|
|
Executive Times |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
2007 Book Reviews |
|||
|
|
Fragile
Things : Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
|
|||
|
Rating: |
*** |
|||
|
|
(Recommended) |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Prolific The latest
book from Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things :
Short Fictions and Wonders, collects 32 stories and poems that display
the range of this creative writer’s production. Gaiman’s
originality and imagination are displayed in this collection, as well as his
ability to write in the style of others (Lovecraft, Bradbury), always with
his own twist. Here’s an excerpt, all of the poem titled, “”My Life,” pp.
205-7: “My life? Hell, you
don’t want to hear about my life. Jesus, my
throat is dry. . . . A drink? Well, since
you’re buying, arid it’s a hot day, sure. Why
not. Just a little one. Maybe a beer. And a
whiskey chaser. lt’s good to drink, on
a hot day. Only Problem with drinking
is it makes me remember. Amid
sometimes I don’t want To remember. I mean,
my mom: there was a woman. I never knew
her as a woman But I seen photographs
of her, before the operation. She
said I needed a father, And seeing my own
father had dumped her after he regained
his eyesight. (following A blow on the head
from a Burmese cat. which jumped from a penthouse apartment window and fell Thirty stories,
miraculously striking my father in exactly the right place to restore his
sight, And then landing
uninjured on the sidewalk. proving it’s true what they say about Cats always landing on
their feet) claiming he had thought he was marrying her twin sister Who looked completely
different, but had, through a miracle of’ biology, exactly the same
voice Which was why the
judge granted the divorce, closed his eyes and even
he couldn’t tell them apart. So my father walked
out a free man, and on the way from the court he was struck on the
head By detritus falling
from the sky; there was folks said it was lavatorial
waste from a plane Though chemical
examination revealed traces of elements unknown to science, and it said In the papers that the
fecal matter contained alien proteins,
but then it was hushed up. They took my father’s
body away for safekeeping. The government gave us a receipt Though in a week it
faded, I guess that it was something in the
ink, but that’s another story. So then my mom
announced I needed a man around the house and it was going to be
her, And she worked a deal
with that doctor so when the two of’ them won the Underwater Tango
contest He agreed to change
her sex for nothing. Growing up I called her
Dad, and knew none of this. Nothing else
interesting has ever happened to me. Another drink? WeII, just to keep you
company maybe, another beer, and don’t forget the whiskey, Hey, make it a double.
It isn’t that I drink, but it’s a hot day, arid even when you’re Not a drinking man . .
. .You know, It was just such a day
as this my wife dissolved. I’d read about the people who blew up, Spontaneous
combustion, that’s the words. But Mary-Lou—---that was my wife’s name, We met the day she
came out of her coma, seventy years asleep and hadn’t aged a day, It’s scary what
ball-lightning can do. And all the people on that submarine, Like Mary-Lou, they
all were froze in time, and after we were wed she’d visit them, Sit by their bedsides,
watch them while they slept. I drove a
truck, back then. And life was good. She
coped well with the missing seven decades, and me, I like to think that
if The dishwasher had not
been haunted—well, possessed, 1 guess, would be more
accurate—— She’d still be here
today It preyed upon her mind, and the only exorcist that we could get Turned out to be a
midget from and actually not a priest at all, For all he had a
candle, bell, and book. And by coincidence, the very day my wife, All haunted by the
washer, deliquesced—went liquid in our
bed—my truck was stole. That was when I left
the States to travel round the world. Arid life’s been dull
as ditchwater since then. Except… but no, my mind is
going blank. My memory’s been
swallowed by the heat. Another drink? Well, sure. . . .” There’s much
about Gaiman’s work that appeals to teens and young
adults. Readers wanting to sample the range of his skills can receive him in
small doses on the pages of Fragile Things.
Steve Hopkins,
May 25, 2007 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2007
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Fragile
Things.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
