Originally posted 23 Oct. 2008, at the old version of Stored Thought on LJ.
There is a quality of Neil Gaiman's writing which I have been struggling to identify for some time now (like, since I started reading his books, really), and finally, after all these years, and through discussing it with my mother, I think I've figured it out.
There is a quality of self-consciousness, an almost emotionless, nonchalant, 'aren't I clever?' sense, to all of his writing - his short stories, his longer works of fiction, his graphic novels, his blog posts, his book-signing-tour talks, his introductions to other people's stories. You can see the construction, the assembly behind it. It's a quality my mother described as arrogant, and I called teenaged -- neither of them meant as an insult (both my mother and I are big Gaiman fans), but both seem to apply. Something about his writing feels a little smug, a little affected. It's kind of a pose, and not in the tongue-in-cheek, wryly ironic way that Stephen Fry or Oscar Wilde are posed and affected, but in an unavoidable way. With Fry or Wilde, you get this feeling that they're in on the joke, and it's all done with a twinkle in the eye or, at least, tongue firmly in slightly cynical cheek. Douglas Adams, too, has a little of this quality, but in his writing it always accompanied by a sort of reckless, wild bitterness that my mother described as him flipping off the world. In all of these cases - Adams, Fry, and Wilde - it's ironic, it's aware of the absurdity. With Neil Gaiman, it just kind of reads as too planned without being meticulous; crafted without being exquisite. You can feel him as Author just behind every word, telling you why he chose that phrase instead of another, pointing you toward the conclusions he wants you to draw, pulling the curtain back from the plot twists he wants you to be amazed at, preening himself a little all the while and saying what a clever writer he is.
Actually, now that I'm thinking more about it, I think this quality can be seen in John Steinbeck and Tad Williams, too. Now there's a random combination. But with Steinbeck, it's intermittent (very much present in East of Eden and The Pearl, and I would say entirely nonexistent in Cannery Row), and even when it's there, it's overshadowed by a vastness, an awed-ness, his own sense of quiet, ayup-esque joy in life. With Williams, it's present in his earlier works and fades away as you continue through his bibliography - with him, it's very much the product of his youth and inexperience early on, and it's delightful to watch him grow out of it, to improve, to learn both how to tighten up and to free his writing. Neil Gaiman, however, hasn't grown out of it - if anything, I would say he's just growing more into it.
But still, I like his stories. But that's just it -- I always say I like Neil Gaiman's stories, never that I like his writing. If he didn't indeed have such clever conceits (my mother may call him arrogant, but he has got something to be arrogant about, at least!), I wouldn't read him. Some authors, I would read anything they'd written, for style alone. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Vladimir Nabokov -- I would read a shopping list they'd written. In the case of Victor Hugo, I'm pretty sure he did include a shopping list or two in Les Miserables. (Really, who else could get you to read a history of the Paris sewage system that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual plot of his novel -- excuse me, tome?)
My point is, some authors I read for aesthetic reasons, for the sheer pleasure of the way they put words together, exquisitely crafted but seemingly effortless, and arising as though the only possible assembly of language for that story, that situation, that character, that moment. You just savor the language, revel in it, and if they have intricate plots and engaging characters to boot, then so much the better. But Neil Gaiman I read solely for the plots.
There is a quality of Neil Gaiman's writing which I have been struggling to identify for some time now (like, since I started reading his books, really), and finally, after all these years, and through discussing it with my mother, I think I've figured it out.
There is a quality of self-consciousness, an almost emotionless, nonchalant, 'aren't I clever?' sense, to all of his writing - his short stories, his longer works of fiction, his graphic novels, his blog posts, his book-signing-tour talks, his introductions to other people's stories. You can see the construction, the assembly behind it. It's a quality my mother described as arrogant, and I called teenaged -- neither of them meant as an insult (both my mother and I are big Gaiman fans), but both seem to apply. Something about his writing feels a little smug, a little affected. It's kind of a pose, and not in the tongue-in-cheek, wryly ironic way that Stephen Fry or Oscar Wilde are posed and affected, but in an unavoidable way. With Fry or Wilde, you get this feeling that they're in on the joke, and it's all done with a twinkle in the eye or, at least, tongue firmly in slightly cynical cheek. Douglas Adams, too, has a little of this quality, but in his writing it always accompanied by a sort of reckless, wild bitterness that my mother described as him flipping off the world. In all of these cases - Adams, Fry, and Wilde - it's ironic, it's aware of the absurdity. With Neil Gaiman, it just kind of reads as too planned without being meticulous; crafted without being exquisite. You can feel him as Author just behind every word, telling you why he chose that phrase instead of another, pointing you toward the conclusions he wants you to draw, pulling the curtain back from the plot twists he wants you to be amazed at, preening himself a little all the while and saying what a clever writer he is.
Actually, now that I'm thinking more about it, I think this quality can be seen in John Steinbeck and Tad Williams, too. Now there's a random combination. But with Steinbeck, it's intermittent (very much present in East of Eden and The Pearl, and I would say entirely nonexistent in Cannery Row), and even when it's there, it's overshadowed by a vastness, an awed-ness, his own sense of quiet, ayup-esque joy in life. With Williams, it's present in his earlier works and fades away as you continue through his bibliography - with him, it's very much the product of his youth and inexperience early on, and it's delightful to watch him grow out of it, to improve, to learn both how to tighten up and to free his writing. Neil Gaiman, however, hasn't grown out of it - if anything, I would say he's just growing more into it.
But still, I like his stories. But that's just it -- I always say I like Neil Gaiman's stories, never that I like his writing. If he didn't indeed have such clever conceits (my mother may call him arrogant, but he has got something to be arrogant about, at least!), I wouldn't read him. Some authors, I would read anything they'd written, for style alone. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Vladimir Nabokov -- I would read a shopping list they'd written. In the case of Victor Hugo, I'm pretty sure he did include a shopping list or two in Les Miserables. (Really, who else could get you to read a history of the Paris sewage system that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual plot of his novel -- excuse me, tome?)
My point is, some authors I read for aesthetic reasons, for the sheer pleasure of the way they put words together, exquisitely crafted but seemingly effortless, and arising as though the only possible assembly of language for that story, that situation, that character, that moment. You just savor the language, revel in it, and if they have intricate plots and engaging characters to boot, then so much the better. But Neil Gaiman I read solely for the plots.
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