Book Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Date Started: June 29th 2013
Date Completed: July 2nd 2013
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance
Rating: Five stars
Review:
This is a really beautiful book. The story is so vivid, and somehow so innocent; it was just wonderful to read and I could picture everything happening with that magical glow that's only really generated in your mind when there's proper fantasy. It reminds me of the classic fairytales I used to read when I was a kid. It made me a bit nostalgic, to be honest.
Stardust begins in the old country village of Wall. Wall is named as such, after the wall cutting through the field on one side of the town - and the special thing about this wall is that the crack in the very middle of the brickwork, leads to another world if you step through it. We first follow Dunstan Thorn, a young, adventurous boy. When he returns across the wall late at night to revisit a beautiful women he met at the market that occurs once a year between the earthly folk of England, and the people on the other side of the wall, he's left with a surprise nine months later on his doorstep. Years later, his son, Tristan, decides to follow in his father's footsteps and cross the wall in order to find a falling star and win the hand of a very beautiful lady. But the star might not be everything he was expecting...
Neil Gaiman's writing is just wonderful. His fantasy is so vivid and engaging to read. Like other brilliant Faerie authors like Cornelia Funke and Holly Black, he's able to make the reader feel like they're in the places they're reading about.
The even better thing is that he isn't confined to one genre, like so many other authors. Although this is not particularly relevant to this novel, Gaiman is able to switch from fantasy, to paranormal, to mystery, to everyday troubling subjects, to murder mysteries, to science-fiction, to romance and back again. Although this is definitely a fantasy book, with a little bit of romance, I did pick up on the various influences he has in his writing.
I would guess that Stardust is one of Gaiman's older works, but his writing is so consistent, I honestly wouldn't be able to say for definite without looking it up. I'm always thrilled by everything he writes, no matter what genre, which is pretty impressive considering how picky I am about what I read and whether I think it's good or not.
The story was wonderful. The thing I really loved about it, was that it's potentially taking a risk. I think if I hadn't been so engaged by the writing or had loved the characters so much, I might have been put-off by the story. But the fact that everything worked together so well kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole thing.
It's the traditional sort of thing you read in fantasy: someone sets off on a quest for whatever reason and has many adventures on the way, before finally finding their way back to the start for a rather satisfying end. It could have been that the little adventures in the middle might have got boring, but actually the way they were told was so brilliant that I was always interested in what would happen next.
Stardust is a very short book, with less than 200 pages, and in a way I wish that more detail could have gone into the protagonist's adventures on their way back to Wall. Not because I think it was neglected, just because I wish there was more to read so that it went on for longer and we might have learnt a little bit more about them and Gaiman's world.
A little warning, it is quite slow to start off, but that's only if you're already aware of the story (which I assume most people are since the film came out a while ago. Something I will comment on later.)
The characters were amazing. I'm always quite confused in old-fashoined fairytales, because the story is usually quite detached from the protagonist so it's under to understand what they're feeling. It's very different from the majority of writing we have these days - but that's why I love Gaiman so much. I like, as a reader, being challenged to work out what's happening to the plot and people in the story, rather than being fed all the information in a really easy way. If the author is just going to tell us what's going on, I don't see much point in reading the book; I might as well see the film or listen to the audiobook. But by reading, I get my own experience from the book. So I want to work for it for it to be worth something.
Tristan was a very good protagonist because we really see him change. At the start, I think it's fair to say, he's a complete idiot. We all know the story of a boy who's falling for a girl and wants to do everything in his power to get her devotion - but Tristan takes this to a new level. (I mean, come on, he's willing to cross a wall into another world to get a star for her and bring it all the way back. Who does that?) Luckily, this changes pretty quickly and we see him progress through understanding his mistakes and righting them in his journey back to wall. We're almost unaware of it until very near the end. I was quite impressed by how slow this progression was, considering how quickly the story moves.
