I feel as though I'm about to commit social suicide. I was going to start this by saying something like, "Some of my best friends are Neil Gaiman fans", but actually, I'm not sure that I know a single person who doesn't worship Neil Gaiman as a god. I wonder how this state of affairs came about. I, too, as the title of this blog entry suggests, used to be a Neil Gaiman fan. There are two mysteries here; the universality of Gaiman's lionisation, and my own path from admiration to abhorrence. I think I can illuminate, to some extent, the latter mystery, but not the former. Therefore, because I don't actually enjoy offending people, I shall give my usual warning and say, if you are a Neil Gaiman fan, and think you are likely to be hurt by criticism of his oeuvre and possibly even his public persona, please read no further.
I described my Gaiman-related apostasy as mysterious, and indeed it is, to some extent. That is, it seems to have stolen over me, in a largely irrational, unexamined way, without me knowing quite why; to use common parlance, I began to find that I was somehow 'going off' Neil Gaiman. I used to be a big fan, and would probably still very much enjoy his comic books if I re-read them and tried to expunge the vision of his smug face from my mind as I did so. In fact, I was such a big fan that I long considered if I ever had a third tattoo, the design would be one of Gaiman's characters. So, a reasonably big fan.
However, today the name 'Neil Gaiman' is more likely to produce in me a frown of distaste than a smile of recognition and pleasure. And I can give no definite cause to explain this transition. All I know for sure is that the transition has taken place. There is one fairly certain memory I can offer now as an example: I was stepping from a train onto a platform at Waterloo Station and saw a poster advertising Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Something in me attempted to add the book to my internal 'to read' list, and then I suddenly found myself thinking, "Actually, I hate Neil Gaiman."
If I try to go further back, I have indistinct recollections of learning that Gaiman was branching out into novels, and reading an opening paragraph, and trying to like it, and then realising that the prose was like a pleasant scent to mask the odour of corruption. There was the vague thought somewhere, "This is a con."
And I never have read any of the 'novels', other than the graphic ones, I mean.
Today, however, since I have been hearing the name Neil Gaiman from a number of different sources, and have been forced to wonder at the intuition that makes the name now sound like something unctuous to my ears, I decided to settle the matter and actually read a substantial amount of some Neil Gaiman prose. I'm afraid to say that my intuition proved correct; I did not like what I read, at all.
It begins, as most things begin, with a song.
That's the opening line. If you don't already hate this, then probably your taste is so different to mine that nothing that I now say will mean anything to you. I've been trying to analyse just what it is I dislike about this style (the rest of the text goes on in the same manner, and I'll probably give further examples). Do most things begin with a song, or is that just the kind of thing that a smarmy git would use as a pick-up line? That's it, isn't it? This is the pick-up line for Gaiman's story. It reads as if he's trying to seduce an audience of New Age ladies. It's the literary equivalent of "Do you come here often?" Often enough to have heard this line before, I'm afraid. It is, in more senses than one, a horribly over-familiar line.
If we're going to extend and torture this musical theme a little, the prose that follows reminds me of the sentimental piano on the soundtrack of a bad film. The words themselves could be the voiceover. The tone adopted here is fake. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is, I get the feeling that Gaiman himself doesn't even realise it's fake. My guess as to what's happening here is that the comic book medium is one that is very much used to referencing, and, so to speak 'quoting' other media, and Gaiman's style, developed in the world of comic books, therefore reads like one long, tacky quote of other media. This can work in comics because the text basically serves as stage directions, and the actual tone of the story, the texture, is created by the images. But if, when you work entirely in text, you have nothing but those 'quoted' stage directions, the whole thing is going to sound like voice-over. It's as if Gaiman is doing an impression of all his favourite bits from 'the movies' in a very poor American accent. This is simply what he's accustomed to doing, calling it 'post-modern', because this works in comic books, but, to my surprise, people still seem to think it works in novels. Not for me, it doesn't.
To be honest, I think I've largely summed up what I hate about this stuff already, but I'll have a trawl through the text to see if I can find a few more quotes to illustrate my point in specific ways.
Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughing-stock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs.
