Kay's Bookshelf

As it’s usually the case with Mr. Gaiman’s books, this too has an assorted cast of characters. We have Richard, the all around nice guy that has discovered a world he never knew he existed (and that becomes a stronger person in the process). The Lady Door, the descendant of a family of door openers (a concept that has fascinated me). Hunter, the woman hunter whose life purpose was to kill as many dangerous beasts as possible. The Marquis of Carabas (a self-given name straight out of the Puss in Boots story) that I have found a bit annoying at the beginning but that has earned my respect later on. Not to mention the two hired hands, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, the former being one of the more interesting such characters that I have ever met, and whose manner of speaking being one of my favorite things in the book.

Mr. Gaiman’s imagination doesn’t disappoint when it comes to places either: we have an ever-moving market (whose variety reminded me of the one in Stardust), an Earl’s Court (complete with a jester) in a subway train, a bridge that captured people now and then, and many more. Speaking of the Earl’s Court, I have found quite cool the way the author has chosen to reinterpret the meaning of some of the London tube stations. for example Knightsbridge becomes Night’s Bridge (the one I mentioned before), The Angel, Islington is an actual angel named Islington, Shepherd’s Bush is a place where actual shepherds hang out, and so on. The thing is perhaps all the more interesting when coupled with one of the very first scene, where Richard gives away his tube station map (it was printed on an umbrella, and it was raining) to an old woman who warns him to stay away from doors. I see Richard’s losing the map as a metaphor for the fact that he’ll soon become lost in London Below, and have difficulties finding his way there (as in “of course he had trouble making sense of the underground world since he had no map”).

Speaking of metaphors, I have very much liked the mention of “a fraction of a second that becomes a tiny forever” (probably because a second is so the opposite of forever that even the mere idea of associating the two seems somewhat out of this world :) ).

What I liked most: I was fascinated most by the idea of opening doors, especially when it came to creating doors where there previously were none. The image that I liked most though was that of the house Door and her family lived in:

The swimming pool was an indoor Victorian structure, constructed of marble and of cast iron. Her father had found it when he was younger, abandoned and about to be demolished, and he had woven it into the fabric of the House Without Doors. Perhaps in the world outside, in London Above, the room had long been destroyed and forgotten. Door had no idea where any of the rooms of her house were, physically. Her grandfather had constructed the house, taking a room from here, a room from there, all through London, discrete and doorless; her father had added to it.

I was also fond of the ending, more precisely of the fact that show spoiler

What I liked least: I found it a charming book with nothing to criticize :)

Recommend it to? Everyone who enjoys reading fantasy, of course :)

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Coraline
Good Omens (with Sir Terry Pratchett)
The Graveyard Book
Snow, Glass, Apples
Stardust


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To be completely honest I have no idea how I actually felt about Shadow. He is very emotionally detached from everything surrounding him (understandably enough given his recent loss — and yet how does one relate to a character that does not feel?). He does start to feel more alive (in his own words) later on, only by then he has obtained what it seemed to me like some sort of mental superiority that made it hard for me to like him (he was… too perfect perhaps; too set on doing the right thing, with too much ease). I did like about him the fact that he enjoyed reading a good book, though. As for say Wedsneday, he is sort of a mystery, keeping his plans to himself and all that. The reader ends up knowing nothing about him at all — nothing but what the legends say about him and the fact that he is quite the womanizer. Is that enough to make a character likable? Let’s just say I didn’t care that much about him either.

I am usually interested in mythology and as such I was somewhat fascinated by the author’s take on various gods. Such as Czernobog, the Slavic god of the dead and the night, become an old man who reminisces about his days spent working in the “meat business”, knocking down cattle. Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, works as a mortician in a funeral parlor, together with Anubis, the god of the dead. Bilquis, the Queen of Sheba, is a prostitute that literally devours men. Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon personification of dawn now sells Tupperware dishes. And so on and so forth. Even Shadow himself is interpreted by some to be Balder, the Norse god of joy, purity and light.

I have also found very interesting the way the author has chosen to represent the gods: born in people’s minds and brought from their native places to America carried in the stories the immigrants told, the American gods are in a way copies of their original selves. Despite their supernatural powers (that they supposedly have but very rarely show) they ended up living “on the material plane”, and as such they are up to a point people just like anyone else. Which means they can be killed just like anyone else too (as the author puts it, “if you move and act in the material world, then the material world acts on you“). But this is not the only way gods can die, they also cease to live once people (that brought them to life and into America) forget them and cease believing. In the words of the author:

“Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.”

Perhaps one of the most interesting ideas in the book. Especially if we associate each people’s gods with their particularities, their traditions, what set them apart from other peoples. Particularities and traditions (and, of course, gods) that are about to disappear when living in this huge country called America. Bit by bit traditions are lost in favor of the new, in favor of civilization — and a very good metaphor for that is the battle between gods that takes place in the book.

