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Neil Gaiman may be a poster boy for the recent ascent of the Geek. The guy got his break writing comics. Comics. Comic books. He even wrote some superhero comics of all things. But now his voice can steer the vessel of popular interest. People are buying his movie rights before he finishes a writing project. He’s one of the writers many readers will recognize on sight. He’s the geek who made good. 

That all being said, I have yet to solidify my love for him. I appreciate a number of his works. I often parallel his tastes in writers (Wolfe, Mirrlees, Clarke, Chesterton). I respect his championing of “genre” fiction. But I have yet to give my heart entirely to his creative labors. And certain pieces of his sensibilities move contrary to my own. This has me hesitant to step into works that receive high praise as I know they have content I will abhor. So I slowly unpack his bibliography waiting to find a gem that will unite us two. 

Which brings me to beginning a new reading project by reading his first solo written novel, Neverwhere (1996). This accompanied the BBC mini-series of the same name that was released concurrently. I’ve long heard about the project and seen stills from the show, but if I am honest it lived a little ways down in my Gaiman queue. 

So why did I choose Neverwhere I don’t hear you ask? Well, it appears on TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time List, and after completing my MacDonald to Tolkien Fantasy reading, I wanted to shake up my next system of delving fairyland. While TIME’s list is deeply flawed, it put Neverwhere back on my radar and I thought, “Maybe this is the Gaiman work that will win me.” It was also on sale. 

And thus a new adventure into mythopoeia begins. 

To pop your non-existent tension, this was not the key that unlocked Gaiman for me. That being said, it is ultimately a fun ride. It has a lot of Gaimanisms: if you know his work, you’ll see parallel characters, scenarios, and themes. And while the book isn’t spotless from the profane, it is also not as severe as some of his other work. I will still send people to The Graveyard Book (2008) first (with the caveat that Kipling did it better), but Neverwhere succeeds in some ways Graveyard failed. 

Neverwhere is what I would call an Incursion Fantasy—it is similar to Looking-glass or Portal Fantasy, but the world of Fairy actually intertwines with the “real” world. Our “hero” Richard Mayhew is a mundane Londoner living a dull and sterile life in London Above. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but his by-the-numbers existence gets rocked by the sudden appearance of a girl from the hidden and mysterious London Below. (I didn’t mean actually stop me. Listen, just ride this out. I’ll try not to go on too long. (edit: I failed))

Richard becomes our perspective for wandering the wonders (and horrors) of London Below where the forgotten of society dwell. Fantasy literature loves the outcast because its primary audience feels outcast. To some extent this is a self-fulfilling cycle, but Gaiman is contributing to the spin. Taking the feeling and making it literal, our character finds himself invisible to everything and everyone that made up his life of normalcy. His personal stated quest throughout is to restore his life. He wants to be visible by London Above. But you know how it will turn out….

As for London Below, there’s a lot of Gaiman at play here, the fantastic inverts reality. We walk a mirror world where Blackfriars, London actually contains friars in black robes. We have rat-speakers, marquises, barons, england-old assassins, an angel—there are creative pictures painted.

It tickled my imagination. I enjoyed my time in Gaiman’s world. I felt some camaraderie with the dregs of London Below. I understood the invisibleness of the other. 

A common struggle I have with Gaiman is his propensity to begin making a world and for lack of edges he drops the thing before it clarifies. And to be myself clear, I don’t mean that he leaves too many things unwritten and with subtle strokes leaves it in the reader’s camp to discern. For my money, it has felt like his vagueness is caused by shallowness. As both a reader and student of Gene Wolfe, Gaiman is clearly attracted to subterfuge, but I have rarely had the sense that Gaiman has as much behind the papier-mâché. London Below and thus Neverwhere does feel more enfleshed, though. 

But there were two realms that felt like they could have launched his fey into another stratosphere, however. First, Doors. Not Door, who is our female lead, but Doors—though they are related. Gaiman presents an idea of doors which speaks to the romance of every door. The two-headed god Janus was excited for his time to shine. But while this gets used as an inconsistent power and a part of our macguffin, it lies fallow as a theme. It goes kind of like, “Hey, aren’t doors rich with theme-y stuff? Why don’t you run with that, I’m too busy writing.”