I suppose this, like all things in art, is just a question of taste (and whether or not you have it), but I'm really not into this pattern of brief-assertive-sentence plus another-brief-assertive-sentence-reiterating-the-same-message-in-a-slightly-different-manner. ("Songs remain. They last." And the song remains the same, I suppose?) Perhaps these little devices are like standard trills, licks, riffs and so on, that any good musician knows, but overuse of them, and poor use of them, makes a song sound corny. I expect to hear lines like "Songs remain. They last", as part of a section of breathey, overwrought film dialogue between a man and a woman who are not sure if they'll get back together and are saying all sorts of profound things to each other in a tugging-on-the-heartstrings manner. Gaiman's prose is absolutely peppered with such devices, to the extent it almost seems as if he uses nothing else. Once again, everything is 'quoted'. And that's the power of songs, apparently. And no doubt that's the power of love, too.
Before Fat Charlie's father had come into the bar, the barman had been of the opinion that the whole Karaoke evening was going to be an utter bust. But then the little old man had sashayed into the room, walked past the table of several blonde women, with the fresh sunburns and smiles of tourists, who were sitting by the little makeshift stage in the corner. He had tipped his hat to them, for he wore a hat, a spotless white fedora, and lemon-yellow gloves, and then he walked over to their table. They giggled.
"Are you enjoyin' yourselves, ladies?" he asked.
They continued to giggle and told him they were having a good time, thank you, and that they were here on vacation. He said to them, it gets better, just you wait.
He was older than they were, much, much older, but he was charm itself, like something from a bygone age when fine manners and courtly gestures were worth something. The barman relaxed. With someone like this in the bar, it was going to be a good evening.
Even Gaiman's characters are quoted. (I'm not going to bother putting quotemarks around the word 'quoted' anymore, except just there.) The "little old man" basically is a spotless white fedora and a pair of lemon-yellow gloves, and that's all he is. I'm sure that's how Gaiman constructs his characters. He has one of those books where you flip the top, middle or bottom of the page to mix and match different outfits. "Uh, pink gloves, a pith helmet and… rugby boots. Great character!" And that use of the phrase, 'when X and Y were worth something' is particularly emetic – another corny old lick in Gaiman's song, another phrase in which the assumed American accent doesn't quite work. You can see the pale flesh beneath the fake tan. And the whole production has such a schmaltzy, feel-good, folksy wholesomeness about it – and all fake, and all unconsciously fake – such a knowing, wise, warm, we're-all-good-underneath-ness, alluding to the humourless humour of shared and unquestioned values, without ever actually stretching to humour, that it makes me want to go and crucify a cat, just to feel bad about myself.
"It was going to be a good evening." God, no! Not another self-loving, feel-good cliche, please.
Do I have to continue? Basically, I got as far as the conversation between the two affianced characters talking about their planned wedding, in which the guy, 'Fat Charlie', doesn't want to invite his estranged father, and the girl starts to sulk on this account, and I gave up. Even to be able to say that I'd read enough of Neil Gaiman's undiluted prose to be able to form a good judgement of it, it wasn't worth reading further. In order to save myself from exploding out of sheer hatred, I had to stop.
He buttressed this by stating categorically that he was damned, double-damned and quite possibly even thrice-damned if he was going to invite his father to their wedding. In fact, said Fat Charlie in closing, the best thing about getting married was not having to invite his dad to the reception.
And then Fat Charlie saw the expression on Rosie's face and the icy glint in her normally friendly eyes, and he corrected himself hurriedly, explaining that he meant the second-best, but it was already much too late.
"You'll just have to get used to the idea," said Rosie. "After all, a wedding is a marvelous opportunity for mending fences and building bridges. It's your opportunity to show him that there are no hard feelings."
"But there are hard feelings," said Fat Charlie. "Lots."
Yeah, but we know that Fat Charlie is a softy deep down, don't we? Just look at his puppy face under his floppy locks! And his fiance is going all cold-shoulder on him. Oh no, what's he going to do? He's going to have to do what we all know he should do, anyway, and have some kind of emotional reconciliation with his father.
I really think I've fallen in love with Gaiman's characters here – that's how you can tell he's a real professional writer.