I started reading this book because I was on the verge of becoming a fan of Mr. Gaiman’s and I wanted to discover more of his work. Unfortunately I was to be disappointed, because for me the book lacked some of the charm other books had. Sure, it was a fantastic setting, with lots of fantastic characters in all sorts of fantastic situations — and yet, I couldn’t help feeling something was missing. Perhaps this was because I didn’t care enough for the main character(s), perhaps because I didn’t get to care enough about what was to happen next. I loved the writing, I loved most of the scenes — and yet I just couldn’t get interested enough in the book on the whole.

What I liked most: the very idea of immigrants coming to America and bringing with them their gods was utterly fascinating for me :)

What I liked least: I couldn’t say exactly. A bit too long winded? Perhaps there were too many characters/small gods for me to keep track of? Don’t get me wrong, they were all fascinating, even the more obscure ones — but there were lots of them and most were making only very brief appearances, and my interest in them sort of started fading after a while.

Recommend it to? Any fantasy fan. While I myself wasn’t very fond of it I think that years from now it may very well become a classic so I do encourage anyone to give it a try, chances are you’ll love it :)

See also
A list of all the gods in the book
The Carousel at the House on the Rock (yes,it really does exist)
A list of Odin’s names (wow, he’s got plenty of them)
A few pages from the author’s notebook related to this book

Written by the same author:
Coraline
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
The Graveyard Book
Neverwhere
Snow, Glass, Apples
Stardust

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As far as the characters went I was happy to notice that most of them were nice, even good people/beings most of the time. While the story does have its share of people the reader doesn’t want to succeed, in the end even the oldest Lilim, the star’s greatest enemy, nobly acknowledges her loss when it becomes obvious she will not win. A refreshing thing even if a bit improbable outside a fairy tale (but, since this is a fairy tale… :P )

I really liked the world the author has created: a world with girl-stars, unicorns, ships floating on air and travels made faster by magic candles. Also, I was happy to notice some of the details — such as the fact that the seven brothers’ names were the Latin words for First, Second, Third and so on. Or this:

Dunstan paused in front of a stall covered with tiny crystal ornaments; he examined the miniature animals, pondering getting one for Daisy Hempstock. He picked up a crystal cat, no bigger than his thumb. Sagely it blinked at him, and he dropped it, shocked; it righted itself in midair and, like a real cat, fell on its four paws.Then it stalked over to the corner of the stall and began to wash itself.

What I liked most: The writing style. Very accessible (just like a fairy tale is supposed to be) and yet with beautiful imagery at times. To give but an example, I very much liked the way the ghosts of the killed brothers talked, but their voices were heard as nature sounds by the living (the rustle of leaves, the cry of a distant bird, etc).

I have also very much liked this part, near the end (possible spoiler):

“Well,” he said. “Mother certainly seems to be doing an excellent job of reigning.”

“Just as you,” she told him, tartly, “would do every bit as well, if you took the throne.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “And it certainly seems like it would be a nice place to end up, eventually. But there are so many places we have not yet seen. So many people still to meet. Not to mention all the wrongs to right, villains to vanquish, sights to see, all that. You know.”

And then they go and write the Mother a note that I think to be the best note ever (in the circumstances, of course): Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.

What I liked least: Nothing, I loved it on the whole.

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys fairy tales :)

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Coraline
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
The Graveyard Book
Neverwhere
Snow, Glass, Apples

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Popularity: 7% [?]

It is obvious that the author enjoyed playing with the original story, twisting it until it’s almost unrecognizable at times. The step mother is no longer wicked, but only wants the best for her kingdom and is sincerely convinced that getting rid of her stepdaughter is the right thing to do. The seven dwarfs are now a number of distorted, twisted midgets. The good prince is a necrophiliac. And so on, taking the story on a whole new level.

Perhaps it is worth noting the way this short story came to be: according to himself, Neil Gaiman, the author, is fascinated by myths and old stories, considering them the compost that helps new stories develop and grow. When attending a symposium on this subject (myths and fairy tales) he was surprised to discover that the audience did not relate to them, did not think of them as “having power”, as being able to still evolve. So Mr. Gaiman set to prove them wrong — and the very next day he presented them with this particular story, born out of the Tale of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, and yet with a completely new approach.

In the author’s own words:

It was a retelling of the story of Snow White, from the point of view of the wicked queen. It asked questions like, “What kind of a prince comes across the dead body of a girl in a glass coffin and announces that he is in love and will be taking the body back to his castle?” and for that matter, “What kind of a girl has skin as white as snow, hair as black as coal, lips as red as blood, and can lie, as if dead, for a long time?” We realize, listening to the story, that the wicked queen was not wicked: she simply did not go far enough; and we also realize, as the queen is imprisoned inside a kiln, about to be roasted for the midwinter feast, that stories are told by survivors.

