Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman

Norse Mythology is what I ended up reading for my reading challenge category of "A book based on mythology," after switching out Olympos.  Olympos is the sequel to Illium, and while I still want to read it, I read Illium so long ago that I think I need to re-read it before taking on Olympos.

I think it's important to note that this is not, actually, a book of Norse mythology.  Rather, it is a book of Gaiman's own retellings of various Norse myths, blending parts of other versions together and only really including his favorite stories.  It's not comprehensive, and it's not a textbook.  It also forms somewhat of an overall story arc, which actual "nonfiction" mythology books typically don't.  While Gaiman uses a writing style that is austere and fits with a classical myth-telling style, you can see his touches in different parts of characterization--Thor is basically a dumb jock, and Loki is one of those people who is both clever but also pitiful, the geeky kid who's picked on by the others and uses his intelligence to get back at them.  Did they deserve it?  Yes.  But did he also deserve their retaliation most of the time?  Yes.  Also, the dialogue shows Gaiman's wry style at different points--for example, I can't imagine an "original" telling of a myth blatantly featuring the words, "Thor, shut up."

The book is overall a story of Odin, Thor, and Loki, though plenty of other characters also feature.  The arc that Gaiman has embedded--possibly unintentionally, given his remarks in the foreword--features the back-and-forth between Loki and the other gods, leading up to Loki's imprisonment, freedom, and ultimately Ragnarok and what comes beyond.  Ragnarok and the death of the gods is a fascinating concept, and I think Gaiman does it justice.  The stories are in turns funny, gross, and eye-roll-worthy, and also have the features of classic myths such as explanations for natural phenomena, such as Thor causing tides by drinking from a horn connected to the deepest part of the ocean.

This is a quick read, and also one that is easy to pick up and put down; even though the book forms an overall narrative, each chapter or story also stands on its own.  You can read this in one sitting, or you can read a story at a time before putting it aside and coming back to it later.  Doing the latter might mean that the arc is less apparent, because I think some of the connections between the stories are more evident if you read them in quick succession, but it's still completely doable.

So, how does it compare to Gaiman's other works?  Well... I haven't read everything he's written, but I don't like this as much as I like his traditional novels.  Neverwhere, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, American Gods, and so on are works of art.  His original short stories are also excellent.  I would rank Norse Mythology somewhere between his short stories and his poetry, which I'm really not much of a fan of.  I hope we see Gaiman make a return to traditional novels soon, because he's been working on other projects for a while, and I miss those beautiful jewels of books showing up on the shelves.  This is good, but it's just not as enveloping, breathtaking, or wonderful as those others are.

3 stars out of 5.

Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman

It takes a certain knack to write short stories, an entirely different knack from writing long-form fiction, and it's one that I think Gaiman possesses.  I've read some of his short stories before, in Trigger Warning, and was glad to read some more.  As with his other story collections, these are fantasy stories.  Gaiman breaks down why he wrote each of them in the foreword of the book, and also includes a little bonus story that you'd  miss if you just skipped straight to the first listed story.  But as with any collection, not everything here can be a total hit.

I don't plan on breaking down every bit of this book; that would take forever.  But here were the high points: "Troll Bridge," about a young man who repeatedly encounters a troll who wants to eat his life; "The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories," bits of which are apparently true (which bits?) and takes place on a surreal trip to Los Angeles; "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar," which is Lovecraft-inspired; "Bay Wolf," which is Beowulf told as if it's an episode of Baywatch; and "Snow, Glass, Apples," which is a creepy retelling of Snow White.  For low points, I would say that the poetry isn't my favorite; "Vampire Sestina" is nice but the rest I could pretty much take or leave.

The stories here are pretty diverse in scope and include some racier things than I've seen in Gaiman's long-form work.  But while most of them were enjoyable, they weren't dazzling, and I can't see myself reaching for this again and again like I can with his novels.  Neverwhere, American Gods, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane in particular are so wonderful and magical, and I just didn't feel like any of the things in this could quite build up to the precedents that those had set for me.  But "Snow, Glass, Apples" is very good, and really reinforces that I love Gaiman's fairy tale-type stories.  He's written another one since this, which I actually read first, called "The Sleeper and the Spindle," which is also wonderful, and of course Stardust is delightful as well and The Ocean at the End of the Lane has a whimsy to it that's similar.

Overall, a nice collection but not something I can see myself reading again.  But it was nice to pick up and put down; I read some big chunks of it at once, but did find this was a better book to pick at rather than to just read.

3.5 stars out of 5.

