The Mundane as an Inspiration: Neil Gaiman's "The View From the Cheap Seats"

I listened to this on audio, and I still don’t think you get as deep an experience ‘reading’ an audiobook as you do interacting with a dead tree book. You can’t argue with it or find a pen to underline the passages you like or highlight where you went wrong.

But on the plus side, you do get to hear Neil’s sweet, mellifluous voice (or you think that because you’re an American and all British people sound musical and smart, even low-class chavs. True story, when I was a kid I my dad was in the army and there were a lot of different nationalities around, and on the bus I befriended a kid a couple grades younger than me because I was intrigued by his accent.)

Here’s the other plus side. These bits are from real life, and listening to them made me want to read more. I already went and bought books from a couple of authors he wrote about. I reread Good Omens when I was listening to this, and I bought the whole of the Long Earth Series (Pretty much the last of the Pratchett I haven’t read. In a way, I was saving it up.) I also finally bough Delaney, but haven’t started Dahlgren.

Then the other plus plus side. It makes you want to write more. I’m here writing this because reading about the everyday of authors you like makes the process more real and more accessible. I forget who he was quoting, but in one of the essays, Neil was talking about a prolific author and being asked how you do it, and the answer was pretty much 200 horrible words a day. I eschew quotes there because my memory is imprecise.

So, if you’re a reader or a writer or want to be a reader or someone who writes or someone who has once written, this is your book.

On Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"

Here’s the problem with having seen the movie based on the book before reading the book: if the movie sucks, you’re pre-judging the book. 

But then sometimes you go back and read the book, and you wonder how in the heck the people making the movie took such interesting source material and then adulterated it so that it was almost unrecognizable. That happens here. There are two distinct stories, and as far as I recall, the movie didn’t use them at all. What’s up with that?

There is one thing that took me out of enjoyment though. There is this long Almanac of magical places, descriptive of places like where Alice Liddell fell down the rabbit hold. It is clever, but it is way too long and dry. I tried to read it, stopped, and then tried again. I finally decided that the payoff was not worth the effort and it was outside the main narrative so I’m not missing much having only read two thirds of it.

Stand (The Only Poems I Write are Love Poems)

Against the wind

I will shelter you

As you will shelter me

Against the cold

I will give you warmth

As you share yours with me

Against the fire

We will run, your hand

In mine and mine in yours

Even

In the face of Apocalypse

We will stand together

No matter the adversary.