Thoughts on Stardust

Wow, that post title sounds really profound, doesn't it? Let me disabuse you of this notion of profundity. I intend merely to expound upon my reading experience of Neil Gaiman's Stardust (in unintentionally highfallutin' vocabulary) because it has been so long since I've read it, at this point, that a legitimate review seems near to impossible.

For one, I have the feeling that Stardust defies a plot synopsis. It's a fairytale. There are a lot of ins and outs that probably won't make sense until you peruse the pages. Boy has one night stand with girl in Faerie world which happens to be just across the way (or the wall if we want to be perfectly clear). Union results in son. Son, not knowing his true origins, sets out for the land of Faerie to retrieve a fallen star for his one true love, so that she will marry him or at least maybe give him the time of day. Hapless hero soon discovers, amid numerous action-packed side stories of brothers fighting to the death for their right to rule and witches trying to replenish their beauty and immortality, that, oh yeah, maybe his one true love is not his actual one true love, and his actual one true love is, well, someone rather unlikely. I think you get my drift. It's a fairy tale! To say too much would spoil its magic, so enough with this plot synopsis stuff!

We talk of the kings and queens of Faerie as we would speak of the kings and queens of England. But Faerie is bigger than England, as it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of tme, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn't there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is by now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain). Here, truly, there be Dragons.

This is a great story. So great in fact that somebody made a movie out of it, not that great stories are necessarily required for some dingbat to try to make a movie out of a book, but I digress. And the movie Stardust? Well, I saw it first, and I wish I hadn't. If I had read this book before seeing the movie I probably would have loved it. Having seen the movie, which is not completely true to the book but not too untrue to it either, kind of wrecked the book for me. It was like watching an episode of one of your favorite TV shows, but it's a re-run. I enjoyed it, but already having an idea of what was going to happen kind of took away from the experience. It seems like this feeling, also, exempts me from being able to write a legitimate review of Stardust as well.

There's no doubt that Gaiman really created a great story here, though, a story that works equally well, if you ask me, in the book and on screen. I loved the movie, and most of that can be chalked up to Gaiman's vivid and imaginative storytelling. And it's a fairy tale! That somebody wrote recently! For grown-ups! Even the thought of it is rather delightful!

Now for some really, utterly random thoughts that will only make sense to those who have read the book and/or seen the movie:

I liked how in the movie, the dead brothers were funny, but I also liked how, in the book, each time the dead brothers spoke, it was likened to some passing sound - the rustle of a curtain, the breeze blowing through the bushes, etc.

I missed the we'll say "more interesting" aspects of the Captain's character as played by Robert De Niro in the movie.

I also kind of enjoyed the juiced up movie ending, with the thing and the thing and the drama and the action, and the other thing that happened, all of which I can hardly even allude to for fear of the inevitable spoiler. Well, actually maybe it was a bit too Terminator, and the book's somewhat softer, gentler arrival is actually preferable. I can't decide.

I have, however, decided that I would like movie Stardust for Christmas, and that book Stardust can't unseat Neverwhere as my favorite Gaiman.

If you happen to be looking for an actual review, I might recommend...

Becky's Book Reviews
The Bluestocking Society
Trish's Reading Nook
Musings of a Bookish Kitty

And you? How about you? Have you read Stardust or watched it? Or both? What did you think? How does the movie compare for you, if you've seen it? Will you buy it for me for Christmas?

On Chesil Beach By Ian McEwan

So, here's this book I've been waiting and waiting to review. It's not that I didn't like it. I did. It's that everybody read and/or reviewed it pretty much already, and I'm not sure I have anything meaningful to add to the discourse. I'm sure I didn't exactly get all the cool literary things McEwan did with it, and I'm sure he probably did buckets of said cool literary things. I'm also sure that I don't quite understand all the societal forces in play in this tiny slip of a novel, all of which means I won't be able to offer you the wide-ranging, deeply perceptive big picture primo lit crit you are accustomed to seeing here on Leafing Through Life. Ahem, stop laughing. Anyhow, as you can see, of course, I am merely hedging to avoid starting the review, and I simply should not hedge anymore given the strikingly few books I am managing to get reviewed of late (Ultimate Bad Book Blogger 2009 trophy, I'm still coming for you!). And this is one of my Dewey Challenge books so I really need to just get this done. Really. Like, right now.



On Chesil Beach is the story of Edward and Florence on their wedding night. The novel follows as the couple blunders through the first few hours of their wedded life, one excited and the other horribly repulsed by the idea of what's immediately to come. As the newlywed couple draws ever nearer to consummating their union, they discover that they are ill-prepared in their naivete and lack of true knowledge of each other not only for this, their wedding night, but also for their entire future together.

Using the lengthy uncomfortable moments between the marriage and the doing of the deed, McEwan expertly weaves together the couple's past and their present. In just over two hundred pages he chronicles their first meeting, their falling into sweet, if ultimately superficial love for each other, and the unfortunate consequences of an evening that could have ended very differently. Even as the two contemplate their pasts and futures, their conflicting feelings about the moment at hand are ever present in McEwan's narrative.

