Familiar As Fiction
I used to be obsessed with reading fiction series. It started with Animorphs, and continued through multiple series by Brian Jacques, Piers Anthony and others along the way. I remember in sixth grade taking pride that my mom had overheard the bookstore employee suggesting the Redwall series to a college student when she bought it for me. But in my late teens or early twenties, I started shifting more and more into TV and movies for my story fix. I began to neglect and eventually all but abandon my first love, the novel. Sure, I still went through my Kerouac, Bukowski, Thompson phases, but even during those, cinema held my attention.
But then a handful of months ago, Neil Gaiman rekindled my long-lost love. Not in one fell swoop, but bit by bit, and ironically, it began with his words outside of his actual writing. It started with his 2012 commencement speech at the University of the Arts. I heard it referenced on a podcast, eventually looked it up, and was moved by how much it resonated. From there I found his interviews with Tim Ferriss and Marc Maron. After two hour-long conversations, I was ready to dive into his actual work.
Up until this time, I’d been making conscious efforts to read more, but it was mostly self-help and psychology books. Sapiens, Louise Hay, that kind of thing. Useful but not transporting. Gaiman’s work reawakened the lust I had for invented worlds and characters. Starting with The Graveyard Book audiobook, then Good Omens, then Neverwhere and on through his catalog. That old feeling of being completely absorbed in someone else’s imagination returned to me like an old comfy sweater.
Sometimes you don’t realize what you’ve lost until something reminds you it was there all along. The hunger for stories, for worlds that exist only because someone dreamed them up and had the skill to make them feel real.