Trigger Warning - Neil Gaiman

I love Neil Gaiman.  I do not love short stories.  I have not read Gaiman's other collections of short stories, though they're on the bookshelf waiting for my attention.  But the library had Trigger Warning available, and really, how could I resist?

I'm going to ignore the title on this one, because "trigger warning" is a really charged term right now, very politicized, and I don't want to get into that.  (But, for the sake of argument: I am against trigger warnings.  The world will not baby you, so why should people?  Also, I am a cold-hearted individual.)  Gaiman makes a kind of weak argument for the title of the collection, but honestly I think he could have found something better, because there doesn't really appear to be much in here that actually qualifies as a typical trigger warning--there's not sexual assault, which is the one that immediately comes to mind, no situations of abuse, no suicide, no... I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but not the stuff that normally falls into "trigger warning" discussions, so the title seems a bit off.

As for the stories themselves--they vary.  I definitely consider "The Truth Is A Cave In the Black Mountains," "The Sleeper and the Spindle," and "Black Dog," which are the three longest stories, to be the strongest pieces here.  "A Calendar of Tales" also had some very strong pieces included in it, though they all stand independent of each other and there's not a real thread tying them together.  The poetry was not up my ally (particularly "Making a Chair," which did not fit with the rest of the collection at all) but then most poetry isn't, and Gaiman characterizes the poems as "freebies," placed in addition to and not instead of other prose pieces.  Other bits, such as "The Lunar Labyrinth" and "Down to a Sunless Sea," I would have liked to see worked into longer pieces, something a little more fleshed out, because the premise intrigued me, but the end left me wanting more.  I suppose this is the goal of short stories, but there seemed to be so much potential lurking beyond the end of these pieces that I would have loved to see what Gaiman could do with it fully unleashed.

"The Sleeper and the Spindle" and "The Truth Is A Cave In the Black Mountains" have both been re-worked by Gaiman and some partners into illustrated volumes; I haven't read either of them, but I can see why that was done, definitely.  They come across as the most fairytale like (and one of them is, of course, based on fairytales) and have just the sort of menace and whimsy that could lend itself to beautiful illustrations.  "Black Dog" is a story associated with Gaiman's full-length work American Gods, and is the second story released along those lines--I haven't read the first, but didn't feel it was necessary to understand this one.  Knowledge of American Gods, however, would be very useful.

Overall, I think if you like Gaiman's work, this is quite good.  Some of the pieces are very short, only a few pages, but the longer works help to bulk it up and are evenly-spaced enough to keep the book moving forward pas what could be considered weaker pieces.  Still, I like Gaiman's long-form better than his short, and can't wait until he comes out with another full-length novel.

3.5 stars out of 5.

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane - Neil Gaiman

This book made me want to go live on a farm with the Hempstock women, where there would be porridge with blackberry jam, honey, and cream, strange-eyed kittens, no electricity in parts of the house, milk fresh from the cows, and a pond that's an ocean.  We would bake fresh bread and delicious pies and have fabulous adventures, and they would be terrifying and thrilling all at the same time.  I would learn how to do magic-y things, though not spells or cantrips, because those are common and the Hempstock women are anything but.  I would probably have to break up with my boyfriend, of course, because men apparently don't hang around the Hempstock place, but I imagine it would probably be worth it.  (Shhhh.  Don't tell him I said that.)

The thing is, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is a work of beauty, just like everything Neil Gaiman writes.  It's not a particularly "adult" book, and the main characters are children, but in that way it manages to deal with ideas that adult books probably can't tackle in quite the same way.  Some of those themes are violence, death, loss, and fear.  This is a beautiful book in that it add humanity to every aspect.    As Lettie says at one point, even monsters are scared of something; that's why they're monsters.  Even though I wanted to hate Ursula, and she repelled me, I couldn't help but feel sympathy for her toward the end.  She wanted to make everyone else happy so that she could be happy, and she went about it horribly, but... I don't know.  Her intentions weren't exactly good, but they weren't bad, either.

Anyway.  The book is short, at less than two hundred pages, but it fits a lot into those pages.  It also addresses the mysticism of it all in a very good way.  It's in the spirit of Neverwhere, but simpler.  Having the main character be a child for most of the story (which is all essentially one big flashback) allows a kind of blatant acceptance that is not present in adults.  It also allows memory to come into play; memory isn't infallible, after all, so did it all take place the way it's remembered, or did it not?  The book did not end the way I expected, but the way it did end was just perfect for it, and I was not disappointed at all.  Gaiman continues to be a master storyteller, and this is not one to miss.

5 stars out of 5.