Yvaine was also wonderful. I love her stubbornness and short temper. The best thing is there's always a reason for her outbursts - which I always look forward to since they're very funny and brilliant to read - rather than just being there in order to try and get the reader to like the character.
The Stormhold brothers (I'm not listing them. I'm pretty sure I can only remember about three of them anyway...Primus, Sexus, Septimus...what did I tell you?) were a nice addition to the collection of characters. I think their involvement in the story was useful to let the reader understand what's happening on the political side of things. It was also just quite clever to have them there since we know a little bit more about this new fantasy world because of them.
Victoria Forester was much more different than I imagined her to be. When you hear about Tristan fawning over her and making a fool of himself in the process of getting her attention, we're led to believe that she's a bit of a bitch. But actually, she's a rather ordinary girl that made a bit of a mistake when she was flirting with him. And she very honourably knows that she must right it, despite the fact that it may cause her discomfort. I admire Victoria quite a lot, to be honest, and I think Gaiman did a very good job of including that other side of her.
The pace was mad. Just mad. The adventures of about half a year crammed into 194 pages. Madness. By then again, it is Neil Gaiman.
It was a little slow to start, since the whole first chapter is about Tristan's father - but it's just setting the story up, and is still very interesting to read.
After that, however, events take place so quickly that I had trouble keeping up some of the time. First Tristan was in one place and on the next page, he was halfway across the world somewhere else. So much happened in such little text, yet the reader still learns a great deal about what happens in each place they visit.
I can't think of any other way to describe it than completely mad. Just mad.
Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton need to do a film together. (Just a random thought there.)
I loved all the different points of view that the story was told from. Although the main protagonist is Tristan, and all the other stories also gravitate around him and the star, the other sub-plots were so brilliantly timed and included that I'd think of several of the characters as the main roles. It was also quite useful in keeping up with what was actually going on, since the people have very little, if any, contact with each other.
I don't usually like to link books with the film adaptations, since I stick with the saying 'the book is always better', but actually I do want to mention a few points.
The first of which is: Stardust the movie is in no way, shape or form an adaptation of this book. They're so different if I hadn't known of the connection, I would never have made it. The stories travel such different paths that I don't even think I can compare the two by saying which is best.
I absolutely love the film of Stardust; I think it's funny, engaging, thrilling, interesting; it's a wonderful love story and the world is breathtaking. The characters are original and perfect (especially the captain and Tristan.) It's one of my favourite films.
But the book is also wonderful and beautiful and magical and awe-inspiring. But for completely different reasons.
It's one of those cases (such as The Hunger Games, City of Ember etc etc) that's a very good film - but a completely terrible adaptation of the book.
After both seeing the film and reading the book, I wouldn't associate the two when recommending this title or the movie.
The ending was beautiful and, like the happy half (okay, maybe third...quarter....fifth?) of classic fairytales, ended on a twist that it very rarely anticipated. Again, it was the complete innocence of it that won me over. I just love the way that forgiveness is shown in some books, since I think it would be hard even for the reader to forgive and forget half the things the characters have done in the story.
I won't say it in case whoever's reading this has yet to read this book, but it's one of those endings that may be cheesy and cliche, but is actually a perfect display of mercy in human (well, not exactly human) nature.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy, adventure, romance etc. It's beautiful to read and the writing is of such a high quality, it's hard to compare to anyone else.
Any fan of Neil Gaiman's will also love it. His writing and stories just get better and better. This is the first adult novel of Gaiman's I've read, and it's still as enchanting as his younger writing.
If you're reading this because you liked the film, don't be disappointed when it's not what you were expecting. I'm sure you'll still love it, since the genre is still the same, and there definitely are similarities and links between the two - but the stories differ greatly from one another. But I like that: you're getting another story rather than just reliving one you already know in a different body.