Our second element of worldbuilding that I believe could have made London Below so much, dare I say, deeper, is its ties to London’s history. There are little moments of it. Small hints of the secret history of Lud’s Town. But the particular way he managed this felt like a couple tacks on the wall. His hints went small rather than expansive. As soon as your mind was excited by the secrets, they were revealed and shut. That being said, my recent trip to London made the geography of Neverwhere very tangible, which was splendid. 

Another Gaimanic struggle I have had, especially with his novels I have read, is his endings. Similar to his above work of subterfuge, a work like The Graveyard Book feels like Gaiman just runs out of steam and cuts things short before people realize he didn’t have that much under the hood. I will say Neverwhere’s ending felt complete. If maybe lackluster. And trust me, you can write the epilogue. At least as far as the plot. So he does end it. It just ends without saying anything.

Which does bring us to Gaiman’s prose. This is one of the things Gaiman is known for. Silky smooth prose, best read in his voice. Neverwhere feels toned down. His skill is apparent. But he minimizes flourish. For his first solo novel, I can appreciate the restraint. And the little smart moments he litters throughout gave me a thrill. But if you want to experience his best prose you’ll want to hunt elsewhere. 

Ultimately the world and its building is a positive for the work, but the story and its characters never speak. What do I mean? The attention is on the oddness of the world: the characters don’t speak to who you are as a human being. At least not beyond a purely elementary level. This is best shown in the quest. Is there a quest that drives this fantasy story forward? Yes. Jokingly associated with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), we are solving a mystery that has sat oddly untouched for years. And Richard’s quest to go home. The strange delay and introduction to the mystery impair a sense of urgency. The primary urgency of the piece are our two terrible loveable odd-ball prehistoric assassins, who are literally hired to move our protagonists forward in the story. 

Richard is not just the “normal man” but he’s intentionally terrible at the Quest. The character has been redone so many times, but his big moment of triumph in the book has no teeth. You don’t feel the accompanying triumph. Essentially he triumphs over being a loser. And is still going to take until the end to realize what you knew would be the case from the beginning. 

Gaiman’s quest doesn’t speak. 

So come for his inverted London that does. 

Neverwhere (1996) (Novel)  +1*

*my rating scale is from -2 (strong dislike) to +3 (sings to my soul)

rigor

She had forgotten the day but not the year. Time was counted in division from the Collapse. Today is 12 AC. Tomorrow is 12 AC. Tuesday is 12 AC. Time works in many fits and the occasional annual start. The rest is noise. 

Her conversations are looped so she can ignore the day. Interruption causes ripples of reparation toward her still life pose. Her stasis forgets the excitement after an Advil. 

The diner has fallen into her temporal molass [sic]. Customers are the beat of the clock. Fred, her midnight, always tells of the same girl. He changes the name but the wheel spins about the circle. Shannon has her dreams—the life paradoxical. All of it and none of it at once. She's 3 AM. 5 is her favorite. 5 is our poet of no words. Burdened with the world's ignorance, he makes her feel better about herself. 

The travelers are ignored. They reek of adventure. They speak of fantasy lands. They want her to orbit their fame. They leave exalted, grateful for the drink of gasoline that carries them from nowhere. And she takes an Advil. 

The Year 12 AC. 

But there weren't enough Advils in the world for the Nissan that just broke down out front. Nor a calendar ready to note the two days sitting within. 

caladrius

Faithless bird of the white down. Your healing gaze tarries with kings. My villein cry falls to the shadow valleys. But to expiring hope you sing a note to lift my ear. And I rise once more to find you.

Caladrius. Caladrius. Faithless bird of the white down. You heal but you turn your head. You turn your head from me. 

Carry my sickness. Look upon my malady. Fly it away to expiring stars. 

I call and you silence. I wander and you secret. 

