Neil Gaiman makes us remember

The Internet hype machine almost ruined this for me. Like the rest of Neil Gaiman's legion of adoring fans, I waited for the release of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I tracked its progress, but tried my best to avoid reviews. Which was a stretch because, being a highly anticipated novel by a widely loved author, it was simply everywhere. When I finally got my copy, I began reading somewhat rebelliously, refusing to be taken in. The book itself is a slight thing, a three-hour engagement at most. But like that duck pond in the story, it is an ocean. I didn't know what was happening until I looked up and realized I was already waist-deep. The story found me, like seawater finding cracks in a stone wall, and it has been weathering my heart since.

Here is my copy, which I acquired from good, old Fully Booked.

In grade school, some of my friends and I would have lunch in a small wooded area behind the main building. We'd fill the air with our voices and the sounds of our play. When the afternoon bell called us back to our learning, a heavy silence would fall over the woods. There were times I'd find myself there alone, having ran back for some forgotten item or taken a shortcut to the Industrial Arts classroom. The sun would be high in the sky, the bright light casting flickering shadows of leaves on the red-brown soil. The woods felt alive but dormant, as if disturbing the quiet might stir something into waking. I would be a little scared, but curious and defiant, staring at strange, moving shadows longer than I should. The feeling of that place was real and dream-like, an overlap of worlds. And so it was that I read the The Ocean at the End of the Lane under a heady haze of remembrance.

At its core,The Ocean at the End of the Lane is an excellent horror story. The fear, cultivated and absolute, crept into everything. I was so terrified, I couldn't sleep without my back tight against the wall. The last book to affect me this way was Coraline.

The Evil Thing is cunning and amoral, latching on to people's basic tendencies for wickedness. I felt fiercely protective of the narrator as a boy although I should have had more faith in his resilience (I am generally blinded by the charms of little boys, an effect of watching my baby brother grow up). Mr. Gaiman has great respect for children: he is matter-of-fact about the existence of magic, but doesn't spare them the nightmare. He knows they can handle it better than the grown-ups.

This post took so long because, even if I badly wanted to talk about this book and how it made me feel, I didn't know how. I am was a mess of thoughts and feelings, many of them unidentifiable and some too familiar to face directly. I began to think about long-ago and far-away with a sweet ache that, when fully embraced, could swallow me whole. Sometimes I feel old, which, at 27, is ridiculous. The Hempstock women are ancient, but never tired.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane makes me want to write, and write in the best way possible. It "was written for readers," but it is also for writers. Mr. Gaiman's prose is pointed and descriptive, not a single word without function. It is a crystal, boiled down from a balanced solution of talent, skills sharpened over years of practice, and instinct. He sets the example for the Good Art he encourages us to make. In doing so, he has also shared with us something very personal. So here I am, stumbling over my words, trying to say thank you.

Writers

(This photo from The L-Space Web: A Terry Pratchett/ Discworld Web Site. Thanks!

Try to ignore the barcode; it's a great photo :D)

This is from an essay Neil Gaiman wrote about Terry Pratchett:

"Working with Terry I felt like a journeyman working alongside a master-craftsman in some medieval guild. He constructs novels like guildmaster might build a cathedral arch. There is art, of course, but that's the result of building it well. What there is more of is the pleasure taken in constructing something that does what it's meant to do – to make people read the story, and laugh, and possibly even think...

...Satire is a word that is often used to mean that there aren't any people in the fiction, and for that reason I'm uncomfortable calling Terry a satirist. What he is, is A Writer, and there are few enough of those around."

The rest of the piece, which is entitled Terry Pratchett: An Appreciation, is here.

The two wrote Good Omens, one of my favorite books in the world.

 

(This photo from Neil's website.)

Terry also wrote the fantastic foreword to a tribute book to Neil called Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. The book has been liberated from its plastic protection at National Bookstore in SM so I managed to read the foreword one afternoon while perusing the shelves. I didn't read the book itself so I can't urge you to buy it. I can, however, confidently recommend that foreword. I've been wanting to share it for a while now, but can't seem to find a link to it online. So, if you're in a bookstore that carries Prince of Stories, take a few minutes to read the foreword.

A Very Rockstar Engagement

Neil Gaiman announces his engagement to Dresden Dolls vocalist Amanda Palmer. What a pair they make.

Unreality bites

The last time Neil Gaiman was in the Philippines, my friends and I traveled all the way from Baguio to meet him. We were in Rockwell to catch his first public Filipino appearance at Fully Booked. There, he read from a chapter of his then unreleased book Anansi Boys and introduced scenes from the movie Mirror Mask. We were standing right by the side door he came in. It was a shock when he breezed through, looking uber-cool in a leather jacket and his hair in slight disarray. The man is a rock star.

Anyway, we weren't able to actually meet him because there was something like a thousand people in line before us. I forget the actual numbers, but I recall that some of the people who waited to get their books signed that day had to wait until the next morning to meet him. And that was even with Gaiman signing until about 2am. At Fully Booked in Greenhills Promenade, we were 20 people shy of coming face-to-face with him. The management had to limit the number of people getting in because there were simply too many of us. The bus ride to Baguio was long and painful, our unsigned books screaming out for love from inside our backpacks. Later we learned that he made an appearance at Fully Booked Gateway and signed every book/graphic novel that came his way. Oh the agony! I was haunted by this staggering disappointment days after.

Neil was so overwhelmed by his reception in the Philippines (he said we were "louder than the Brazilians") that in 2006, he and Fully Booked came up with a graphic novel/ fiction writing contest called Unmasked, the first of its kind in the Philippines. Now:

Fully Booked in cooperation with Neil Gaiman is proud to present UNREALITY BITES, the sequel to the very successful Philippine Graphic/ Fiction Awards launched last year in the name of Filipino Unrealism!

We want you to be the next big name in the science fiction, fantasy or horror genre!

Send in your original work for the two categories: comics and prose fiction. All winning entries will be compiled and published by Fully Booked, with a foreword by Neil Gaiman.

Over P300,000 worth of prizes will be given away!
Including P100,000 grand prize for the first place winners!

Deadline of submission is October 31, 2007.

Coming soon this November!
Catch Neil Gaiman again in Manila when he visits Fully Booked for the Awards Night and book launch of "Expeditions," the 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction compilation.*

You can download the contest guidelines here and the official application form here. To get regular updates about the contest, you can join the Yahoo! group gaiman_writing contest.

* Poster and article from Fully Booked Online

Bless Neil

Wow, I didn't know you could play with tags...This will be fun.

**********

I don't know why I never clicked Cool Stuff and Things on www.neilgaiman.com before. I must improve my random clicking skills. Anyhow, just when I thought my day would stay on its monotonous course, I stumble on this amusing short story by Neil Gaiman. Read The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Neil Gaiman.

For further enjoyment, check out more of his short stories. (I'm trying very hard to contain my excitement here. Breathe...)