Author: Neil Gaiman
Publication date: 31 May, 2016
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There are moments, minutes, hours in our lives that are worth to live for. Eight to nine post meridiem yesterday goes down as such a precious hour in my personal history. I had the privilige to attend the event that celebrated the publication of Neil Gaiman’s new – non-fiction – book, The View from the Cheap Seats, at the Union Chapel, London.
Why did I decide to go? I have a special relationship
with Neil Gaiman’s fictional work; since virtually there is no other now living
writer I've read more standalone books of, it’s safe to say that he is my
favourite contemporary literary figure. To understand why my love for this
man is such a big deal, you have to know my reading habits, or rather my
attitude towards authors in general: I tend to be loyal to stories, not
writers. I have too often found myself giving writers a chance to enchant me
with a second or third novel after reading something sensational from them,
only to realize the magic doesn’t work beyond that one near-perfect book. Neil
Gaiman is different though, he casts the right spell every time, he almost
never misses, and when he does, he makes up for it with his fantastic way with
words. He writes familiarly, intimately, which often results in fiction that
has an almost palpable solidity to it (as an answer to a question during the
Q&A Neil confided in us, that he often ‘steals’ bits from reality and turns
them into fiction… well, I think it is true vice versa: he creates reality out of
fiction in the readers’ mind).
For the above mentioned reason he is an exceptional
writer in my own little world of literature, and so when I heard about the
Union Chapel event I knew I had to go. As luck would have it, I'm living
in London at the moment and it seemed to be a once in
a lifetime opportunity – therefore I bought my ticket and waited.
Yesterday I had a relatively good day at work (maybe
because between every ‘eatinortakeaway?’ I reminded myself what was going to
happen in the evening) and after I finished at two o’clock in the afternoon my
excitement only kept growing. I arrived to the venue fifty minutes before
the opening of the gates and tenaciously stood against the heavily blowing wind while
queuing (I was also praying that I would not get a cold, because I didn’t have my
coat with me. I will never understand the weather here, it’s the beginning of
summer, for God’s sake. Welcome to England). However, by the time it started
raining I was safely inside the building, so the timing was just perfect.
The first thing I did inside was collecting my signed copy of
The View from the Cheap Seats. I was
surprised how thick the book is, with its 530 pages it is quite a handful possession.
Later during the evening Neil himself joked that if it were bigger, it would be
dangerous... Once I got the tangible reason for which we all gathered
there together, I looked for a place to sit and opted for the main set of
benches in the centre of the chapel. I was about five meters away from the
podium and so eventually when eight o’clock arrived at last, this is what I
saw:
(I apologize for the quality of the picture, this is all my tablet could do...)
Neil casually appeared with baby Ash in his arms and
assured us that the night had not really started yet, he just thought he’d pop
in with Ash – since the new work is dedicated to the tiny fellow, it was a sensible
start to the evening.
Then father and son left us for a while and Amanda
Palmer, Neil’s wife, appeared and sang us a song with her dad – a song chosen
by Neil of course – about police violence and racial discrimination, issues which we are
sadly all too familiar with today. Amanda’s voice filled the chapel and the song had
a rather sad theme, but what I loved about the whole evening was that it was like
a rollercoaster in terms of topics and feelings.
Right after Amanda and her dad finished the
song, Neil and Audrey Niffenegger (writer of The Time Traveler’s Wife) took the
stage and everyone in the audience was filled with joy – at least I certainly
was. They started to talk about the book, how it was put together, why certain
speeches, pieces of writing were chosen to be included. It turned out that the
book is full of book recommendations and it was good to hear Neil talk about
certain novels that were/are important to him, ones that had an impact on him,
that took their part in turning him into a writer. But The View… doesn’t only include pieces about literature; popular
culture is represented in bits about music, comic books and films. There is a
section called ‘Some people I have known’; Terry Pratchett’s name came up not
once during the evening and Neil talked about him fondly.
During the Q&A part he told us about why he doesn’t
tend to judge his characters and how he wants to give the readers the
opportunity to assess the value – or lack of value – of certain acts and situations. He also talked
about how he sometimes imagines backstories to side characters. I was sad there
wasn’t time for more questions, I think altogether he answered three that were
asked him by audience members and two questions from twitter.
If you asked me what my favourite parts of the evening
were, I’d say when Neil read. I had goosebumps all over my arms and back both
times he read sections from The View…,
purely because I heard his thoughts from his own mouth and I can’t explain the
experience properly, but it was like watching or more like hearing a performance.
And all he had to do was to act naturally, just read; he didn’t do anything
special, and yet special it was, because it was HIM reading his own words. The
evening seemed to end too abruptly when he closed the book, both him and
Audrey stood up, we clapped and they were gone. It was like being roused from
the most pleasant dream.
I had to write this post, because I’m still
filled with the memories and I hate to see them fading even now. I feel very
lucky I could be there, also now I own an autographed copy of The View from the Cheap Seats and I can sink my teeth into it anytime I want.
Bless Neil Gaiman and his talent. May he
live and write for a long, long time.