Reading this, I was very impressed by the way the author has managed to create such a frightful story, with such an original perspective, at such short notice. Not that I have ever doubted his talent, of course — but these days I am more impressed by him as ever before. :)

What I liked most: The very idea that the story that we all know might have in reality unfolded differently. After all, the mirror has two faces, doesn’t it? :) I am quite fond of the title too — seemingly random words but also a very strong connection to the initial tale.

What I liked least: Not something that bothered me that much but I was surprised to see a few explicit sexual references. I realize that the reason they took me by surprise is that I was somehow expecting to see a children’s fairy tale (despite knowing the opposite). In any way, they are not over exaggerated and taken in the context, they are just as much a part of the story like all the rest.

Recommend it to? Anyone interested in twisted fairy tales and/or seeing events from more than one perspective :)

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Coraline
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
Neverwhere
Stardust
The Graveyard Book

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Popularity: 100% [?]

Coraline is the kind of girl that I do not doubt any child wants to be: daring and smart. A bit too daring to be believed actually (many things she went through were too spooky for me, I mean if I am to imagine myself (a grown-up) in the same conditions I would have reacted way way way worse :) ). Her smarts are up to the par too (just look at the scene where she parted with the “other mother” last). She seems a bit more mature than her age (and her neighbors downstairs agree with me), a trait most visible when she says “What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted?” (I know lots of people who have yet to grasp this simple truth and was happy to see Coraline thinking like this, a breath of fresh air). The parents are very busy people but I had the feeling that they really loved Coraline, despite their lack of attention to her every now and then. My favorite was her father, a passionate wannabe cook (something new in books, LOL), always trying out a new recipe and never getting it right :)

The animal characters were just as interesting. It goes without saying that I have absolutely loved the black cat, especially at her most vulnerable moment (because she was acting like every cat in need of protection does and I was glad to see Coraline offering her the protection she needed). I have also loved the singing mice of the neighbor upstairs (although it is not clear to me how they did know about the door and how they managed to talk to their “human carer” about it), and the very idea of them playing their little instruments with their little pink fingers (plus the fact that they didn’t like the rain because it made their whiskers droop) was both interesting and amusing for me (although I am not into mice, those particular ones seemed quite cool :) ).

It was very captivating for me to observe the world the other mother created: the painting of a bowl of fruit becoming a painting of a bowl of eaten fruit (“all that remained in the bowl was the browning core of an apple, several plum and peach stones, and the stem of what had formerly been a bunch of grapes“); the lion-pawed table clawing at the floor; the moving toys (with feelings too); the neighbors downstairs transformed into their younger selves (“Then they unbuttoned their fluffy round coats and opened them. But their coats weren’t all that opened: their faces opened, too, like empty shells, and out of the old empty fluffy round bodies stepped two young women.“); the house losing the details and becoming a sketch, and so on.

What I liked most: So many things I have trouble choosing. To pick a random two, the quote at the beginning:

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
—G. K. Chesterton

and this:

“Oh. It’s you,” she said to the black cat.
“See?” said the cat. “It wasn’t so hard recognizing me, was it? Even without names.”
“Well, what if I wanted to call you?”
The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. “Calling cats,” it confided, “tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”
“What if it was dinnertime?” asked Coraline. “Wouldn’t you want to be called then?”
“Of course,” said the cat. “But a simple cry of ‘dinner!’ would do nicely. See? No need for names.”

What I liked least: Nothing. Too short a book and too charming for me to find it any fault. :)

Recommend it? Yes, absolutely, it’s very captivating and it’s quite short too.

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
The Graveyard Book
Snow, Glass, Apples
Stardust
Neverwhere

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Popularity: 9% [?]

Bod is a fairly normal child, despite the out of ordinary circumstances of his upbringing. He did strike me as a bit too precocious at times (like the very night he ran away from home and into the graveyard, to name but one), but hey, what do I know about kids. He is pretty likable and I found that it was very easy for me, as I reader, to put myself in his shoes and share his adventures. He is not perfect and doesn’t always listen to his guardian, which does land him into trouble at times, but in such a way that keeps the reader rooting for him :)

The book was more like a collection of sketches than anything else. Each chapter is an episode from Bod’s life, written in such a way that they could probably be enjoyed on their own too. My absolute favorite chapter was Danse Macabre, the one about the tradition the people in that city had, that once about every 80 years there would be a night when the dead would leave their graveyard and come and dance a special dance (called the Macabray) with the living. The way Gaiman described it it had moments when it seemed like a very special time, like pure magic, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I find the whole “living in a graveyard idea” amazingly wonderful, history-wise. Getting to meet so many people belonging to different times is an experience that is bound to be interesting to say the least (of course, one cannot help but wonder how they would all get along, given the variations of the customs and of language itself over the years but that’s part of the charm :) ).