On Chesil Beach is a very big book in scope that is, physically, quite small. It is a book in which very little actually happens, and much to McEwan's credit, it's very unlikely that most readers will notice the lack of action. In fact, On Chesil Beach hums along at a pace that never feels laborious which seems to be ever a danger in books such as this. McEwan has created a tightly written and stunningly realistic portrait of an innocent couple on their wedding night, showing us two people who barely know themselves attempting to become one. Beautifully wrought description, imagery, and characterization bring both the wedding night and the retrospective scenes of the beginnings of Edward and Florence's relationship to life in all their minute intricacies. Using his newlyweds who seem to be virtual strangers even on their wedding night, McEwan beautifully brings home the point that we can never really know another person completely, and maybe love isn't quite all you need when it comes to sustaining a relationship.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Ah, methinks the Christmas reading funk has come to an end. Which is good, because it seems that Christmas has now passed. In keeping with my (new) tradition, I finished a great (if emotionally wrenching) book on Christmas day itself. That book is How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. And, I'll tell you, it was so good that I didn't even notice that it had nary a quotation mark until at least halfway through.


How I Live Now begins with the 15-year-old and obviously troubled Daisy arriving in England to spend the summer with her aunt and four cousins that she barely knows. Leaving life in New York where the weight of people's pity that her mother died in childbirth combined with life with her "evil" and now pregnant step-mother is a relief for Daisy whose desperation to be loved mixes all up with using self-starvation as a weapon against parents who don't seem to understand. Daisy finds solace at her Aunt Penn's isolated farmhouse where her odd but affectionate cousins wrap her up in their idyllic world where school consists of reading books and communication is totally possible even outside the limitation of speech.

I made up my mind to ask Aunt Penn some of these questions when she came back from Oslo but I guess what you really want to know are the things you can't ask like Did she have eyes like yours and When you pushed my hair back was that what it feels like to have your mother do it and Did she ever have a chance to look at me with a complicated expression like the one on your face, and by the way Was she scared to die.

As the summer wears on, Daisy is sure that she's found a place she can belong in the Back of Beyond with her cousins, Osbert, the eldest, who feels some responsibility for the rest but can't be troubled to do much about it; Piper, the youngest, who eagerly sweeps Daisy into their lives with her disarming sweetness; and twins Isaac and Edmond, the former who seems to be able to talk to animals but is strikingly wordless among people and the latter who Daisy feels a bit more for than is generally acceptable in a cousinly relationship. Even as Daisy begins to live her truest life, it is crumbling around her as a war sneaks into the countryside, upending all of their lives forever.

...sometimes I forgot to count Isaac because he could go days without saying a single word. I knew Aunt Penn wasn't worried about him because I heard her say to someone that he'd speak when he was ready to speak, but all I could think was in New York that kid would have been stuck in a straitjacket practically from birth and dangled over a tank full of Education Consultants and Remedial Experts all snapping at his ankles for the next twenty years arguing about his Special Needs and getting paid plenty for it.

How I Live Now is beyond description. The summary covers only the barest bones of a story that is surprisingly unique and oddly magical. Daisy is a brilliant teen narrator, obviously damaged and cynical when it comes to her life thus far and also desperately vulnerable and in need of love in a way few around her seem to understand. Her narration races along in stream of consciousness style with capital letters used frequently for emphasis in a way that is decidedly teenage. It crackles with insight and captures her cousins from an outsider's inside point of view, picking up on their sort of spiritual wavelength even when she is yet unable to be a part of it.

The beginning of the story paints her Aunt's run-down country farmhouse like a paradise and her cousins like Daisy's long lost soulmates, just as Daisy must see them. So, then, it is that much more jarring when a war begins in a decidedly non-traditional sense, slowly slashing paradise to pieces, separating the cousins, and subjecting them all to the harsh realities of an ultimately violent enemy Occupation. Even then, though, Daisy is finding herself and living a truer life than ever before as she discovers real love and learns that she would do anything to live for it.

I wanted to tell someone that this was it, the end, I couldn't go on any more with my own misery plus Piper's, which was so much worse. I felt full of rage and despair, like Job shaking his fist at God, and all I could do was sit with her and stroke her hair and murmur enough, enough, because that's what we'd both had.

Read it. It's awesome. It's definitely not the kind of book that you'll be quick to forget.

Read other reviews at:

Things Mean A Lot
In Search of Giants
Ink and Paper
Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops

Dewey's Books Challenge

Despite my dismal failure at nearly every challenge I try, I'm going to have to give Dewey's Books Challenge a try, if only to try and honor her memory through reading. I'm sure you've all heard about this one by now, so I won't go on about the details - that's what the link's for! Anyhow, I'm going with option number 2 which is to choose and read 5 books that Dewey reviewed on her blog. Because I'm determined to succeed, I'm trying to make my list as easy as possible for me to accomplish, including mostly books that I already intend to read in 2009 and perhaps, uh, one that I've read already. Here's my list, which is, of course, subject to change upon my whims.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Stardust by Neil Gaiman

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