Customer Reviews

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (P.S.)

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This collection contains exactly the sort of stories that one would expect Neil Gaiman to write -- brilliant, original, imaginative fantasy tales that occasionally make tentative steps across the border into Horror(but never quite cross over). Fantasy, but lyric fantasy, not epic, and grounded in our reality -- there are no hobbits here, and almost all these tales concern fantasy elements that seem to have somehow brushed up against our reality, rather than the reverse.

If you like Neil Gaiman's other works, you'll like these stories; if you don't, you probably won't; if you don't know whether you do or not, but you're interested enough to read Amazon reviews, then this collection provides a magnificent place to start.

I will focus on the flaws, not because the collection is flawed, or because any of these flaws are significant in comparison with the compelling and powerful strengths of the stories, but because the stories are so good that a list of their virtues would become boring ("this story is the best story about this thing since Neil Gaiman's last story about this thing.")

1) Some, most, or perhaps all of these stories have appeared in prior publications; I believe "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch" and "Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot" were in some editions of Smoke and Mirrors, "A Study in Emerald" was available for a long time (if it isn't still) on Neil Gaiman's website, "Harlequin Valentine" has been available as a small illustrated hardcover for a long time now, etc. If you're enough of a Neil Gaiman fan to have tracked down all those disparate stories, though, in all those disparate places, this single volume will probably be a marked convenience.

2) There are stories in here that are unsettling, but none that I would classify as actually *scary* -- the sort of horror, if it can be called horror, that becomes more frightening the more imaginative you are, the way a particularly startling pattern of shadows might terrify a child but have no effect whatsoever on a more rationally-minded adult. Long time readers of Gaiman won't consider this a flaw, but rather a virtue - subtlety is far rarer in fiction these days, and far more difficult to achieve, than simple raw horror - but I mention it as a caveat to the virgin.

3) I personally felt that some of the outside references in the stories fell a bit flat, and a few of the stories fell a bit short of Gaiman's best work. The reworking of Beowulf here ("The Monarch of the Glen") was not as effective as his earlier "Bay Wolf", and felt a bit like a pastiche of Gaiman's other characters, plus Grendel. On the other hand, "The Problem of Susan" may be the most effective and disturbing reworking of a children's story since Gaiman's own "Snow, Glass, Apples" in _Smoke and Mirrors_, and "A Study in Emerald" is simultaneously one of the best Lovecraft pastiches and one of the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche I've ever seen.

The following stories are contained in this collection:

1) An introduction where Gaiman details some background on each of the stories, and includes a short-short story on its own as well (titled "The Mapmaker")
2) A Study in Emerald
3) The Fairy Reel (poem)
4) October in the Chair
5) The Hidden Chamber
6) Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire
7) The Flints of Memory Lane
8) Closing Time
9) Going Wodwo (poem)
10) Bitter Grounds
11) Other People
12) Keepsakes and Treasures
13) Good Boys Deserve Favors
14) The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch
15) Strange Little Girls
16) Harlequin Valentine
17) Locks
18) The Problem of Susan
19) Instructions
20) How Do You Think It Feels?
21) My Life
22) Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot
23) Feeders and Eaters
24) Diseasemaker's Croup
25) In the End
26) Goliath
27) Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma and Louisville, Kentucky
28) How to Talk to Girls at Parties
29) The Day the Saucers Came
30) Sunbird
31) Inventing Aladdin
32) The Monarch of the Glen

This excellent story collection is a bit like a pop CD that is frontloaded with its best material. Thus, if this book had ended on page 112, I would have been quite happy. This book's interstitial poems aside (which Gaiman essentially apologizes for in the author's notes), the stories up to that point range from good to brilliant. It's a fantastic run of storytelling, and I was sad to see it end.

But end it does. From there in, the tales range from:
-- the unbelievable ("Keepsakes and Treasures") and yes, I use the word advisedly...
-- to the uninspired ("Good Boys Deserve Favors")...
-- to the unfortunate, namely, CD liner notes for Neil's "personal friend," Tori Amos ("Strange Little Girls")...
-- and sometimes, back to the excellent ("The Monarch of the Glen," among others).

