A more truthful title might have been ‘The Art of Being Neil Gaiman’. It’s a look back over all of his projects with a focus on how they evolved from events in his life. He doesn’t work so much as travel, make friends, read, watch things and people that form ideas that become other things, and eat sushi. The process of connecting is everything – connecting childhood to adulthood, thoughts to paper, ideas to people. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sections relating to his comics and graphic novels, where finding the right illustrator is so important. But it’s not just about the drawing. It’s about finding a person who can finish your sentences, and Gaiman’s life is blessed with those. That’s not to say I want to read about the bad stuff. It’s only that human curiosity dictates that we want to poke our noses around the corner of the unsaid, and there are those tantalising sentences in this book where you get the feeling something darker is lurking out of sight. I think, for me, the real strength of the book lay not in the description of Gaiman’s life lived as an artist, but in the quotes from him that remind us of how wonderful his writing is. In the sections that deal with his time as a writer learning a craft we get the sense of the terror, selfishness, luck and skill that lie at the heart of his art. He bullshits, networks, charms and then relies on talent to make it through, and his honesty about this makes him a very likeable figure. Considering how many projects he’s worked on there are bound to be areas of the book that interest a reader more than others, although as this isn’t a chronological journey it’s worth delving into the pages randomly just to see where you end up. As befits a film lover I found the chapter on Silver Screens to be fascinating, from his work on the scripts for Princess Mononoke and Beowulf to those projects that haven’t yet made it out of development. At one point he talks about how Mirrormask, his 2005 fantasy film, relates to Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, and I felt I could have easily read a whole book of non-fiction written by him simply on the subject of films he loves. If I’m very honest, I think I would have preferred that kind of book to this one. Being a Gaiman fan is, it turns out, a complicated business. If you know a fan and you want to buy them a great-looking present, The Art of Neil Gaiman might be a very good choice. If you’ve already fallen a little bit in love with the Neil Gaiman who creates characters that walk through your imagination on a daily basis, then you might consider if you want to see him through another set of eyes before you commit to this book. The Art Of Neil Gaiman will be published on Monday the 14th of July.
