For some time now, I've had the idea that it is just possible to examine a specific strand of time which represented an astonishing period of artistic creativity among a number of several well-known authors. While it is a mistake to believe that these authors make-up anything like an organized group, there can still be a sense in which each individual writer was responding to a phenomenon that is best described as the birth of the proper cultural and aesthetic climate which would allow them to find both their individual voices, and methods of expression. The curious part is how often this disparate group of writers from the 70s and 80s often find ways to dialogue with one another in their works of fiction. It is similar, in many ways, to the kind of artistic flourishing which saw another handful of differing authors produce a series of texts during the Victorian Age which now make up the canon of both children's and popular literature.
This seems to be a recurring phenomenon, of sorts. Sometimes there will be moments in any potential age which can serve as a kind of igniting spark that will both draw in and produce artistic minds capable of churning out a surprising (and hopefully effective) level of creativity. The children's authors (i.e. Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Edith Nesbit etc) of the Victorian/Edwardian eras are just one such example of this phenomena. I'd like to argue that a similar group of authors is the product of a similar kind of cultural convergence. These writers came of age either during or after the 60s, and were, in general, a mix of both Boomer and Gen X cultures. The curious part is how this doesn't seem to have led to anything like an expected series of major clashes that can erupt between generations. Instead, older scribes like Ramsay Campbell were able to get along just as well with relative youngsters like Neil Gaiman.
It is Gaiman as both an individual talent, and as part of this larger artistic phenomena that I'd like to examine here. Gaiman is one of those semi-household words of the moment. The good news is that a close examination of his works reveal that we are dealing with a genuine talent, and not just some ever vanishing fad. Of all the names associated with this semi-group of writers under discussion, Gaiman is one of the few to win his way to mass popular ubiquity, along with the likes of Stephen King and Alan Moore. In taking a closer look at Gaiman's life an art, the trick here will always be how to realize that Gaiman is one of those artists who does not exist in isolation.
I find that the most interesting aspect of Gaiman's writings is that he is one of those rare talents who is willing to pretty much wear all of his influences on his sleeve. In both fictional writings, and real world essays, Gaiman has proven himself more than willing to talk about his artistic enthusiasms. These range from obscure names like Hope Mirless and Lord Dunsany, to the work of popular comic book artists like Jack Kirby. The result is that Gaiman's work demands that we see him as an individual talent in relation to the cauldron of story from which he returns to draw ideas from time and again. Hailey Campbell's
The Art of Neil Gaiman is just the sort of text that can help us in this regard.
Novelist and academic Audrey Niffenegger describes the book in rather
succinct terms. "As time runs along we can all look back and trace the
large events in our lives (marriages, children, vocations, artistic
triumphs) to some small conversation in a pub, a book encountered at
random in a library or a chance meeting on the street. In this book,
Hayley Campbell rewinds Neil Gaiman's life and explores the connections
between his life, his ideas and his work; She has interviewed Neil about
every comic, novel, short story and movie he's ever created, excavated
old photos and manuscripts out of boxes in Neil's attic and spoken to
many of Neil's collaborators, editors, and friends. She has written a
delightfully comprehensive, matter-of-fact and sometimes surprising
account of the development of Neil's entire body of work thus far
(60)". In addition to all of that, Campbell's book is good for one
other thing. It is perhaps the closest resource critics and fans may
have at trying to gain an idea of the meaning and nature of Gaiman's
work as a writer.
In what follows, I'll be focusing in on certain aspects of Campbell's insights. In particular I want to see if she can tell us anything about what we're Gaiman's influences, does he have a relation to any kind of artistic cultural milieu, and would these two factors tell us about the thematic significance of her subject's work. In trying to find this out, I will be not be focusing on any one specific text. The goal here is to work toward an overall understanding of Campbell's subject. In order to accomplish this goal, I will be focusing in on just a small handful of Gaiman's texts. There is always the risk that such a method of approach can wind up giving the reader a distorted picture of the author. However, I've never been able to shake the idea that at least a tentative beginning of an understanding of Gaiman's work can be reached if we first zero in on a small sample of his stories. From there, it should be possible to build on the basic idea suggested by these works as each of Gaiman's other writings come under eventual examination.
It is true that Campbell provides an extensive look into Gaiman's creative output in her book. Each book is given it's own two to four page chapter in the text. These examinations of Gaiman's work come after a few opening sections dedicated to the life of the author. Now a focus on the early chapters to the exclusion of most of his book's might be a disappointment to some. However, it has to be remembered that this article is concerned with whether or not Gaiman belongs as a part of a disparate, yet related group of writers that together make up a sort of informal group that defined the nature of fantastic fiction for a brief span of time near the end of the 20th century. If Gaiman does have a place in such a gathering, then it means we need to review the author as an individual talent in relation to whatever literary traditions might have informed his writing, as well of those of the other creative artists in this hypothetical collective. This means we must first look at the author himself, and the ideas behind his writings, if we can ever hope to gain a better understanding of each of his individual stories in the future. In this regard, Campbell's text can be of great help when the time comes to look at each of Gaiman's artistic endeavors on an individual basis. It's for all the above reasons that taking a critical look at Campbell's text might just help us to understand what kind of a writer Neil Gaiman really is.
All of us have childhood memories. For both better and worse, they make up our introduction to the world, and how we will respond to it as adults. One element that can sometimes be a part of this arrangement revolves around the kind of entertainment we take in as kids. There are a great deal of us whose childhood is in many ways a catalogue of the cartoon characters we saw at an impressionable age. Some of them left enough of an impact (and here I'm thinking of Garfield and the Three Stooges) that they can inform the ways in which we look at the world today.
