Neil Gaiman Interview (page 4)

MF: Back to Anansi Boys, which I found extremely funny, I wondered if there was somewhat of a Douglas Adams influence in the novel's humor?

Neil Gaiman: Well maybe, since one of my very first books in 1987 was Don't Panic: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion, but honestly what I was trying to do mostly was not write it in a Douglas Adams style or a Terry Pratchett style. Because Terry and Douglas together have carved out such a huge swatch of British humor, neither, I should say - and I don't want this to sound like sour grapes or anything - but neither of them in a unique style, but a style that was very much a part of the tradition of English humor writing. Douglas Adams always pointed to P.G. Wodehouse as his huge influence.

But what I wanted to do with Anansi Boys was to write something which was both in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and also in the tradition of an American writer who is now completely forgotten. There's a guy called Thorne Smith, whose books are now out of print except for maybe Topper. He was the author of books like The Night Life of the Gods, usually about some very normal schnook into whose life there was an eruption of the fantastic that changed him. And I thought, "I'd like to write one of those."

So it is a trans-Atlantic thing.

MF: Let's talk about the way mythology plays a large role in your work. How did you come to be so intrigued by myth, and for readers who want to head down that path, what would you recommend?

Neil Gaiman: The first answer is I have no idea. Different people respond to different things. I remember, as a small kid of about age seven, books by Roger Lancelyn Green and his Myths of the Norsemen and Tales of Ancient Egypt, which I loved more than The Norsemen, which were pure undiluted Norse and Egyptian mythology and it was something I responded to on an absolutely basic and integral level, and still do.

I love how deeply woven myth is into the fabric of our lives. I love how things start off as religion, as the holiest of holies. And then after a while it's just myth, and then after a while it's just fairy stories. But there is that sort of wonderful power to myths and to all of the stories.

Now as to where I'd point people, for the Norse I'd point them to the wonderful Kevin Crossley-Holland Pantheon book of The Norse Myths, but mostly I'd say wherever you can go to primary sources, because primary sources are always so much more interesting than most retelling of things.

MF: What have you been reading lately?

Neil Gaiman: I'm currently reading the collected writings of Lindsay Anderson the film director called Never Apologise, which is one of those books of collective journalism that I can now see putting down and never picking up again. Not because it's not interesting, but because Lindsay Anderson, whose films I find really interesting, is so waspish and irritating that occasionally I just want to argue with him but he's not around to be argued with any longer.

I'm also reading a book called The Air Loom Gang which is a study of espionage and madness in the 18th century and is quite wonderful.

The next book I plan to read for pleasure is Uncle Mame: The Life of Patrick Dennis, who is the author of the Auntie Mame books. He's somebody I've heard bits about over the years and was amused and fascinated to find that he'd reinvented himself after going through expensive bankruptcy and become a butler, a sort of gentleman's gentleman to the rich, after having been through one fortune of his own. And I thought, "how cool and strange is that?"

MF: You probably don't have much time for reading these days.

Neil Gaiman: I don't. The worst thing is the people who desperately want me to read their books - sometimes friends, sometimes publishers or whatever - but they want me to read their books and give them blurbs and things. And you know, four or five of these things come in a week, even with me generally explaining to the world that the answer will mostly be no.

MF: I greatly enjoyed your friend, Susanna Clarke's book (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell).

Neil Gaiman: Well good! And that was an exception partly because I'd been waiting for that book for ten years, during which people would ask me who my favorite fantasy writers are and one of the ones I would always list was Susanna Clarke. And they'd say, "What's she done?" and I'd say, "She's just done a few short stories but one day she will finish this enormous fantasy novel she's writing and then the world will know!"

So, you know, that was an exception, but honestly, if I read all the stuff that comes in wanting me to blurb it, I would never get any writing done.