Another thing I have found interesting besides the whole ghosts thing was the fact that Death is described as a lady dressed in “a long grey dress that hung and gleamed beneath the December moon like cobwebs in the dew“, riding a huge horse. Quite friendly towards Bod, too. A pretty novel image :) Oh, and another thing I have found quite quite was how Miss Lupescu (Romanian name) calls Bod Nimini — which I’m guessing wants to be the Romanian word for “nobody” (only the correct form is “nimeni” :P).

The ending made me sad in a way (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER !!!) because it meant the loss of magic (the loss of childhood too). There is, of course, a world of possibilities opening up in from of Bod, a world of things waiting to be discovered, and I was happy for him — but a part of me was sad because of little Bod’s loss nevertheless.

What I liked most: The idea, by far. Very original (at least for me, I have never read anything where the world of living people and the one of the dead one intermingle like that). I know the author says he took the basic idea from the Jungle Book (and recognized it myself after he mentioned it), but still, I like very much what he did with it. :)

What I liked least: The fact that we weren’t explained a bit more about what the Freedom of the Graveyard was and how it worked. I would have also liked to know more about Silas and how did he end up between living and dead (did he used to be a human once or was he a supernatural being all along?)

Recommend it? Definitely :)

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
Coraline
Snow, Glass, Apples
Stardust
Neverwhere

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Popularity: 15% [?]

My absolute favorite characters of them all had to be Crawley and Aziraphale. Both were anything but boring, anything but one-sided (Crawley was definitely not completely bad, Aziraphale had some mischievous sparkles in him too) — I loved that enormously, the fact that they were nothing like what one might expect from a demon, respectively an angel. Agnes Nutter (though dead for about three centuries at the time the story takes place) is a delicious character too (well she did talk really funny — understandably but at times hard to understand), having sort of a twisted sense of humor that I really enjoyed :P

Being a Pratchett fan I must say that the scene with the four Hell’s Angers is sort of recycled from one of his own books (a favorite of mine too, called Thief of Time) — unfortunately I don’t remember that one very well but it was sort of a lot funnier there (or perhaps the idea was new to me :P ), especially with none of them but Death being in the mood for Apocalypse and having to be repeatedly required to come and ride because the Apocalypse has come and it was written they should ride… also one of them, War, had gotten married in between and his wife kept mothering him and insisting he should take care not to catch a cold and such :) :) The part related to the four riders in Good Omens is a bit blander, as the four (well, the three, Death is as delicious as ever though he doesn’t talk very much) don’t have much of a personality, they just do their own thing (provoking wars, making people die of starvation, polluting everything in sight) and are just like “well, okay, at last” when they find out the Apocalypse’s coming.

It’s probably worth noting that Pratchett & Gaiman share the idea (that I also tend to share at times) that man is the most evil of any creature anywhere, managing to think of things (evil things of course) that put even the Devil himself to shame (for example see Crowley’s reaction to the Spanish Inquisition: “He’d gone to have a look, and had come back and got drunk for a week.“). While the idea is not original, it is sort of interestingly presented:

Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look, we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course.
One of them had written it, hadn’t he … “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
[...]
And just when you’ d think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved. It was this free-will thing, of course. It was a bugger.

What I liked most: The way Famine made a living (so to say, I know he was immortal) before the Apocalypse: writing books that told (young) women how to starve themselves in order to look good. And it worked like a charm. A bit ironic, you know: hundreds of years ago there were people who had nothing to eat so they had no choice but starve; as nowadays that’s no longer an issue (in some parts of the world of course), Famine had to change his approach and make people want to starve themselves to death — and he did. (he also had restaurants that sold food with absolutely no nutritional value but by far my favorite strategy was the first one)

I was also really amused by the two versions of covers available for the book: one (white) listing Neil Gaiman first (“Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett”), the other (black) listing Terry Pratchett first (“Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman”) :P :P

PS The hound from hell (turned Dog) was a really nice touch too :P

What I liked least: Well not actually something I didn’t like but I did not understand what was up with the sword, scales, and crown that War, Famine, respectively Pollution had. Okay, the sword had been Aziraphale’s flaming sword that he had given to Adam and Eve when they were banished from the Garden of Eden, and the scales of Famine must have something to do with weight, measuring weight, losing weight, stuff like that. But… um… what’s up with the Crown? How did Aziraphale’s sword ended up War’s?

Recommend it? Yes, definitely, especially if you are (like me) a Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman fan :)
(it’s sort of amusing how many people complain on the dedicated Amazon customers review board that they have lent this book to a friend and never got it back so they had to buy a new one to re-read it :) )

Also written by Neil Gaiman:
American Gods
The Graveyard Book
Coraline
Neverwhere
Snow, Glass, Apples
Stardust

Also written by Terry Pratchett:
Nation
Small Gods

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