As we make our way from the wood to the ferryman and pass the wolves on the way, we are told to ‘Instructions’, seemingly a fanciful rhyme, contains advice and help on life itself though Gaiman calls it ‘quite literally, a set of instructions for what to do when you find yourself in a fairy tale.’ The poem is lovely, evoking the feeling that it is some map of life, one we trace our journey on. The book is a collection of various short stories that he has written, some in contribution to other books, all different in tone and all “fragile things made of just 26 letters arranged and rearranged”. In the words of Clive Barker he is a ‘demented cook’ constructing ‘a wedding cake, building layer upon layer, including all kinds of sweet and sour in the mix.’įragile Things is an encapsulation of everything that Gaiman is – all the inverted clichés and tales of the outsider, of ruins and life. He draws from his own life, he envisions warped futures and dimensions unlike our own. Neil Gaiman cannot be pinned down, he scrawls across many genres, invoking life in old legends from foreign countries, well-worn fairy tales, twisted creatures from his own head, and as he clearly draws inspiration from great writers we are treated to interesting tales such as The Problem of Susan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |