(Pumping some much needed blood back to this space after six whole years. Because...why not? And the first piece I am uploading is this, my interview with Neil Gaiman, which originally came out in the February 2008 issue of MANUAL magazine. Reading it now, I still think it's pretty good, even if I do say so myself).
Neil and Pray
In which a
cynical young realist meets and is transformed by the master wordsmith
By Paul John
Caña
Neil: I liked
being as famous as I was about six years ago. If I needed to talk to anybody,
they would return my phone calls. And I was famous enough that if I was going
to be interviewed…the editor of the magazine wouldn’t have heard of me, but
there would be one journalist, quite possibly over in the gardening section or
something who would go, ‘Oh my god! Neil Gaiman! He’s my favorite writer! Oh my
God! I have to do this!’ And it would be fun.
In a sea of
wide-eyed, book-wielding freaks, excuse me, fans, who converged at Fully
Booked in Bonifacio High Street that Sunday afternoon in November, there was at
least one person who couldn’t relate to all the fanfare. I knew why they were
there, and was familiar with the subject of all that adulation, but I could not in
all honesty consider myself a full-fledged fan, especially since I’ve only read
a couple of his works. So being surrounded by hundreds of eager ‘Gaimanians’
hoping to score that much-coveted autograph, or something more precious like a
snapshot on their mobile phones, was a little surreal. I felt like I was in
a rock concert. Then again, I should have realized that I probably was, only
the arena was a bookstore, the music was set in print, and the rock star was a
middle-aged, black-clad Englishman who answers to the name of Neil Gaiman.
Neil: To be
honest, I would much rather be a writer worshipped like a rock star than a rock
star being worshipped like a writer.
In the pantheon
of contemporary literary gods, perhaps no one is more venerated and adored than
Mr. Neil Richard Gaiman. Well not in these parts at least. The Sandman scribe
was in town for the second time in as many years, and the battalion of
bookworms that descended on Subic for the Philippine Advertising Congress,
where he was the special guest, and for the awarding of the Second Philippine
Graphic Fiction Awards in Bonifacio High Street was sizeable, to say the least.
In fact, the only audience big enough to rival such a colossal show of devotion
and adoration for a writer here in Manila was the one that gathered in July
2005. And whaddya know, they came together because of Neil, too.
Neil: It is impossible
to complain about [being famous] when the most beautiful young ladies come up
to you and ask if you’d mind if they pressed very close while having their
photos taken. You cannot in all conscience complain about this.
From being
worshipped exclusively by comics and fantasy aficionados, Neil has recently
crossed over into more mainstream territory via the big screen adaptation of
one of his more famous works, “Stardust,” and for co-writing the script for the
epic adventure “Beowulf.” When I meet him in the offices of Fully Booked big
boss Jaime Daez, he is warm and relaxed, quite different from the stressed and
harassed Neil I met two years ago (when I stood in line for more than three
hours to help out a couple of friends get their books signed, but that’s
another story). Neil himself has acknowledged the disparity in his increasing
level of fame over the years. “I think post-Beowulf and Stardust, I now seem to
have broken some weird threshold, where people who haven’t read my work think
they know what I do, which is a really odd place to be. In the past, people
like Stephen King would live there. If you haven’t read a Stephen King book,
you would think you know what Stephen King books are like. You could go, ‘yeah,
he writes that sort of horror stuff, and John Grisham he writes that sort of
legal-y stuff. With me, I’m now in that weird place where people go, oh yeah,
Neil Gaiman, he’s something to do with fantasy. And I’m happy enough with
that.”
Neil: Any
scary thing that smokes a cigar is cool in my book. Anything with a horse’s
head is cool in my book. And anything that splits itself in half is cool in my
book. And I love the weirdness…I love the idea of long, snaky tongues sneaking,
climbing up, going through things and going off to suck fetuses. It’s all
really cool.
Only 47 years
old (a mere adolescent in literary greatness standards) Gaiman has already
amassed an extraordinary collection of novels, short stories and comics that
has influenced and inspired an entire generation of readers. No other living
fantasy writer in English, with the possible exception of fellow Brit JK
Rowling, can claim to have such a considerable and rabid fan base all over the
world. But ask him what he thinks it is exactly in his work that resonates so
well with people and even he doesn’t have a clue. “The truth is, I don’t get to
know what it is that makes it work in one culture and not work in others. It
seems to depend partly on national temperament, and partly on the quality of
the translation.” Indeed, Gaiman relates how he is “big” in the United States
and his native England, as well as in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines,
but is stumped why his work never really took off in a place like Germany. “I
don’t know [if] it’s the German temperament,” he says. “In Italy, I’m a
bestselling author. It obviously works for Italians, and I go, maybe I’m
getting great translations in Italy and rubbish translations in Germany. Or
maybe it’s just the way these things work, I don’t know.”
Gaiman also
sounds off on rigid academics who pick at his work, attempting to dissect his
processes and find significance and meaning in them. “Honestly, I don’t think
it’s my job to worry about or even think about why I necessarily go and put a
piece of fiction together in some way. Mostly what I worry about is try and do
something completely new and different from the last thing I did. And then, all
the academics come and they line it up and they explain that whatever you just
did is exactly the same as everything else you already did.”
Neil: Way back
in the beginning, people would come up to me and they say, ‘You write really,
really good women, what is your secret for writing really good women?’ And I
say, my secret is that I’ve figured they’re human beings. And I’ve never
actually worried much about trying to write good women. I just worry about
trying to write good human beings. And letting it go from there. I don’t know
whether that’s much of a secret, but as a writer, I’d recommend it to anybody.
While Filipinos
have put him on a pedestal as something of a literary icon, Gaiman has thrown
that respect and adoration right back at us. From his growing up years when he
was influenced by legendary Filipino comics artists like Nestor Redondo,
Alfredo Alcala and Alex Niño, to the burgeoning talent he has discovered via
Fully Booked’s Graphic Fiction Awards (which incidentally was his idea and
which he funds out of his own pocket), Gaiman has been very vocal about his
high regard for local writers and illustrators. “I think the competition for me
came from wanting to say that look, you guys are really good and there’s
absolutely nothing from stopping you from going out into the world and being
world-class writers, doing science fiction, fantasy and horror.” So impressed
is Gaiman with the quality of the entries in this year’s competition that he
actually believes they can get published anywhere in the world. “And what’s
great about them is they…have a uniquely Filipino attitude, slant, texture and
taste. All of the short fiction particularly doesn’t read like anybody’s trying
to be like anybody else.”
Neil: I actually don’t believe in
writer’s block. I think it’s something that writers say to impress people.
Writer’s block implies that the gods, who are normally kind to you, have lost
patience with you and are being mean, so you are screwed, and now you’re just
gonna have to wait, until they lift the writer’s block and allow you to drive
on.
There is something strangely comforting about
meeting a man brimming with so much imagination and creativity and finding out
he is as human and real as the next guy. Then again, a person who can conjure
up beings named Dream and Death, who can relocate modern-day superheroes into
the 17th century and assemble virtually all of the gods of history
into one fantastic narrative, and who can imagine a world of falling stars in
human form and next-door neighbors with creepy button eyes can’t be all human.
Surely, some magic must be at work in the mind of this dreamweaver, some
enchantment hidden under the folds of his ebon sleeves. Time will tell what
else Neil Gaiman will offer up to his followers next, but for sure, at least
one more person has been hopelessly put under his intoxicating spell.
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