Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

The other day, I saw this girl poring over Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere. Of course, the first thing I noticed about her was what she was reading, and not the fact that she had tightly-curled, purple hair, a cat tattoo on her left arm and the emblem of a skull on her purse. But those three things were hard to miss.

Neverwhere caught my eye primarily because of the name Neil Gaiman, an English author. Gaiman is probably best known to mainstream America for his novel Stardust, which was made into a fantastically enchanting film with Claire Danes, Charlie Cox and Michelle Pfeiffer, as the delightfully wicked witch. Kind of this generation's The Princess Bride; you should check it out if you haven't.

But anyway, I haven't read Stardust, although I've been meaning to, and I wasn't familiar with anything else Gaiman has done or, really, Gaiman himself, so here was my chance to school myself, and wow did I find out I was kind of an idiot:

Turns out Gaiman is something of a big deal, at least in the fantasy-fiction world, where he's won at least a dozen awards for his works, which include the acclaimed The Sandman comic book series, numerous poems, novels and some screenplays. The former journalist's first book was about the band Duran Duran, and Neverwhere, as it turns out, was originally an English television miniseries he created in 1996. The novel was adapted three episodes into the show's run and apparently garnered more international popularity than the TV show itself. The two formats are more or less identical, save for more characterization and exposition in the novel. The show lasted 6 episodes and is available on DVD.

Neverwhere tells the story of Richard Mayhew, a Scotsman living in London with a boring job and perhaps more cumbersome fiancée, Jessica, who sounds kind of horrible. One day, Richard helps out a mysterious young girl named Door, whom he finds bleeding in the street. After this, however, he realizes that he's become invisible to those around him and slowly his fiancée and others forget who he is. Cue the creepy music. 

Mayhew learns that he no longer exists to people who live in "London Above" and must journey to the mysterious "London Below" to find Door, as well as some answers. He travels through the maze of a sinister alternate universe, meeting creatures, friend and foe, along the way.

Gaiman sounds awesome and really down-to-earth, like a guy who just happened to become famous one day. His transition into making movies has obviously made him prolific, and I wonder why I hadn't heard of him before Stardust. I like the fact that he is so versatile, and open to whatever medium is offered to him.

"I'm not very good at genre snobbery," Gaiman said in an interview with bookslut.com. "If it's anything I'm interested in, I'd obviously love to do it. And I keep bumping into people who'd much rather I did one thing or another. My movie agent would much rather I did movies forever and didn't, for example, do TV. Whereas TV is fun, lots of people see it. It's interesting to do TV. I like doing novels, but I'm astonishingly puzzled and grateful that I live in a universe that I have a short story collection published as a major novel."

The writer has a new novel, The Graveyard Book, out in 11 weeks in the United States, and as a result of this blog, Stardust will most definitely be bumped up my reading queue. I'm also going to need to check out Neverwhere on DVD and get a better understanding of why that purple-haired girl couldn't put her book down.

Thanks for reading!

An Introduction

When I take the bus to work each morning, it can be hard not to fall asleep. It's quiet, there are not as many crazies and there's something peaceful about the steady lull of the wheels. This, of course, only lasts until the morning commuters file in and cram the bus to its full capacity.

In my immense boredom, I stare at my fellow commuters. Not in a creepy way, but in a curious-to-know-about-their-lives kind of way, which I guess can be creepy.

The most interesting thing to me, however, isn't some weird minute detail about their face or their clothing. I've noticed that the first thing I look at is what they're reading: I check out the covers of their books, I try to see if they're reading a newspaper I'm familiar with, or sometimes, I'll admit, I peer over their shoulders to read a line or two from some interesting-looking passage.

I guess I've always been curious about what people read. I look at people's bookshelves when I first am invited over; I feel like you can tell a lot about a person based on what's on their shelves.

So anyway, I've started this blog to satisfy my curiosity and give me a reason to stare at people's books some more. Each week, I'll pick one book that I've seen someone read, look into the history of the book and the author a bit, and probably digress horribly somehow.

Thanks for reading. Up next, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

http://thedaily.washington.edu/blog/2008/07/15/bus-books-blog-curious-and-avid-reader-introductio/