|
|
 |
Neil Gaiman.
"Most authors exist in a state of vague famousness," explains Neil Gaiman. "I've never read a John Grisham novel but I sort of know who John Grisham is, and most people do, but I exist in this peculiar binary state. It's either 'what does he do, why on earth should I have heard of him?' or 'he's my favourite author, oh my god, I can't believe you're actually talking to him!'"
Gaiman, you see, has done the odd thing or two. Like, for example, write one of the most influential comic series ever (the epic 'Sandman'), books for younger readers ('Coraline' and 'The Wolves In The Walls'), scripts for TV and movies (his TV adaptation of his book 'Neverwhere', 'MirrorMask' and the soon-to-be-produced 'Beowulf'), several novels and a slew of shorter works. The reason for our conversation is the imminent publication of 'Anansi Boys', the sort-of sequel to his brilliant 'American Gods', which follows the progress of one of the supporting characters, the African trickster god Anansi. In an attempt to circumvent the brisk trade in uncorrected proofs on eBay there are only a couple of hundred pre-release copies in the world, and hence Gaiman sounds genuinely surprised and delighted when I tell him I've read it.
"Did it make you laugh?" he immediately asks. And yes, it did: in fact, at one point I laughed so heartily that I woke up my wife, who particularly didn't appreciate it when I read the relevant section to her at 2AM. "They never do! They are not properly grateful when you wake them up and read them the funny bits!"
It's certainly a much lighter read than its predecessor. "And that was very intentional. With 'American Gods' I wanted to write one of those big books that wins a lot of awards," he explains airily. "Funny books don't tend to get nominated. Like 'Good Omens': I wrote that with Terry Pratchett and then fifteen years later we look up and we're on the BBC's Hundred Best Good Reads thing, and that's lovely. It never won any awards, whereas 'American Gods' wound up getting tonnes of the buggers, and my personal theory on this is that it's a big serious book - it's very worthy," he says, mock-seriously. "People write academic papers on it. But what started to happen after 'American Gods' came out was one of the questions I'd always get asked was will Terry and I write a book together again. And I realised that there was this strange little cultural mien going on: that the way that we obviously wrote 'Good Omens' was that I must have written this intensely serious book and Terry danced behind me, scattering jokes like little flowers. So I thought 'well, I think it's time I write a funny book on my own.' I wanted to write something that would make people feel better at the end of it than they were feeling at the beginning of it, like at the end of a good Shakespearean comedy: everybody's got what they needed."
Gaiman's done a lot of film work over the past few years has been on films, including several adaptations of his own work. As we discuss the horrible book-to-film adaptations of his friend and colleague Alan Moore I suggest that it seems the better the book, the worse the film. "But also most books are just too big: for my money, the two most successful Stephen King adaptations are 'Carrie' and 'Stand By Me', which are both novellas. They're much shorter than novels, and therefore become films with much more comfort. It's why I was happy to work on [the adaptation of his short comic series] 'Death: The High Cost Of Living', but had no desire whatsoever to be involved in any way the 'Sandman' film. With 'Death...' if you filmed the book you'd have a really good 43 minute film, so the fun there is expanding it, whereas with 'Sandman' you have to begin by chopping off its little fingers, then its toes, and before long you're hacking out the liver just trying to fit it into the box."
This leads into his upcoming film version of 'Coraline'. "It's directed by Henry Selick ['The Nightmare Before Christmas'], with music by They Might Be Giants." And that's where I have to stop him: never mind that Gaiman is responsible for a fair proportion of my favourite writing over the past decade or so - the bastard also gets to work with just about every other artist I adore. There's probably some bar somewhere...
"...where we all get together," he interrupts. "And talk about you and your wife, funnily enough. There's me, there's Stephin Merrit [The Magnetic Fields], Dave Eggers, Alan Moore, they all nip in... Actually, while it doesn't ever get quite like that, what's weird and wonderful is that everybody is a slightly different little nexus. One of my friends is Lemony Snicket [Daniel Handler], for example. And I know Daniel not because he's Lemony Snicket: Great Children's Author, I met him as The Magnetic Fields' occasional accordion player."
Speaking of which, Stephin Merritt is working on the children's opera of 'Coraline'. This man currently has The Magnetic Fields and They Might Be Giants writing music for him. Neil Gaiman, I put it to you: you're a bastard.
"Oh, I know!" he laughs. "I'm a lucky, lucky, lucky man."
Andrew P Street
 |
'Anansi Boys' is published worldwide on Fri 30 Sept through Hodder Headline.
|
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