Your siren note resonates eternal. Forth from a fleshy wingéd thing. The impossible bound in dove. Where did you learn this song, faithless bird? How did you learn my name?

Your eye is the road to rest. Gaze it once on me.

A curious response to the novel The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

cabrillo

I meet the fellow on the way from here to then. I know it is best that he fails to recognize me, however it hurts a little when this occurs. The greatest shock is when a conversation starts between us two strangers. I don’t know who speaks first, but my haunted look probably initiates the pleasantries. Our uncanny kinship brings us both into deeper conversational waters than we can tread.

I play to his ignorance, dancing in the fear of discovery. But soon my questions become a herd directed through the gates of time. Memory coalesces into answers he can’t give. He assembles words that frustrate him in their impotence. And I know this boy who pretends to be a man. 

With a tremble he shares a broken tale. Expectation seizes him as he awaits my reply. And I break his heart when I give false praise. But for me it is a dead thing that haunts me in resurrection.

This child fears the wrong things in his beauty. I want to warn him of the real monsters. But he has to break in the proper hands. It is his hopes that crush me. The songs in his step are a pied piper. They prance him along cliffs and briar. He has stumbled often already but I can see his future abrasions. 

I lose the words of his voice as my mind wanders the years. My eyes watch the scarless hands weave a word. They cut the air in expression. And I forecast their toil. I find them incapacitated tomorrow. 

Then my mind wends selfish, and I wonder what he sees. Perhaps a prescience keeps him from inquiry. Does he know? I know this is not what he wants. I know it in my bones. But would he be proud to follow the phantom’s steps?

The question I can never ask breaks my mask: I excuse myself before my emotion unwraps itself before my stranger. I take hurried limping steps without looking back. I add a cut to him in the confusion of his fellowship. But I must flee.

I find myself wandering in stilted steps. I am far afield. I fight the battle of this question. I pretend to know the lad but his answer scares me. I feel a promised shame in the mystery. 

But I remember the hope in his eyes. Battered and bruised, a smile slants his starboard. I hear his laugh in tears. I remember the dead stories reborn into new. I know the love crafted into him by the wind. Deserts ache with beauty that some struggle to see. 

And I realize his answer is mine.

window

The darkness of the here is warmed by the eternal distance. Boats of adventure and freedom are behind the closed portal. Enclosed above and before by green life, dark in its shadow. Friedrich longs for what is before. Sadness and hope entertwine. Beauty amidst shadow. Removal and distance, with a longing gentle air.

The decay of day ushers our mind to eternity. Repose without peace. Man’s craft before God’s. Cycles unending. And the plight of a soul. Upon the border. Stuck in the portal. Limited expanse. Concealed glory. 

Our gates to home. Ascending light as the artist wonders. Hide our wonder. In stone and mystery. Where do we tread? What is withheld? Do we bind the dead or are we bound from the height? Can the living understand the gateway? Walls shroud our sight.

Fear and wonder at play. A thrust down and a cast upward. The porthole to a golden dissolution. Our theater exhibited by three. Disdain, despair, and disport. Alien lands confound but concentrate our view. 

Limits. Verdant but confined. We are given a promise with no result. Unless we fall in and find a barque of dreams. What are you looking for? What is through the door? Does she call her beloved, son or lover? Does her slant give motion? Contrapposto to the vessel. Escape? Does she travel the seas with her mind, trapped in a gown of allure. 

The world without limits. Door ajar. Gates asplinter. Void. Black bands of fear. No ship transports our monk. Deathly rock, mystery before, God ascendant. The Expanse stretches Its arms. It smiles death. But He said, “Come.”

All paintings by Caspar David Friedrich

volant

 Severian

“”Through the window and door I could look out unseen on all the bright life of tree and shrub and grass outside. The linnets and rabbits that fled when I approached could neither hear nor scent me there. I watched the storm crow build her nest and rear her young two cubits from my face. I saw the fox trot by with upraised brush; and once that giant fox, taller than all but the tallest hounds, that men call the maned wolf, loped by at dusk on some unguessable errand from the ruined quarters of the south. The caracara coursed vipers for me, and the hawk lifted his wings to the wind from the top of a pine. 

