Fragile things

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

I have not read anything else by Neil Gaiman, though I have started reading The Graveyard Book. I am not sure (yet again) what to say about this book. Many of the pieces are very brief, many are not exactly stories, all of them are totally bizarre. I think my favourite was one about a student going to interview an elderly woman who turns out to be Susan from the Narnia stories. Gaiman's writing comes across as somewhat stream-of-consciousness, as if an idea occurs and he just runs with it in the moment, but who knows, maybe every word is meticulously planned.

I am just going to quote the final part of my other favourite, it is called The Day the Saucers Came:

That day, the saucer day the zombie day

The Ragnarok and fairies day, the day the great winds came

And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day

All the plants died, the plastics dissolved, the day the

Computers turned, the screens telling us we would obey, the day

Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,

And all the bells of London sounded, the day

Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,

The fluttering capes and arrival of the Time Machine day,

You didn't notice any of this because

you were sitting in your room, not doing anything,

not even reading, not really, just

looking at your phone,

wondering if I was going to call.

I am not going to be able to do justice to the variety and ingenuity of this book so I'll just leave it at that.