Year: 2007

Finished Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Fangirls and fanboys know Gaiman as the author of the Sandman graphic novel series and American Gods, among other things.

Fragile Things is a book of literary, fantasy short stories Gaiman has written over the years, with a few poems thrown in for flavor. There’s a little bit of everything in the book. October in the Chair imagines the months of the year as people telling tall tales around a fire. A Study in Emerald is sort of a Sherlock Holmes story in reverse.

Most of the stories are pretty dark and bleak though, like Keepsakes and Treasures, in which a mob-like enforcer talks about killing people and doing other unsavory things for his employer. 

Perhaps the most disturbing story for me was The Problem with Susan, which imagines what happened to Susan in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books (she’s the sister who didn’t die and go back to Narnia aka heaven with the other kids). I will never think about Narnia the same way again (A note to my friend Amy: you probably don’t want to read this story. It is that icky at the end).

If you’re looking for easy resolutions and tidy endings, Gaiman is not the guy to read. Most of the stories are ambiguous, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about what happens next. Still, the stories made me think and made me interested in reading more of Gaiman’s work. (My significant other has been pestering me to read American Gods for months now).

So, thumbs up.

Another note: To Sam of the Ten Thousand Things, if you haven’t read Gaiman yet (although you probably have), you should read this book. It is the kind of thing you would love, and it reminded me of several things we read back in AP English.

Up next: Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund.

Finished A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore.

Bizarre. That’s the word I would use to describe this book. It’s about Charlie Asher, a so-called “Beta Male.” Like all Beta Males, Charlie is a sweet, shy, somewhat awkward guy who worries more than he should. Charlie is the sort of guy who only eats yellow mustard. It’s plenty spicy and dangerous enough for him. That’s how Moore describes Charlie. Seriously.

When Charlie’s wife dies, he becomes a “Death Merchant,” a sort of deputy to Death who collects soul vessels from people who have died and keeps them out of the hands of the sewer harpies (nasty things that want to take over the world). And it goes on from there, with Charlie having one misadventure after another as a Death Merchant while trying to raise his infant daughter by himself.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started A Dirty Job, and I don’t quite know how to describe it without spoiling the whole book. I suppose the best thing to say is that Moore is like Terry Pratchett — on drugs.

The book starts out pretty slowly, but picks up speed after Charlie realizes what he’s become. One thing that bothered me was the lack of a timeline. It seems like whole months and years pass in the space of a few chapters. The only way I could tell how long Charlie had been a Death Merchant was by keeping track of how old his daughter was.

The book really falls apart in the third act, which goes from bizarre to just crazy and rather icky in places. It’s like Moore felt he had to go even farther over the top than he already had. Speaking as someone who writes over the top, it was a little too much for even me to swallow. He also throws in a character at the very end that I don’t think he really needed.

I enjoyed Moore’s breezy writing style, and he really knows how to describe characters and settings in fun, original ways (like the mustard description). There’s a great bit near the end where he describes a car (I think it’s a Cadillac) as a death machine. Priceless.

But the book really didn’t satisfy me in the end because the big showdown was so ridiculous and drawn out.

So, no thumbs up, thumbs down. I have to give A Dirty Job a split decision just because I don’t know if I would read another book by Moore after this one.

Up next: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman.