I
met Neil Gaiman, many years ago. He seemed a very decent chap. He
had a firm handshake and a sonorous voice cut with that pleasant
Hampshire accent, and he managed to be engaging with me even though
he had just pumped paws with three hundred people in line in front of
me. His grip only spasmed once for all the signing he had done that
day, though behind the drawn, slightly hangdog eyes of the ethereal
wordsmith I detected some very human fatigue.
Under
the circumstances, I couldn't blame him for looking tired. Hell, he
was the center of the adulation that day and I actually felt sorry
for the guy. Mr. Gaiman is the personification of the phrase 'a
victim of his own success', though he has been heard to remark it's
more like being 'loved to death'. Yeah, I was Number 300 (give or
take) at an event where 900 people showed up in a venue that was
maxed out at 500. It was, in the words of the Buddha, 'a fucking
circus' (I'll double-check the source on that quote).
Why
do I mention this in what is ostensibly a book review?
It
is NOT to bitch about Gaiman's legions of new and fair-weather fans,
his groupies who treat him like a literary rock star and only love
him for his recent stuff. Nor is it to play a hand of fanboy
one-upsmanship, recite the Sandman volumes clogging my bookshelf or
declare 'I read him when no one knew him.' If I could travel back in
time to the very birth of pettiness in geekdom I still would arrive
too late to smother the first douche who said “I saw him first, so
I'm a bigger fan.” Not the route I'm going to take.
No,
I mention it because when you can count on creating a fire code
violation every time you show up to sign a book, you might have
reached that plateau for which every author strives but so few reach;
the level where you ascend from writer to Institution. Being an
Institution has perks, ones that Mr. Gaiman is enjoying in abundance
right now: fabulous commercial success, crossover appeal, non-stop
demand, and a built-in base of doggedly loyal disciples who very
likely will buy whatever you manage to put between two covers. But
Apollo was the god of disease as well as the god of healing, gentle
readers, and The Institution has a downside in very much the same
vein. The Institution is a hungry baby, and She doesn't like too
much variety in Her diet. As a writer who has achieved stunning
success with a winning formula, the temptation to repeat that formula
and try for another golden egg with an identical strategy must be
overwhelming; the temptation and the pressure
– let us not forget that – from publishers and advertisers and
other interested parties all fighting for the teat. But is it fair
to accuse Mr. Gaiman of submitting to the quick fix?
On
one hand, 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' is vintage Neil. It is
a cozy, homespun parable of wonder and curiosity garnished with
poignant life lessons as only an incorrigible 7 year-old narrator can
provide. It mines a mixed bag of regional lore and obscure myth
judiciously re-imagined and turned five degrees sideways by the
author's boundless ability to make the everyday fantastic (and vice
versa). And it is seeded with innumerable little details so
carefully rendered and artfully conveyed any one of us could find a
memory in our own childhood that parallels the hero's experience. It
is also, I think, a more mature tale than a lot of folks seem to
realize, easily as traumatic and melancholy as it is cordial and
funny, and while many are quick to dismiss it as a 'kid's book',
central to the narrative is the decidedly depressing theme of memory:
what it is, how it works, and how what we think we remember is
ultimately very, very subjective. It is a story bound to make you
consider your own mortality, as, I imagine, Neil did when he set out
to write it. This is 'Lane's greatest strength, and the chief
argument against critics who say Gaiman is starting to repeat
himself, for this book tackles weighty issues that, while present in
his other works, have never appeared quite so mellow and ripe as they
do here.
On
the other hand, this does
feel like familiar territory. 'Lane' reads like yet another entry in
Gaiman's American Gods
lexicon, delving heavily into the same devices found there as well as
in his follow-up Anansi Boys. Again
we're presented with the idea of supernatural beings who may or may
not be gods (but who are certainly sprites, spirits, or similar
pseudo-divine beings) anchored to our world by humans (who still
believe in them in one capacity or another), and who still possess
awesome power which they exercise in odd and obtuse ways, always
under the radar of ordinary folk, save the protagonist who is in on
the whole thing. As with many of Gaiman's works over the last decade
or so, the story is told from a child's perspective, and as such the
prose is straightforward and fairly simplistic, with paragraphs of
lean sentences describing mundane things. It reads very much like a
short story, which is no accident: Gaiman admitted it began as
exactly that, and only later blossomed into a full manuscript after
some massaging. The problem, if it really could be called that, is
that it reads a lot like many of Gaiman's other short
stories, and is shy of content most folks would consider
trailblazing. Indeed, one might expect to find something like a
Bizarro version of this story in any of Neil's existing collections.