I think that part of the problem with the material stems from the fact that people apparently ring Gaiman asking him to contribute for specialty anthologies. ("Neil, I'm putting together a collection of stories about gargoyles. Are you in?") This type of "spec work" is perhaps not the best way to seek inspiration. So to continue my previous analogy, this book's substandard material should be thought of as a CD's bonus tracks.

That said, FRAGILE THINGS is a mostly enjoyable read, and to reiterate, the first third of the book alone is worth the price of admission.

Neil Gaiman weaves the threads of fairy tales, mythology and archetypes throughout his fiction, which, combined with a writing style that's simple and adorned with elegant turns of phrases, has made him one of the leading figures in fantastic fiction. "Fragile Things," his collection of short stories and poems, contains excellent stories about desire and loss, a few wonderful riffs on genre fiction, a bunch of middling stories and poems and a few bones for Gaiman completists and Tori Amos fans.

The gulf between the stories can be described by comparing two of them: "October in the Chair" and "Good Boys Deserve Favors." Dedicated to Ray Bradbury, "October" reinvents Bradbury's wonderful mingling of the fantastic with the bitter reality of childhood. The personifications of the months of the year gather to tell stories, and October ("his beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face") describes the short, bitter life of Runt, a boy who's bullied by his elder twin brothers and pitied by his parents. He runs away from home and, on the edge of town, by an abandoned farmhouse, befriends the ghost of a boy. It's a sad tale, with a sad ending that could also be thought of as a happy ending.

"Good Boys" is a nicely written story about another boy, at public school, who takes up the double bass because he has to learn an instrument, and he likes the notion of a small boy playing a big instrument. He neglects his lessons, preferring to read, and then one day, while not practicing, he's visited by adults who ask him to play. He simply plays, and plays beautifully. Later, he accidentally breaks the bass, but the repairs have drained it of whatever magic it held. He transfers to another school and stops playing the bass ("The thought of changing to a new instrument seemed vaguely disloyal, while the dusty black bass that sat in a cupboard in my new school's music rooms seemed to have taken a dislike to me."). Puberty hits, and that's the end of it.

"Good Boys" may be a simple story about a block-headed student who encounters a magic that leaves him unmarked. Gaiman's men in several stories share that indifference. Bizarre things happen to people they to encounter (the waspish guest in "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch") or barely know (the long-ago co-worker encountered again in the gruesome "Feeders and Eaters"), and their response is a blank stare followed by a "well, that was interesting." It's English understatement bordering on ennui.

Gaiman mentions in his introduction writing stories "told in the first person and were slices of lives," so "Good Boys" may be meant to start and end without really going anywhere.

In my nastier moments, I'd think that he had the germ of a better story and couldn't be buggered to finish it.

"Fragile Things" contains some excellent stories as well. Fans of "American Gods" will appreciate Shadow's return in the novella "The Monarch of the Glen." "A Study in Emerald" crosses Sherlock Holmes with H.P. Lovecraft and the result is rarely encountered after generations of Holmes pastiches: a clever tale that's worthy of Alan Moore. "Goliath" is a better "Matrix" story than most of the films. "Harlequin Valentine" and "How Do You Think It Feels?" are memorably twisted love stories and "Keepsakes and Treasures" a surprisingly nasty tale to those who've forgotten "Sandman" stories like "24 Hours."

The better Gaiman tales are inhabited by the human heart, with all its passion and pain. His stories are better when his people bleed.

My sweet boyfriend, knowing my penchant for all things Neil Gaiman, bought me Fragile Things almost the moment it came out. The book is a collection of stories, poetry, and whatnot that I have to recommend incredibly highly -- but you have to be ready for things to be not quite what they seem and for the need to actually think as you read. I happen to love how he turns stories on their heads and always has a twist that you're not precisely ready for. Of course, the difficulty for me in reviewing these stories is to show their brilliance so you'll go read them, without giving away any of the fun of reading them.