“A moment suffices to describe these things, for which I watched so long. The decades of a saros would not be long enough for me to write all they meant to the ragged apprentice boy I was. Two thoughts (that were nearly dreams) obsessed me and made them infinitely precious. The first was that at some not-distant time, time itself would stop . . . the colored days that had so long been drawn forth like a chain of conjuror’s scarves come to an end, the sullen sun wink out at last. The second was that there existed somewhere a miraculous light—which I sometimes conceived of as a candle, sometimes as a flambeau—that engendered life in whatever objects it fell upon, so that a leaf plucked from a bush grew slender legs and waving feelers, and a rough brown brush opened black eyes and scurried up a tree.”

—The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

Once more we see life from the tomb. Even birth. From the home of ship, rose, and fount. If symbols live, our apprentice is declaring allegiance once more. The escutcheon of a procured nobility heralds the promise of his days. 

But cast in the light and darkness of his visions. The End and Beginning. The expected demise with a rebirth to greater life. Our humble narrator of the neverforget is framing the quest with nary a wizard at hearth (nor sepulcher). Casting visions from the tomb, our lost boy, sees the conclusion but the hope.

New better life we know the Conciliator gifts through talons. Splinters. Promise. Dead raised. 

“Darkness closed over me, but out of the darkness came the face of a woman, as immense as the green face of the moon. It was not she who wept—I could hear the sobs still, and this face was untroubled, and indeed filled with that kind of beauty that hardly admits of expression. Her hands reached toward me, and I at once became a fledgling I had taken from its nest the year before in the hope of taming it to perch on my finger, for her hands were each as long as the coffins in which I sometimes rested in my secret mausoleum. They grasped me, pulled me up, then flung me down, away from her face and from the sound of sobbing, down into the blackness until at last I struck what I took to be the bottom mud and burst through it into a world of light rimmed with black.”

 —The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

Fenrir accounts the baptism an ejection from the underworld. Its Mother casting out the refuse. In death he hears the dead. Who keens? His lost matron? The coming one? Has time folded? 

Nenuphar crown the burial, and decorate the deceased. Life amongst the mire. In contrast to our torturers bloom. Yet both discourage and repel. 

To what is our Jack Ketch reborn? To follow our Locksley? It seems this sunders his home. No longer at rest. He descends to burst forth. He fell through the underworld. There was no work of climbing nor willful aspiration. Our severian is swept along by bandits, symbols, stygian mothers. Visions promises his path. The coin his duty. The coat of arms his call. 

Guiltless? Worthless? But it is his tongue . . . carved by the wily wolf. 

isengrim

  Resurrection and Death

“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life—they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.”

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

We wait on the baptism of death and invert the process of life’s end, but the cunning Wolf decides this is the Moment. We are promised the water but we get the grave. Symbols transforming beyond knowledge. Our little apprentice is now a thing greater than himself. In his revivified corpse, he spies a corpse fly. 

New life purchased by a purpose dimly held. 

Why? I suppose the cunning one elicits this. This or surrender. Mastery or tomfoolery? 

But is our knowledge mystic? Are we seeking madness? Where do the words pivot? Idea to thing. Where’s the step? Or it is no idea lest it enact? We can discount the nonactive symbol as nothing at all? Is this Isengrim’s claim? 

And then there is the divide of the lupine and the severe. Which is whom? Which is more unreliable? 

“Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. I understood the principal intuitively that night as I heard the last volunteer swing the gate closed behind us.”

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

What, in the gates closing, sparks the sensation? Locked to a grave, by darkness held: reality becomes the pockets of diffused light. Upon narrow bones he runs to night. Was it all fusing before his fear? And so our Locksley a beacon in the entwining morass? And fresh from rebirth phenomenon questioned. 

These connect and invite but is the culprit caught? A parlor room accusation? Isengrim grins from his grave. 

Here we start. Where do we end? The throne of course. But of what substance?