flamboyant and loud, Emily is dreamy and intense. She lives in a world where fairies are always seconds away and words shape our existence.
Quote: "there is something BEYOND words--any words--all words--something that always escapes you when you try to grasp it--and yet leaves something in your hand which you wouldn't have had if you hadn't reached for it."

The Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb
I have never met characters who seemed more real. They step off the page. They learn, they grow, they ache. Robin Hobb allows her characters to go through things most authors would cringe at, and she allows them to be truly flawed (no 'token flaws' here).
And whaddayaknow? Their confused and flawed actions shape history in ways that you couldn't have guessed, yet seem just as real and inevitable as any human history.
Epic fantasy which is entitled to take itself seriously.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
This book is a collection of short stories about a single painting. A beautiful exploration of the ways in which art touches us, changes us and commemorates our passions. Girl in Hyacinth Blue gives us the history of a painting (possibly a Vermeer) through the lives of the people who admired its beauty, from the man who destroyed it to the girl who posed for it.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
Sparkling and funny. Fantastical and unsettling. Brilliant.