Stardust | Neil Gaiman (1999)
September has totally killed this year's awesome reading momentum. There's just too much going on right now for me to get any serious reading done. But this book was one I just couldn't seem to put down -- I had to know what happened next!
My Review
Tristran Thorn will do anything for the woman he loves, even if it means giving up everything he has ever known to venture into Faerie and seek the fallen star that will allow him to claim a kiss from her. So begins his quest, and a series of adventures that grow in magnitude and mystique. Here is Gaiman's remarkable gift for storytelling put to use in crafting a delightful bedtime story for grownups (even if it seems to be marketed toward children, for whom I'm not sure some of the elements are truly appropriate).
One of the things I love about Gaiman's stories is that they force upon the reader not only a committed suspension of disbelief -- as any two-penny fantasy story should do -- but they necessitate a sort of cognitive dissonance as well. Some of the fantastical elements are so foreign to our sensibilities that, even though we know them to be impossible, that very impossibility makes them seem somewhat real (truth being stranger than fiction, and all that). So while the story of Stardust certainly could never have happened, it is so far-fetched and fantastical that it almost must have happened. And that is what makes Gaiman's stories, including this one, truly delightful.
This story is not one of his most finely crafted; in fact, it seems almost as though Gaiman had intended a completely different direction for the story when he began, but then changed his mind somewhere in the middle of the first chapter and never went back to cover his tracks. And the story moves along at such a clip that there really is little time for any artsy detail. Instead, the story is more of a shell, an outline of Tristran's adventures, rather than a thoroughly crafted narrative. On the one hand, there's no excessive detail (a la Tolkien) to bog down a good fantasy story. On the other hand, you really have to pay close attention, because if you skip two sentences you might find that you've missed almost two chapters' worth of information.
But Stardust is imaginative and delightful, and makes for an excellent bed-time story for grownups. I highly recommend it, even if the artistry leaves a bit to be desired, because it's a shining example of the brilliance of Gaiman's imaginative mind. He might not be an artist, but he is perhaps the best storyteller of our generation, and this story truly showcases that talent.
Excerpts
"But Faerie is bigger than England, as it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of time, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn't there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain)." (p. 84)
"The tree rustled. 'Why don't you tell me your story so far,' said the tree, 'and let me be the best judge of whether or not I can be of help.'" (p. 187)
"But then it occurred to him that any progress he had made on his quest so far he had made by accepting the help that had been offered to him." (pp. 187-8)
"Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain." (p. 236)
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Gaiman, Neil. Stardust. New York, NY: Avon Books, 2003.