Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman and how I discovered the beauty of english prose in an airport

It's Novembre 2018 and I'm stuck at the airport because my flight is 4 hours late. I'm at the end of a short trip with friends, but in these cases not even having company can save you from the feeling that time stands still. Fortunately, there's a little bookshop inside the airport where I can spend some time. So I start reading random pages of random books to entertain myself, jumping from Andy Weir's The Martian to Michelle Obama's Becoming not looking for anything in particular. Among them there is Norse Mythology, a retelling of the body of myths of North Germanic people by Neil Gaiman. I already know Neil Gaiman, I know what he did in comics and how much important he is for this medium. In my early teens I've also read American Gods in italian,  my first encounter with contemporary literature and one of the first novels I've read without being an assignment from school. I've enjoyed it, but it didn't completely "click". I had a glimpse of Neil Gaiman's greatness but it also felt like something I couldn't still completely understand and I decided to postpone my digging through Neil Gaiman's comics and novels production until I thought I was "ready". Now I'm in this small bookstore inside the Prague Airport and I'm reading about that time Thor had to dress as a woman (it's a long story! If you're curious, I recommend you to pick up the book) and something clicks: I discover how much I like reading english prose and how beautiful Neil Gaiman's one is.

For those who are new to this blog: English is not my first language. I'm an italian guy living in Italy who has learned English through media (mostly TV series and comic books) while growing up and who has recently started to improve his english skills at university (I study languages). I read most of my comic books in english and I watch all of my movies and tv series in english. Maybe I'm not the best at writing in english, but I can easily understand it. Still, reading novels in english never appealed to me because I always thought that it would be exclusively hard and not entertaining at all. While reading comic books it certainly happens that I stumble upon words I don't know, but it doesn't happen so often and when it happens there's the visual context (comics, as you may know, are made of drawings and words) to help me grasp the meaning of the sentence or the scene. But in prose it's all words! And, of course, the chance of stumbling upon words I don't know increases a lot. Back to the Prague Airport reading Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology in a small bookshop while my flight is 4 hours late and I am indeed finding words I don't know, but I also realize that it's not frustrating at all. It's okay, they're not as many as I thought they would be (and maybe I thought they would be a lot only because I was still thinking myself as the kid-who-tried-to-read-in-english-and-failed I was years before) and even when they're more than a few it still is okay.

I love this Jae's Lee cover

In my opinion, one of the most common mistake we make is deciding to read (or watch) only things we think we can completely understand on the first try. This mindset precludes us a huge number of amazing pieces of art, implies that (for example) you can't read again a book you've already read to better undestand it and, in the end, misunderstands how the whole "understanding art" thing works. Understanding is like learning: you try, you fail, you improve. But you always have to try first. This is true both for reading a novel in a language you're not comfortable with or for reading that comic book series about that superhero you've always wanted to read but you never did because you think you should read every other comic book series about him/her that was written before.

For the last time, I am back in that bookshop reading some random pages from Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. I don't read enough pages to be able to express any opinion on the story, but I fall immediately in love with the english language, Neil Gaiman's prose and its music to the point of feeling the urge to buy a Neil Gaiman's book. At this point you're probably wondering why the title of this article contains the name of another Neil Gaiman's book instead of Norse Mythology. Well, the end of the story is simply that the bookshop accepted only czech crowns and I didn't have any, so I couldn't buy the book. Instead I ordered Fragile Things through Amazon for a really small price.

Now we can finally talk about Fragile Things. I've read it only recently because of many unrelated reasons and I loved every page of it. It's a collection of short story and poems that Gaiman wrote in various occasions. Going through its nearly 400 pages you can experience Neil Gaiman amazing mastery of creating characters and worlds that feel interesting and real even when dealing with supernatural stuff. His writing his so "natural" that makes you feel like if creating a world with a sentence was so easy.

Some of these stories are long enough to take you in small and engaging journeys while some others last just the time to light the sparkle of wonder in your mind. Some make you think about the nature of stories, like the beautiful The Mapmaker contained in the introduction (Don't! Don't skip the introduction by Neil himself! And don't be afraid to come back to it everytime you read one of the short tales) and some are "just" clever ideas that will make you smile. Sometimes it's all of these things at the the same time! Neil Gaiman is an amazing storyteller and he will take you through a hundred of worlds. If you're looking for something that's always the perfect time to read, this is a must.

I've got this edition by Harper Collins which is really nice. It's small and versatile, and the material chose for the cover feels really nice to the touch. It's the kind of book you like to hold in your hands, absolutely recommended.

And that's the story of how Neil Gaiman's reminded me how beautiful the english prose can be and of how I fell in love with his writing. This article came to be a lot longer than what was my original plan, I hope I didn't bore you. I'm really looking forward to read more Neil Gaiman's stuff and I'll keep you updated on my purchases and readings! If you don't want to lose any new post of my blog, you can follow the Facebook Page of Illustrated Lands or my personal Twitter account.