Week 8 : Mythic Fiction & Contemporary Urban Fantasy

Neil Gaiman

"Stardust"

Neil Gaiman's book, "Stardust", also adapted into a film, is a fantasy novel involving faeries, magic, witches, spirits, and unicorns. I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan and have always loved his literary works. The main character, Tristran, a half faerie creature promises his lover, Victoria, a fallen star, but along the journey falls in love with the fallen star, Yvaine. When the film came out in 2007, I was about 15 or 16, and was so in love with the story and the imagery. It was such a beautiful and romantic film, and at the same time adventurous and exciting. 

When I was younger, I played a 'role-play' game with a friend, where we would wear cloaks on our bicycles, with swords in our belt loops, (super lame, i know), and ride around the neighborhood seeking 'magical flowers' from the neighbors' yards, and would collect pebbles but imagine they were powerful rubies and stars, all to bring back to our princess who awaited us at home (but really there was no princess, it was just a stuffed animal), and this game was called 'Quest'. It was probably the silliest thing i've ever engaged in, but in some way the film reminded me of this game, and almost created a world i had always wished to be a part of. 

Anyway, reading the book was sort of a different experience for me than watching the movie. I think the stories and characters were relatively consistent in both the film and novel, however, i found that having watched the movie prior to reading the book, I was a little bit let down. Of course it was a fantastic book, I found that the characters lacked a little bit of the realness and three dimensionality in the book, whereas in the film, they have weight and purpose.

Overall, both the film and the novel had excellent qualities, and with the exception of minor changes, remained consistent with one another. I enjoyed the film more than the book, because it was so visually appealing, and because each character was handled and developed so sensitively and the interactions between characters felt natural and fluid. Neil Gaiman is an excellent writer, and regardless, I would recommend the book to anyone who has or hasn't seen the film.