I forget who it was – J.G. Ballard? – but someone, referring to William Burroughs said something like, "He's the last of the real writers. After he goes, there'll be nothing left to us but the career-writers." While I disagree that Burroughs was the last, the current preponderance of career writers is brought home to me by the fact that someone who constructs novels out of bad impersonations of bad films can somehow be thought of as edgy or alternative. Neil Gaiman, anyway, does not provide much evidence that there are still real writers out there in the world.
Am I the only one who feels this way?
Yes, I also know such people. I think he has some residual talent, but my basic impression is that he’s milked it far beyond its actual worth, as I suppose anyone with mediocre talent catapulted to that height of fame would. Then again, I wonder if it really is to do with talent… It might be a question of attitude. I don’t like what he’s expressing in the mercifully little that I have read of his prose work…I’ve just looked at it again to see if I’m being unfair, but I still get the same sense of repulsion. It’s actually interesting to me that I should experience such a reversal of feeling about someone. I think he got used to the ‘adult fairytale’ mode of storytelling for his comics, and it worked there, but it really grates on my nerves as straight prose. I really don’t believe it to be good writing. It’s like reading Ben Elton or something.
“I think he got used to the ‘adult fairytale’ mode of storytelling for his comics, and it worked there, but it really grates on my nerves as straight prose.”I think this kind of writting is getting too much popular once seems people lost their beliefs ans faiths in something… I don’t know, but just like we discussed some time ago about writting what people want and need to read (as Paulo Coelho does) this kind of writting is quite the same. He writes all the underworld and underthoughts hidden in everybody and seems that this is getting very popular.Maybe people don’t assume they can do or think so disgusting stuff and they just like to read it in Gaiman’s books. Is like they can see theirselves in there… I don’t know, is just a view. Supposing.
I know many people that think Gaiman is a god. I guess my fiancé is one of them!
Justin Isis writes:
Some more thoughts:http://swiftywriting.blogspot.com/2005/09/swifty-and-justins-problem-with-neil.htmlThree years back, when I wrote that, I was a lot more fiery than I am now. I don’t feel as strongly at present, but I do think that, in your essay, you’ve absolutely nailed the major faults with Gaiman’s prose. It’s the kind of thing that casual readers will be taken in by, but anyone with a real ear for prose will be tripped up by the condescending tone (the ‘song’ thing) and numerous cliches. I think it’s also a case of him getting to the point where he probably believes his own hype.
Hello.Back soon.
Robin Davies writes:
A cogent critique.But I’m still reeling from the revelation that you have two tattoos.Did you join the Yakuza in Japan???
Three years back, when I wrote that, I was a lot more fiery than I am now. You got there before me again, but at least I know I’m not alone.I don’t feel as strongly at present, but I do think that, in your essay, you’ve absolutely nailed the major faults with Gaiman’s prose.Is it strange to say, “thank you”, in this case?It’s the kind of thing that casual readers will be taken in by, but anyone with a real ear for prose will be tripped up by the condescending tone (the ‘song’ thing) and numerous cliches. I think it’s also a case of him getting to the point where he probably believes his own hype. .I think this is right. Basically. I think this kind of writting is getting too much popular once seems people lost their beliefs ans faiths in something… I don’t know, but just like we discussed some time ago about writting what people want and need to read (as Paulo Coelho does) this kind of writting is quite the same. He writes all the underworld and underthoughts hidden in everybody and seems that this is getting very popular.It was either C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton who said something like, “When people stop believing in Christianity, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.” I suppose there might be some truth in this, although I don’t agree with the implied superiority of Christianity over “anything”. I don’t really think it’s a bad thing for people to search for something. I’m not sure where I’m going with this answer either, to be honest. I suppose I could go into a very long account of why I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong in not committing to any single belief, whilst looking at the merits of committing, but that would take a long time. I think that a lot of people find the foundering uncertainty of searching for something to be quite sad and pathetic, and that’s why they prefer something ‘time-honoured’ and orthodox, such as Christianity. I can understand that, to some extent. I mean, with any kind of art, there’s always the question of the philosophy of the artist. Is there something of value in there that can either reaffirm my orthodox views, or question them, or offer something new in my ‘search’, and so on. It’s maybe even impossible to avoid the presence of such questions in a work of art, even if the last thing you want to do is be didactic. So, the question then might be, what is Gaiman’s philosophy? Will it sustain me? I think you’re right that it’s very easy to see him in the same kind of mode as Coelho. There’s a kind of glib spirituality about it. It’s all archetype-by-numbers. In the end, I’ve yet to encounter anyone who has any ultimate answers. Stories have a set number of endings, and most of them are ‘happy ever after’. Other endings are more like, ‘and they all died horribly’. Some endings are like, ‘and who knows what happened next but that’s as much as I’m going to tell’. I think when you’re younger, or you haven’t read much, you tend to hate this last kind of ending, but increasingly, I personally favour it. I don’t really hate any kind of ending though. I think, for me, what finally matters is the skill with which the storyteller negotiates the whole ritual of storytelling to get to that ending, the skill they have in seeming to know what they’re talking about, or in getting the reader’s sympathy by confessing they don’t know, but basically the skill and sophistication of that process. The final ‘answer’ to life’s question, that comes at the end, is almost a formality, though one’s interest in that can revive from time to time. The whole thing is a bit like the Aristocrats joke, where basically you tell the same old joke in your own way. And… I don’t really like the way Gaiman tells the joke, in the prose that I have read. I think he lacks certain layers of skill and sophistication, and so on, basically for the reasons given.Sorry, is this boring?A cogent critique.
But I’m still reeling from the revelation that you have two tattoos.
Did you join the Yakuza in Japan???Well, I’m only really an honorary member. Actually, both my tattoos have a Japanese connection, though I had them done in Britain. One of them has caused a number of Japanese people to laugh in surprise. An unforeseen disadvantage of these tattoos, or so it at first seemed to me, was that the public baths in Japan mostly have signs on them saying, “No tattoos”. This is actually a sly way of prohibiting Yakuza, since all Yakuza are tattooed. However, after confessing that I had ink to the desk on my first visit to one of these baths, I was told it would be all right in my case.
Justin Isis writes:
A lot of people like books to sound like they know what they’re talking about.”It begins, as most things begin, with a song.”is a really dramatic opening; it also asserts that the narrator has some kind of knowledge of “most things” that lets him assert that they begin with a song, rather than beginning with fireworks or milk puddings or whatever. I think most editors will fall in love with this kind of portentous opening.There was a good review of this new Salman Rushdie book, I think David Gates wrote it, where he said that the reason he thought the book failed was because the narrator sounded like he was too confident. Then he said that Kafka came up with amazing ideas, but in the expression of those ideas, he sounded like he’d almost prefer not to be telling them. I think this is a really good insight. I feel like Neil Gaiman should be more ashamed of himself. He should get up in the morning and look at it like”Fat Charlie…Jesus Christ…how can I care about this shit…””This well-dressed man walked into a bar and started kicking his game…his white fedora looked like it had been bought at a discount store….””Fat Charlie was fat because of Dairy Queen. It wasn’t on account of the soft serve ice cream, which was a chilled grey paste that passed cleanly through the bowels – it was the toppings. The son of a bitch loved hot fudge, and he loved nuts. I’m not telling you this because anyone would have said it in real life. If you told this kind of shit to Fat Charlie, you would have ended up with a 40 ounce malt liquor bottle inserted into your face. No, I’m telling you this because I’m Neil Gaiman. I used to run into Fat Charlie sometimes while I was writing my Marvel comic books.”etc.
“I feel like Neil Gaiman should be more ashamed of himself.”I think this is the crux of the matter. He has no shame. He flogs off a load of old rope as if it were holy relics, and the fact that people lap it up seems enough to satisfy him that he’s an all round great guy. That’s what comes across in the prose, anyway.
“what is Gaiman’s philosophy? Will it sustain me?”I guess nobody think like the way you exposed… and nobody never thought that way…
“what is Gaiman’s philosophy? Will it sustain me?”I guess nobody think like the way you exposed… and nobody never thought that way…
Well, I don’t think we should really lay such a burden on Gaiman exclusively. I think just about anyoneis liable to fall apart on close scrutiny. But… I suppose sooner or later with a work of art people begin to ask, “But what does it all mean?” and expect the artist to give some account of his or herself. It certainly doesn’t help the artist’s cause if you dig a little and find the whole thing to be built upon second-hand truths that the artist has not personally worked for, or lazy assumptions, or that kind of thing.