Image Source: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/host.madison.com/
content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1d/f1d7173a-e7
fb-11e1-8b8c-0019bb2963f4/502d853be2738.preview-620.jpg
This is a really beautiful book. The story is so vivid, and somehow so innocent; it was just wonderful to read and I could picture everything happening with that magical glow that's only really generated in your mind when there's proper fantasy. It reminds me of the classic fairytales I used to read when I was a kid. It made me a bit nostalgic, to be honest.
Stardust begins in the old country village of Wall. Wall is named as such, after the wall cutting through the field on one side of the town - and the special thing about this wall is that the crack in the very middle of the brickwork, leads to another world if you step through it. We first follow Dunstan Thorn, a young, adventurous boy. When he returns across the wall late at night to revisit a beautiful women he met at the market that occurs once a year between the earthly folk of England, and the people on the other side of the wall, he's left with a surprise nine months later on his doorstep. Years later, his son, Tristan, decides to follow in his father's footsteps and cross the wall in order to find a falling star and win the hand of a very beautiful lady. But the star might not be everything he was expecting...
Neil Gaiman's writing is just wonderful. His fantasy is so vivid and engaging to read. Like other brilliant Faerie authors like Cornelia Funke and Holly Black, he's able to make the reader feel like they're in the places they're reading about.
The even better thing is that he isn't confined to one genre, like so many other authors. Although this is not particularly relevant to this novel, Gaiman is able to switch from fantasy, to paranormal, to mystery, to everyday troubling subjects, to murder mysteries, to science-fiction, to romance and back again. Although this is definitely a fantasy book, with a little bit of romance, I did pick up on the various influences he has in his writing.
I would guess that Stardust is one of Gaiman's older works, but his writing is so consistent, I honestly wouldn't be able to say for definite without looking it up. I'm always thrilled by everything he writes, no matter what genre, which is pretty impressive considering how picky I am about what I read and whether I think it's good or not.
The story was wonderful. The thing I really loved about it, was that it's potentially taking a risk. I think if I hadn't been so engaged by the writing or had loved the characters so much, I might have been put-off by the story. But the fact that everything worked together so well kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole thing.
It's the traditional sort of thing you read in fantasy: someone sets off on a quest for whatever reason and has many adventures on the way, before finally finding their way back to the start for a rather satisfying end. It could have been that the little adventures in the middle might have got boring, but actually the way they were told was so brilliant that I was always interested in what would happen next.
Stardust is a very short book, with less than 200 pages, and in a way I wish that more detail could have gone into the protagonist's adventures on their way back to Wall. Not because I think it was neglected, just because I wish there was more to read so that it went on for longer and we might have learnt a little bit more about them and Gaiman's world.
A little warning, it is quite slow to start off, but that's only if you're already aware of the story (which I assume most people are since the film came out a while ago. Something I will comment on later.)
The characters were amazing. I'm always quite confused in old-fashoined fairytales, because the story is usually quite detached from the protagonist so it's under to understand what they're feeling. It's very different from the majority of writing we have these days - but that's why I love Gaiman so much. I like, as a reader, being challenged to work out what's happening to the plot and people in the story, rather than being fed all the information in a really easy way. If the author is just going to tell us what's going on, I don't see much point in reading the book; I might as well see the film or listen to the audiobook. But by reading, I get my own experience from the book. So I want to work for it for it to be worth something.
Tristan was a very good protagonist because we really see him change. At the start, I think it's fair to say, he's a complete idiot. We all know the story of a boy who's falling for a girl and wants to do everything in his power to get her devotion - but Tristan takes this to a new level. (I mean, come on, he's willing to cross a wall into another world to get a star for her and bring it all the way back. Who does that?) Luckily, this changes pretty quickly and we see him progress through understanding his mistakes and righting them in his journey back to wall. We're almost unaware of it until very near the end. I was quite impressed by how slow this progression was, considering how quickly the story moves.