First, I've got to say that I'm entranced by the cover, which is translucent white paper over a white cover with, well, fragile things on it, such as a butterfly, a snowflake, and a human heart. Notice how that last one sneaks up on you? What a perfect warning (or appetite whetting) for how Gaiman's stories sneak up on you.

As a fan of his earlier work, American Gods, I started with the novella "Monarch of the Glen," which picks back up with Shadow, the main character of that novel. Shadow's been doing some travel and has ended up in middle-of-nowhere Scotland. As you might imagine if you've read American Gods, someone improbable asks Shadow to take a job as a, well, let's call it security enforcer. Except of course that the castle in which he's supposed to perform this task for a large party of very wealthy people isn't on any of the survey maps. Add to that a woman named Jennie who isn't what she seems and doesn't want Shadow to take this job, and we're already on the way to another scrunched up forehead, feverish reading moment.

In "Sunbird," we get to meet the members of the Epicurean Club, including Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy (and his daughter Hollyberry NoFeathers McCoy), who ate and drank enough for many men; Professor Mandalay, who one was never quite sure was really there; Jackie Newhouse, a descendant of Casanova; Virginia Boote, a now-ruined beauty; and, of course, Zebediah T. Crawcrustle, the poorest member of the club, who'd been around since, well, nobody's quite sure. At the moment when the club is sure they've tried every food there is to try, from vulture, to beetle (although not quite every kind of beetle), to panda and mammoth, Crawcrustle suggests that grilled Sunbird hasn't been done in a long time, and they would definitely enjoy it. So, they make preparations to go catch and eat the Sunbird (one has to go to Cairo to do so, you know), but Crawcrustle may have left out one or two small details in how the whole process works.

Don't miss Gaiman's take on the legend of Bluebeard in "The Hidden Chamber." One of my favorite types of book or story to read is one that takes a myth, legend, or tale that we all know, in one version, and goes farther or deeper with it. I think part of what I like is knowing some background - I like feeling intelligent after all -- but not reading exactly the same story over again. Gaiman is a master at this -- "Monarch of the Glen" does it in more ways than even the obvious one of the Norse legends that Shadow and his boss Wednesday arose from, "The Problem of Susan" and "Inventing Aladdin" do this in another way, and "The Hidden Chamber" takes yet another direction in re-imagining Bluebeard.

Many of the stories are not brand new, although they've not been collected together before and you would have had to go far and wide to capture them all. One favorite example is "The Problem of Susan," which pays homage to, and deals with some difficult issues in, C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I also enjoyed getting reacquainted with "A Study in Emerald," which combines Gaiman's sense of humor and the irrationality (as he puts it) of H.P. Lovecraft, with the utter rationality (again, Gaiman's sense) of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. The story won a Hugo, which was quite enough recommendation for me, but also evokes a just slightly not our Victorian England in a way that made me think of the best of "Doctor Who" or Robert Heinlein.

In any case, all the stories I've savored have been delicious and the Epicureans would've been coming back for seconds or thirds had this been on their plates. Enjoy.

Fragile Things is an absolute joy for Gaiman fans. We can see his improvement as an author since Smoke & Mirrors. We're also treated to a extension of American Gods.
Any book that opens with a fan fiction cross-over of Sherlock Holmes and Call of Cthulu earns four stars from me.

This book is a great cross-section of Gaiman prose/poetry. As usual, you get the great world behind the world themes that run through much of his work. How can I, a lowly reader, say enough good stuff about Neil? As long as he keeps writing it I'll keep reading it.

Gaiman writes beautifully and imaginatively. These stories are not like his fully-realized novels, however. Some of them drop you off into space, not sure exactly where you've been or what happened, or whether it's over yet. Most are edgy. (If you liked "St. Lucy's School for Girls Raised by Wolves," you will probably like these stories, too.) I will be eternally grateful to NG for including "The Problem of Susan" which addresses an aspect of the Narnia stories that has always annoyed me.