Peter A Leonard writes:
Gaiman and saccharine are synonymous to me.Peter:jester:
“Gaiman and saccharine are synonymous to me.”I mentioned Ben Elton earlier, but maybe Richard Curtis would have been more appropriate. Not that there’s much in it. They both write about cloying middle-class families. It’s funny that there was this huge attack in The Young Ones on this myth propagated by seventies sit-coms that Britain consists entirely of lovable middle-class eccentrics. I suppose that was Ben Elton and Richard Curtis trying to get down with the kids in the street or something. “is a really dramatic opening; it also asserts that the narrator has some kind of knowledge of ‘most things’ that lets him assert that they begin with a song, rather than beginning with fireworks or milk puddings or whatever.”I think this is one of the basic problems I have and always have had with writing. I don’t know anything at all. I mean, even more than most human beings, I feel like I know nothing. So, I’ve always had a strange feeling arising from the fact that writing is the one art in particular where you’re obliged to act as if you know things. I suppose I’ve dealt with it – and it has produced some quite deep anguish in me – just by developing the notion that I’m not trying to write ‘the truth’; I’m just trying to write an interesting lie. But yes, most writers do seem to have to come across as if they know things, and often they have me fooled. There have been times, however, when I’ve had some insight into things and realised that they’re mostly bluffing.
muriela writes:You are not the only one that feels this way. I feel so much the same that it’s eerie, even down to perhaps being willing to consider a tattoo of one of his characters. Strange how it is!Thank you for setting it in words so well. The next time somebody asks me in disbelief why I don’t like Neil Gaiman (or detest him) I will have at least an echo of your lucid explication in my head, and it will come in handy, and give me, I trust, a greater sense of peace, and of having said my piece. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, only a great cloud of distaste comes up when I think of him, so this is most useful.
Hello Muriela.Thanks for commenting. I’m glad my post has some interest. Believe it or not, there are more than two of us. Lawrence Miles glasses Gaiman, if only in passing, in a recent blog post:So I find myself asking. Did Moffat get that from me? Despite what’s been said elsewhere, “Pandorica” isn’t structurally similar to “Alien Bodies” at all. Yet his vision seems… uncomfortably close, if for all the wrong reasons. Oh, you know: like Neil Gaimain ripping off Alan Moore, then wearing sunglasses and pretending to be a rock star in LA.http://beasthouse-lm2.blogspot.com/2010/06/squee-doctors.htmlIt wouldn’t be so bad, if people didn’t think Gaiman’s pabulum was innovative and well-written, but, as we know, there’s no justice in this world.
Alex writes:I don’t like Gaiman either. He’s overrrated. If Stephen King didn’t endorse him, then no one would read him. None of my friends have ever heard of him. He’s not a household name. I never look at his blog anymore. He’s always been pretentious. But after he married that slut, he became extremely dull as well.
You’ve just had me Googling Neil Gaiman now, to discover who his spouse is. I think that he should probably take full responsibility for his own dullness, though.Although we do know what conjugal bliss leads to:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmGVYki-oyQ
Just googled “i hate neil gaiman” to see if this blog post comes up:http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=neil+gaiman&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=ULs&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB%3Aofficial&source=hp&q=i%20hate%20neil%20gaiman&aq=0c&aqi=g-c1g-sx1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=2f9cf625c3bade9d&pf=p&pdl=3000It's currently the bottom of the first page. Most of the other items on that page are red herrings.One article, for instance, says that Neil Gaiman got something “close to hate mail” for expressing admiration of Rudyard Kipling’s writing. The world is full of incredibly stupid people.
I think he’s basically one of these people, as you suggest, who’s been a fan of all kinds of things, without having much talent of his own beyond assembly, pastiche, presentation, that kind of thing.I think people with no talent except pastiche have been particularly favoured in the last twenty years for some reason. I don’t know why.
