THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
Selected Non-Fiction
Neil Gaiman
Headline/Hachette
By PAUL TANKARD
Neil Gaiman, originally a journalist, is a prolific British writer of fiction, mainly fantasy, across a range of forms including novels, short stories and comics.
The best known - or often said to be - is the 75-issue series of comics, The Sandman, of which I have for years been searching for a comprehensive and affordable edition.
This chunky book contains a selection of 86 such items, so they are an average of fewer than six pages each.
It's an easy book to browse in and read, and all of his fans will want to read it.
Unlike some of his own - and my - favourite writers, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, Gaiman is not a scholar or a theorist of fantasy; and, of course, he's under no obligation to be.
But I expected I would learn something of his own vision of fantasy literature. However, most of what he has to say in this collection is truisms, and his musings do not much elucidate fantasy, writing, or fantasy writing.
He writes about books he's read, books he's written, authors he's met, and authors he hasn't.
I found most satisfactory the few and anomalous pieces of journalism: when in May 2014 he visited a Syrian refugee camp (of 100,000 people) in Jordan; and about Britain's National Portrait Gallery; and about going to the Oscars.
The collection is easy to read, but not compelling or even greatly pleasurable.
In the more personal pieces, when he's relating something that moved him, he often writes in short declarative sentences, or fragments, as if he's afraid of where a chain of reasoning might lead him.
He thinks being gnomic makes him profound.
He doesn't analyse or make you think.
Such ideas as he has are not interesting or even particularly well expressed.
"Life has a sense of humour, but then again, so does death.''
"Do the stuff that only you can do.'' It is the job of the creator to explode.''
‘‘The problems of failure are hard.''
‘‘Time and Space are endlessly malleable.''
His fantasy work may not - he protests - be aimed at ‘‘young adults'', but his non-fiction sounds as if it is.
He writes with enthusiasm about books, comics, writers and musicians (including a rather lewd performer whom he apparently married).
I hope he might attract readers to the fantasy back-catalogue. (And a line he twice paraphrases and attributes to Lewis is actually from Tolkien. Oh well.)
Reading the book, I learnt little about writing, or fantasy, although I did learn a lot about Neil Gaiman. This book's for his fans.
Meanwhile, I'll read Coraline, American Gods, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and keep hunting for The Sandman.
- Paul Tankard is a lecturer in the University of Otago's English department.