Yvaine was also wonderful. I love her stubbornness and short temper. The best thing is there's always a reason for her outbursts - which I always look forward to since they're very funny and brilliant to read - rather than just being there in order to try and get the reader to like the character.
The Stormhold brothers (I'm not listing them. I'm pretty sure I can only remember about three of them anyway...Primus, Sexus, Septimus...what did I tell you?) were a nice addition to the collection of characters. I think their involvement in the story was useful to let the reader understand what's happening on the political side of things. It was also just quite clever to have them there since we know a little bit more about this new fantasy world because of them.
Victoria Forester was much more different than I imagined her to be. When you hear about Tristan fawning over her and making a fool of himself in the process of getting her attention, we're led to believe that she's a bit of a bitch. But actually, she's a rather ordinary girl that made a bit of a mistake when she was flirting with him. And she very honourably knows that she must right it, despite the fact that it may cause her discomfort. I admire Victoria quite a lot, to be honest, and I think Gaiman did a very good job of including that other side of her.
The pace was mad. Just mad. The adventures of about half a year crammed into 194 pages. Madness. By then again, it is Neil Gaiman.
It was a little slow to start, since the whole first chapter is about Tristan's father - but it's just setting the story up, and is still very interesting to read.
After that, however, events take place so quickly that I had trouble keeping up some of the time. First Tristan was in one place and on the next page, he was halfway across the world somewhere else. So much happened in such little text, yet the reader still learns a great deal about what happens in each place they visit.
I can't think of any other way to describe it than completely mad. Just mad.
Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton need to do a film together. (Just a random thought there.)
I loved all the different points of view that the story was told from. Although the main protagonist is Tristan, and all the other stories also gravitate around him and the star, the other sub-plots were so brilliantly timed and included that I'd think of several of the characters as the main roles. It was also quite useful in keeping up with what was actually going on, since the people have very little, if any, contact with each other.
I don't usually like to link books with the film adaptations, since I stick with the saying 'the book is always better', but actually I do want to mention a few points.
The first of which is: Stardust the movie is in no way, shape or form an adaptation of this book. They're so different if I hadn't known of the connection, I would never have made it. The stories travel such different paths that I don't even think I can compare the two by saying which is best.
I absolutely love the film of Stardust; I think it's funny, engaging, thrilling, interesting; it's a wonderful love story and the world is breathtaking. The characters are original and perfect (especially the captain and Tristan.) It's one of my favourite films.
But the book is also wonderful and beautiful and magical and awe-inspiring. But for completely different reasons.
It's one of those cases (such as The Hunger Games, City of Ember etc etc) that's a very good film - but a completely terrible adaptation of the book.
After both seeing the film and reading the book, I wouldn't associate the two when recommending this title or the movie.
The ending was beautiful and, like the happy half (okay, maybe third...quarter....fifth?) of classic fairytales, ended on a twist that it very rarely anticipated. Again, it was the complete innocence of it that won me over. I just love the way that forgiveness is shown in some books, since I think it would be hard even for the reader to forgive and forget half the things the characters have done in the story.
I won't say it in case whoever's reading this has yet to read this book, but it's one of those endings that may be cheesy and cliche, but is actually a perfect display of mercy in human (well, not exactly human) nature.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy, adventure, romance etc. It's beautiful to read and the writing is of such a high quality, it's hard to compare to anyone else.
Any fan of Neil Gaiman's will also love it. His writing and stories just get better and better. This is the first adult novel of Gaiman's I've read, and it's still as enchanting as his younger writing.
If you're reading this because you liked the film, don't be disappointed when it's not what you were expecting. I'm sure you'll still love it, since the genre is still the same, and there definitely are similarities and links between the two - but the stories differ greatly from one another. But I like that: you're getting another story rather than just reliving one you already know in a different body.
Image Source: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/host.madison.com/
content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/1d/f1d7173a-e7
fb-11e1-8b8c-0019bb2963f4/502d853be2738.preview-620.jpg