Anonymous writes:I’ve only read one work targeted at children, attempted to watch a movie adaptation of a children’s book, and read a few Sandman volumes, but in each case I found his style pretentious and piecemeal, as if smatterings of borrowed mythologies strung together in a phantasmagorical atmosphere can save hackneyed prose. I understand his appeal to the casual reader (as one response here pointed out), but anyone with a taste for a real story with an actual theme other than “Hey, look at me–I know a little bit about lots of myth and pop culture!” will be disappointed.
You and I must have talked about this privately, Quentin, because I see that I haven’t commented on this here yet.I can understand taking issue with someones’ admiring Kipling’s apparent worldview of pro-Colonial cultural chauvinism, but I doubt that was what Gaiman was referring to. Neil’s “Graveyard Book” being the likely catalyst here, it is one of my favorite of his books and is only really a riff on the theme and feel of Ruddy Kipling’s old “Jungle Books”.I have to schill for Dave McKean again and say that I think that McKean’s comic book series “Cages” covers a lot of the same philosophical ground as “The Sandman” in a more interesting fashion and in less pages to boot!Have you ever read James Branch Cabell? Apparently Gaiman is a fan, and Cabell’s “The Nightmare Has Triplets” series is a possible inspiration for the Dreaming. I am about to start the first book, I will have to let you know what I feel later.
Hello John.Off to London, so must be brief. I should check out Cages. I’ve been away from comics for a long time now.I haven’t heard of James Branch Cabell, though. I await your report.
I had to take a moment to reacquaint myself with the contents of the responses to this post, and I have reached a moment of clarity about Gaiman, to wit;There is ‘gilding the lily’ as well as ‘polishing a turd’, but it seems to me that Neil has already got his shit shined, bronzed, and then electroplated in platinum.P.S.- Why do so many people seem to like American Gods so much? I don’t think too much of Douglas Adams either, but at least he was approaching his own version of originality. [Edit – I just read Justin’s blog about same. He sank my Battleship!]
I haven’t read more than a page or two of Douglas Adams. I was really into the TV series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with Sandra Dickinson when it was first broadcast (I think I’ve got the name right)… but I’ve never got round to reading DA. There are certain things that put me off him… I have read a lecture he gave somewhere, for instance… He’s another of these Oxbridge humanists that philosophically and aesthetically I don’t get on with at all. Mentally and emotionally, there seems to be a whole section of British manhood who don’t grow past the sixth-form phase of thinking that the ultimate purpose of life is to be smart-alecky. DA, of course, was friends with Dawkins.
How is Londinium?
I am looking for flats… Staying with friends, which is good, but… God knows if I’ll find anywhere to live.
Anonymous writes:You sound like such an asshole, do you realize that?
Yeah, thanks. And you sound like a great person to hang around with, whoever you are.
Livinginnovels writes:THANK GOD! I am not alone! I wholeheartedly agree with you. I’m finding it so darn hard to read all these ‘popular’ authors recently. Have you read A Song of Ice and Fire? Also pessimism seems to be mistaken for realism these days and optimistic writing- at least where there is space left for opportunity- is deemed unrealistic. Would you agree?
Hello Livinginnovels. Thanks for an interesting comment on Christmas Day. I haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire. In case it’s of interest, this is a list of most of my 2012 reading (at least the stuff I’ve finished):http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/2012/02/06/books-2012I'm aware of a number of people – and particularly writers – who identify themselves as pessimists. I don’t see the need to identify oneself as optimist, pessimist, or even as realist. I don’t see how it helps to impose a limit on oneself in that way right from the off.I suppose I would say, however, that what realism actually is or might be is an interesting question. My impression is that reality is so large that, whatever it might be, it so far contains all of our theories and imaginings without them yet touching its sides (true, there is some controversy about the idea that it does contain our imaginings). In that sense, I suppose I would say that the most realistic thing of all must surely be to be open-minded.I would also imagine that there is a case for saying that optimism is more open-minded than pessimism… except, of course, where it’s not. I suppose I’ve seen narrow-mindedness in both arenas, but have tended to dwell more in the latter (pessimistic) circles, so have fresher experience of this particular kind of narrow-mindedness.Well, thanks for dropping by. Hope you find some more interesting books soon!