"Take a look, it's in a book..."
Wow!!! What a week. Time flies for me lately. I was looking at the calendar realizing that I have to move this month, in about... oh... ten days and I haven't packed a thing. Granted I am using this move to unburden myself of most of the crap I have been lugging around for the last 15 years, I am still being far to cavalier about this. I need to knuckle down and get some work done.
But... I had a friends wedding, I have work, I have, I have, I have. And the I have's are sort of slowly outnumbering the I needs and the result is that I am moving in ten days and don't have a lick of work done towards that end. Ugh!
The good news is that I have discovered an author whom I adore. The bad news is that through obstinancy it is someone everybody else has known about for ten years: Neil Gaiman.
I have this feature as a person that if Everybody Else loves something. I immediately balk and find myself saying things like, "He can't be that good," or , "It is probably really base if it appeals to that many people," or, "Why would i want to read something that Everyone Else is reading." And the end result is that I miss out on great stuff and have to own up to my own arrogance too far into the thing. But I have been on many bandwagons and there seems to be plenty of room on this one so I am not too worried about it.
What do I like about Gaiman? Well aside from everything, he has a great way of writing fantasy without invoking the R.A. Salvatore, Piers Anthony crowd. Neverwhere might be one of the best books I have read this year. I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend of mine (I think I was reading a short story of Gaiman's that had been adapted to a Graphic Novel) and I used the airplane as an excuse to start reading. It was one of those things where I thought, ehh, if I hate it I will leave it on the plane and someone else can read it. But the fact was that I loved it and read the whole book in about ten hours (which for Capt. Reads-so-slow here is a feat). First of all he writes about things that I think about already anyway; by that I mean that I have a hyper-active imagination and often times I find myself looking at things--phrases, images, etc.,--that most people take for granted. So reading a novel set in a part of London where Old Bailey is a real person, Mind the Gap is a life saving warning, and the Night on Nights Bridge is very real and very dangerous makes for a very exciting read.
What Neverwhere does the best is to create a great juxtaposition of two worlds where materialism is important for different reasons. In Richard Mayhew's world his life goes haywire when the things that he is accustomed to get turned upside down, his apartment, his job, his bank account all become meaningless when he "falls through the cracks" and meets Door. Door's world is one which is run on mercantilism, if it has an economic system at all, and everything, from white handkerchief's, to a "very big favor" has a value attached and can be used as a currency.
Richard's decent through London Below leads him to many places that he thinks he might have known in London Above, but the pillars of his reality are consistently shaken and it isn't until the books thrilling last chapter does he realized what the important things in his life are.
If you haven't read Neverwhere yet, you really ought to.
I am now tackling Stardust, then I will probably move on to something else entirely--I have some biographies on my shelf that I have to get through--but in the meantime I need to get packing and get ready to move. But first... I have to work.
One last thing, a friend of mine are putting together a CD of our 20 favorite songs, this could be fun, I will post the results when I have finished.
But... I had a friends wedding, I have work, I have, I have, I have. And the I have's are sort of slowly outnumbering the I needs and the result is that I am moving in ten days and don't have a lick of work done towards that end. Ugh!
The good news is that I have discovered an author whom I adore. The bad news is that through obstinancy it is someone everybody else has known about for ten years: Neil Gaiman.
I have this feature as a person that if Everybody Else loves something. I immediately balk and find myself saying things like, "He can't be that good," or , "It is probably really base if it appeals to that many people," or, "Why would i want to read something that Everyone Else is reading." And the end result is that I miss out on great stuff and have to own up to my own arrogance too far into the thing. But I have been on many bandwagons and there seems to be plenty of room on this one so I am not too worried about it.
What do I like about Gaiman? Well aside from everything, he has a great way of writing fantasy without invoking the R.A. Salvatore, Piers Anthony crowd. Neverwhere might be one of the best books I have read this year. I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend of mine (I think I was reading a short story of Gaiman's that had been adapted to a Graphic Novel) and I used the airplane as an excuse to start reading. It was one of those things where I thought, ehh, if I hate it I will leave it on the plane and someone else can read it. But the fact was that I loved it and read the whole book in about ten hours (which for Capt. Reads-so-slow here is a feat). First of all he writes about things that I think about already anyway; by that I mean that I have a hyper-active imagination and often times I find myself looking at things--phrases, images, etc.,--that most people take for granted. So reading a novel set in a part of London where Old Bailey is a real person, Mind the Gap is a life saving warning, and the Night on Nights Bridge is very real and very dangerous makes for a very exciting read.
What Neverwhere does the best is to create a great juxtaposition of two worlds where materialism is important for different reasons. In Richard Mayhew's world his life goes haywire when the things that he is accustomed to get turned upside down, his apartment, his job, his bank account all become meaningless when he "falls through the cracks" and meets Door. Door's world is one which is run on mercantilism, if it has an economic system at all, and everything, from white handkerchief's, to a "very big favor" has a value attached and can be used as a currency.
Richard's decent through London Below leads him to many places that he thinks he might have known in London Above, but the pillars of his reality are consistently shaken and it isn't until the books thrilling last chapter does he realized what the important things in his life are.
If you haven't read Neverwhere yet, you really ought to.
I am now tackling Stardust, then I will probably move on to something else entirely--I have some biographies on my shelf that I have to get through--but in the meantime I need to get packing and get ready to move. But first... I have to work.
One last thing, a friend of mine are putting together a CD of our 20 favorite songs, this could be fun, I will post the results when I have finished.
posted by V. at 11:01 AM
2 Comments:
sounds like a book my daughter would like..i will recommend it to her
I started a Mix Master K cd for my friend of my favorite songs ever.....8 cd's later I finished.
Heh!
I love your blog.
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