Fragile Things grabs you by the collar and shakes you around, while challenging your ideas, and building a world where it's all real, especially what we don't talk about, out there in the dark. I had to put this book away, where I couldn't see it. I kept picking it up, rereading it. Not moving on to the next thing. Not good. I got past it, eventually. But it wasn't easy.

I kept going back to Fragile Things (like I did Smoke and Mirrors, and other great Gaiman fare like American Gods). Herein you'll find an enlightening look at what Hell is really like, and why, and how. You'll find that Neil is awfully unhappy with the end of the CS Lewis 'Wardrobe' books, has a predilection for sodium-orange illumination, and a knack for poems.

While it's true most of these tales have been published in other sources, many of them are difficult to find. One is not disappointed in the variety of supernatural stories that thrum through its pages. Gaiman reaches for the magic in humanity, finding ghosts and gremlins amidst the flotsam and the jetsum of the human soul.

I recommend reading the introduction after you've read the other chapters. As you'll see, the intro is an experience unti itself, and I found it highly satisfying, the book equivilant of a magician walking you around backstage just after his impressive show, showing you how a few of the tricks are done. Unlike most authors, in the introduction, Neil enthusiastically throws back the curtain to talk about what inspired these stories, or who, or how where he was might have affected their writing...it's good stuff.

Neil knows his fans...many of them are aspiring writers themselves. And there's much here to learn from, or be entertained by, either way. If there's anything negative, it's not much; if you pay attention, you'll notice small story motifs that show up in modest roles in Gaiman's other stories, like The Sandman. You have to look, but they're there. But that's nitpicky.

Fragile Things, with its great ecclectic collection of souls and adventure, is worth your hard-earned dough if mo matter if you're a Gaiman junky, or not.

Bestselling fantasy and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman is also an excellent writer of short stories and several of the short pieces in this new collection were either winners or nominees in award ceremonies for fantasy, horror or science fiction. Its tough trying to pigeon-hole any of the stories included in here like "A Study in Emerald" which combines a Sherlock Holmes mystery with science fiction to great effect. "How to Talk To Girls at Parties" combines teen angst with creepy science fiction for a wonderful story and "Harlequin Valentine" is a deliciously funny tale of love and loss. "The Monarch of the Glen" ends this book in a very high note by following Shadow, the hero of Gaiman's modern classic novel American Gods, as he embarks on an unexpected supernatural adventure on the coast of Scotland. Longtime fans of Gaiman's writing as well as those who appreciate modern fantasy or the short story form will find a lot to enjoy in this collection.

Did you ever pick up one of those compilation albums by one of your favorite musicians, only to find it to be full of undeveloped ideas and vanity pieces that were rightfully withheld from the proper albums in the first place? This anthology from the usually awesome Neil Gaiman is the literary equivalent of a collection of B-sides and outtakes, and there's a reason many of these ideas are not in his much more developed novels. Like any odds n' sods collection, there are a few flashes of brilliance here, like the modern Sherlock Holmes tale "A Study in Emerald" and the gruesomely whimsical "Sunbird." There are also a few enjoyable entries that highlight Gaiman's well-known interest in fairy tales, like "Harlequin Valentine." But most of the short stories here are toss-offs to themed anthologies or tribute editions; and regardless of the fact that several of these tales were award winners in the realms where they originally appeared, many seem undeveloped and arbitrary.

Gaiman is correct in stating that his tribute to Ray Bradbury, "October in the Chair," would have been better written by Bradbury himself, and tributes to other works like "Goliath" (The Matrix) and "The Problem of Susan" (Narnia) are vanity pieces at best. Some stories such as "Diseasemaker's Croup" are disappointinggly anemic snippets of thin and fanciful ideas, with probably more reward for the writer than the reader. This book's examples of Gaiman's poetry and targeted prose (such as the snippets written for the Strange Little Girls album by Tori Amos) are intriguing but directionless, and the majority of short stories are just plain unmemorable. Gaiman is one of my favorite writers and I recommend his novels whole-heartedly. But this collection is surely not appropriate for the casual fan, and even serious fans will probably find it disappointing and a bit self-indulgent. [~doomsdayer520~]