The hungry baby knows what She
likes.
So
what of this old wine in new bottles? Well, on the surface, squat.
If Gaiman wants to write still another fairy-tale-with-a-twist, even
one that reads like it came from his American Gods
sketchbook, that's his prerogative. The laws of capitalism state
that I'll only be free to criticize him on his story choices when I'm
richer off my writing than he is off his. His afternotes and
acknowledgements, which are as entertaining to read as anything else
that spills from his winsome pen, speak of a genuine love for this
book and a bone-deep impetus to write it; it was a process, no
surprise, that involved a great deal of family, friends, nostalgia,
and the author's own childhood memories. If we could all tell tales
that come from such an honest place, what a joyous and more profound
understanding for each other we might have. I'm not prepared to
dismiss 'Lane', as some have, as a quick buck. If Gaiman was
tumbling into the twilight of his career, popularity diminishing,
debts accruing, I might change that assessment, but considering the
man's schedule is booked up between now and the Rapture, I don't
think cashflow is something with which he is painfully concerned.
I
would love to see Neil explore some truly adult fare again and pen
something else akin to American Gods
or even his freshman novel, Neverwhere.
This is a sentiment echoed many times by many people, and here is
where I fear, in my learned distrust of Business with a capital 'B',
that 'Lane' might have been quietly manipulated by the Man Behind The
Curtain. For every time Gaiman writes anything longer than a grocery
list it is accompanied by months of fanfare and a punishing
multi-city flog that more resembles a concert tour. The carnival
atmosphere of these events has grown with every major release so that
now a 'simple' appearance and reading is anything but simple and the
chief concern is crowd control. That nook-ish atmosphere where an
individual fan might enjoy an intimate minute or two with the author
is a thing of the distant past, at least where Mr. Gaiman is
concerned, and anyone looking for one of those coveted handshakes
(and duly witnessed John Hancocks) is committed to nothing less than
an all-day excursion that may involve copious body heat, trail mix
for dinner, and peeing into portable vessels.
'Heh
heh', you titter nervously. 'Is he just being funny?' Go to a
Gaiman signing and find out for yourself.
The
point is, the scope and narrative 'weight' of Mr. Gaiman's latest
offerings (I'll include Anansi Boys
in this statement) have not necessarily been in proportion with these
ever-burgeoning levels of hype. 'Lane' is fun and pleasant read, but
it is not the next American Gods.
Neil never claimed anything to the contrary, but the fanfare that
follows him with every step he takes these days is making a lot of
folks assume otherwise; the unfortunate consequence is backlash, a
feeling of being 'duped' by the PR machine that promises gold with
every $30 punch. Unscrupulous back room machinations or sheer
populist momentum? Who knows.
With
'Lane' I've fielded a variety of opinions that are just so much
grumbling; a bemoaning that Gaiman has 'changed' or that he's turned
his unique brand of whimsy British yarns into a full-blown industry
with fat dollar signs at the end of the rainbow. This is
disingenuous and petty. Perhaps Gaiman has
grown comfortable with his winning formula and perhaps, like an
overwrought mother preoccupied with work, he has fed the Baby from
the same jar once too often. That may spawn newfound caution in his
gushing fan base and prompt some who would buy his material
sight-unseen to hesitate come his next release. That is, I think, a
good thing for all concerned. The alternative is that Gaiman goes
the way of Tom Clancy or James Patterson, driven by markets instead
of the Muse, pressured to pump out more and more rushed, sub-par
content in the name of filling an unfillable void.
And
do any of us want to see that happen? I think we know the answer to
that one.
In
the meantime I would encourage everyone to look a litter deeper into
'The Ocean at the End of the Lane', and to dig for its charms. Maybe
it's just that I am no longer the teenager I was when I started
reading Mr. Gaiman, and maybe it's also that Mr. Gaiman is no longer
the thirty-something he was when he embarked on his first novel, but
'Lane' is a deeper and more subtle work than what shows in the
surface, and it is the 'bookend' narration of the protagonist – as
a much older man struggling to recall the 'real' events of the story
– who speaks to us here. The time may come when the man in the
ever-present black jacket will gift us with another tentpole tome,
but until then let's enjoy his singularly wonderful ability to make
us feel like that kid gazing up at the stars and wondering What Else
is out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment