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Tuesday, 21 November 2006 14:52 |
| | David Forbes |
Tales of love, loss, death, rebirth and magic in every sense of the word make up Neil Gaimanës latest offering, the superb short-story collection "Fragile Things" (William Morrow, 360 pages, $26.95).
A storyteller of the first order, Gaiman began his career working in comics, most notably "Sandman," now justly regarded as a classic. He still works in that field, but successfully moved into prose as well, with works such as "Neverwhere," "American Gods" and most recently, "Anansi Boys."
While his novel and comics work have attracted most of the attention, short stories are a medium for which his talents and style are ideally suited. Full disclosure: his previous short story collection, 2001ës "Smoke and Mirrors," is one of my favorite books of all time (conveniently available in paperback now for about $6. Get it. Malapropës is a good place to start. You will not regret it).
The
quality of his output has not diminished since, though he continues to
sound on some of the common themes ÇƒÓ fear, mystery, alienation, how old
and powerful things lie just under the fabric of our every day world.
The title is an apt one ÇƒÓ despite their widely ranging topics, all the
stories in this collection deal with the fragility of people, stories
and lives.
It is a
testament to his skill that those themes are only really visible upon
closer inspection and thought ÇƒÓ each story has a fresh, new feeling
while the reader devours it.
His background
suits him well, for Gaiman remains a master of speaking volumes in just
a few words: a talent displayed to great effect in these pages.
"Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot," for example, manages to
breathe life into some old archetypes in mere pages. The same goes for
the inventive man-walks-into-hell story "Other People."
 There are legions of wordy types out there who could learn a thing or two from his use of a few powerful words to hit home.
In "The Flints
of Memory Lane," a ghost story taken almost strictly from Gaimanës own
experience, I could trace the impact to a single line of just six
words, but it stayed with me long afterwards and, for at least a few
hours, I found myself painfully aware of every noise in the dark.
My only minor
complaint about "Fragile Things" is that it gets a little heavy on the
ghost stories. All of them are good, but there are enough similarities
in style and execution that I think one or two could have been left
out, or at least distributed more sparsely.
At the same
time, Gaiman does a very funny send-up of both gothic and modern
slice-of-life stories in the ornately named "Forbidden Brides of the
Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire."
One of the
collectionës strongest pieces, the brilliant Sherlock Holmes-H.P.
Lovecraft pastiche "A Study in Emerald," manages to do justice to both
of its influences while bringing some breathtaking innovation and
surprises into the mix.
It is
exceedingly rare to see a writer manage to grasp the styles and worlds
of two writers as different as Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle so
thoroughly and still make the resulting story completely their own.
"Sunbird," about
a rather eccentric group of epicureans who believe theyëve eaten
everything, is simultaneously smile-inducing and a great parable on
greed. Humor clearly is something Gaiman grasps, as well as dreads. In
his best moments he manages to combine the two quite well.
Perhaps my
favorite story of the whole bunch hits both sensations perfectly: "How
to Talk to Girls at Parties," will strike a chord with anyone who was
ever 15 and still listens to their imagination.
It also touches
on another common theme: Gaimanës narrators, often anonymous, are
outsiders, or become such in the course of events.
This is rarely viewed as a bad thing and the carping about alienation heard from many other writers is not to be found here.
In fact, you
will search in vain to find a normal person in the lot. Thatës the way
it should be. At its strongest ÇƒÓ and the work throughout "Fragile
Things" is very strong indeed ÇƒÓ Gaiman helps open our eyes to the fact
that life, however fragile, is not "normal" ÇƒÓ and never should be.
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