Fragile Things

Fragile Things-Neil Gaiman

How I found this book: It was part of my Time4Reading booklist. I love Neil Gaiman, I’ve read most of his Sandman comic books and Neverwhere, as well as Good Omens, a book he collaborated on with the wonderful Terry Pratchett. I would say Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors out there.

Setting: Many, as this is a collection of short stories gathered by Gaiman over several decades.

Main Characters: Many, see above.

Plot: Several…again, see above. But you can be guaranteed they are all wonderfully, darkly whimsical in the punky, gothy way that Gaiman has.

Themes: In lieu of themes, I’m instead going to pick three of my favorite short stories from the book, and explain why I loved them.

A Study in Emerald: This is a short story Gaiman wrote for the anthology Shadows over Baker Street, a tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. It also is a tribute, in its own way, to HP Lovecraft’s weird and creepy Cthulhu stories. In it, the ‘Old Ones’ have returned to the world long ago, and the British Empire is ruled by Queen Victoria…only she isn’t the Victoria you and I know of. One of her nephews is murdered, and it is up to the detective to solve the mystery of ‘whodunnit’. But as it turns out, things aren’t what they seem in this very proper, late-19th century British mystery, and that the intrepid Holmes is not what we would have expected either, nor is the evil Dr. Moriarty. This story won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Short story.

The Problem of Susan: The elderly Professor Hastings is a woman who once had to deal with the grief of losing her entire family in a train crash. While her name is never explicitly given, the title of the story, as well as the mention of the fact she had a sister and two brothers, one of whom was named Ed seemed to indicate that she is really Susan Penvensie, well known to all of us as the second oldest of the four children who go through the Wardrobe to the land of Narnia to rule as one of their legendary Queens. If you read The Last Battle, you know that Susan alone of the four children survives, as the others are killed in a horrendous train wreck, which allows them to live in the Real Narnia, the Narnia beyond, (or read Heaven), leaving Susan behind with just her memories. I think it’s a wonderful response to C.S. Lewis, who sort of left poor Susan out at the end, (perhaps Lewis’s comment on young people who get caught up in fippery and turn their nose on the imagination).

The Monarch of the Glen: A novella, it is a sequel to American Gods, (on my booklist), and follows Shadow, (who is strongly implied to be one of the Norse gods, perhaps Baldur). Shadow has made his way to England, where he is contracted to work at a exclusive house party. There, he finds that the guests are unique in their own way, and that he is asked to play the part of one of the Saxon people’s greatest folk heroes, and re-enact a story that has existed since human’s began spinning tales around fires long ago.


Every book sucks somewhere: I think in terms of ‘suck’, that there are some stories I liked better than others, and some stories that were OK, and others that were phenomenal. I think the collection as a whole is great, but there were some stories that even I was sort of ‘meh’ about.

I do think there should be a warning though, (directed to those my parents age, though my mother will probably stick her tongue out at me), that there is a certain dark, some would say ‘gothic’ turn to Gaiman’s work, (I would say ‘gothic’ like E.A. Poe, they would say ‘gothic’ like Sisters of Mercy). He does have a twisted way of seeing the world which I think my Gen X self and many my age love, but which our parents perhaps sort of cock their eyebrow and look at us funny for, (you know, it’s the look my father gave me when I got the cartilage ring and the ankle tattoo.) So if you don’t ‘get it’, rest assured, you are probably not alone in that. While I don’t think you have to be young to get it, (my mother I think will do just fine), sometimes there is a generational gap and what one generation might consider weirdly fun another might must consider…weird.

What did I like: I’ve always loved Gaiman’s sense-of-humor, that darkly, tongue-firmly-implanted-in-cheek humor that seems to go with so many of my favorite British authors, (Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and others). Gaiman approaches his readers intelligently, he doesn’t make his humor slapstick, but rather assumes that we know the subtle references and play-on-themes he uses, which I think is part of why I find him so endearing as a writer. He doesn’t assume I am stupid.

I also love how he sees the world. While I can’t say he’s really a ‘gothling’, he, like Tim Burton, and in some ways like Clive Barker, has a dark way of seeing the world that really appeals to my generation, (perhaps it’s a Gen X thing), of being at once both cynical and whimsical. Things that in a Stephen King horror story would be sad, he makes into bittersweet stories, and he has a twist on perspective that reminds us that there is a flip side to every fairy story, (such as his short story, The Problem with Susan.)

How would I rate this wormy book: Big, ginormous, hungry MONSTER worm, it is so very good, and I adore Neil Gaiman. Despite my ‘sucky’ worries, I think that this is a great book, it’s fun to read either in short bursts, (since it’s short stories, you can do that), or in one long sitting. It’s a great way of being introduced into the works of Neil Gaiman and his style. If you like it, I highly suggest Neverwhere as a great follow-up.