Opening a book of short works by Neil Gaiman is like tearing into a box full of wrapped presents, confident and expectant that peeling away the paper from each gift will reveal something wonderful and unexpected and rewarding.
The prodigious storyteller, well known for his “Sandman” graphic novels and books like “American Gods’ and “Anansi Boys,” writes Gothic fiction with a rock ‘n’ roll beat. He taps into the stories that are told from generation to generation, explores why we all implicitly understand these mythologies, and spins out thought-provoking fictions that yank the reader out of complacency while never failing to entertain.
Unfortunately, Gaiman’s latest collection, “Fragile Things,” feels more like a wank than a yank. Swamping the few gems that actually make the book worth reading are pieces of indulgent puffery and affected explorations of nothing.
Collected over several years, “Fragile Things” is a grab bag of previously published award-winning short stories and poems, even liner notes from CDs, and fiction that never found a home. Some of the works, like “October in the Chair,” where the months sit in a circle and tell tales, are stories-within-stories. Ultimately, the frameworks tend to be more compelling than the stories themselves.
That could almost be said for the introduction of the book, where Gaiman explains why he collected these pieces and the stories behind them. In some ways, the introduction is the most interesting part of the collection. But, just like in the works themselves, moments of brilliance about the craft of writing and the power of words give way to banal observations that don’t carry any weight. (And I wish that the story introductions had been placed before each piece, so that I didn’t have to keep referring back to the front of the book every time I started to read something new.)
But when the stories do work, they hum. Gaiman’s unique voice – mannered, as if even the tales that take place in the present day were written 100 years ago, yet contemporary and offbeat, conversational and fresh – juxtaposes Gothic tropes with a punk-rock heart, yet never becomes cynical. And when given the right vehicle, like the story “Harlequin Valentine,” where the Harlequin character, the archetypal trickster from the commedia dell’arte, visits a chilly Midwestern town, or “Sunbird,” which carries itself like a posh, clubby Jules Verne yarn from the 19th century, the stories invite the reader into Gaiman’s cozy-yet-unsettling milieu. The author’s darkly upbeat humor makes some of his stories funny and frightening all at once.
The real treasure in the book is a novella called “The Monarch of the Glen,” which catches up with Shadow, Gaiman’s protagonist from his novel “American Gods.” The hard-boiled, hulking son of Odin, finds himself wandering through Scotland and dealing with an odd new challenge. Watching him walks the fine line between the modern and the mythical is a true pleasure.
But “Fragile Things” is ultimately disappointing. Once the reader has opened up every little gift in the box, he or she is left with very little worth keeping; a few sweets to savor and enjoy, but nothing much of lasting pleasure.
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Fragile Things
By Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins, 400 pages, $26.95
