Short Story Monday - Smoke and Mirrors Part II

Monday is here again. It seems so soon! Time for this week's edition of Short Story Monday.....Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. The word for the day: Strange. Each story or poem that I read this week was strange.

Troll Bridge is the story of a little boy. Or at least it starts out that way. This little boy Jack, takes off one summer day, to go exploring. He heads on an old path, through fields and meadows, until he sees an old red bridge, left over from the days of the old railway lines. After he crossed over the bridge, he was met by a troll that wanted to "eat his life". But the little boy was only 7. He hadn't had much of a life, and made a bargain with the troll. He would come back when he had lived some more.

Don't Ask Jack is a very short short-story. Only 3 pages long. It is the tale of an old Jack-in-the-Box. One that was left to the children of the house. But they didn't like it. It was scary. And it called to them at night......

The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories is about an author. He has written a book about the children of Charles Manson. It was the story that just sort of "wrote itself". Not his usual fare. And it was purchased by a major Hollywood studio to be made into a movie. The author flies to America to write the screenplay for said movie. But, as it usually is with Hollywood, nothing is easy. Every person that is "attached" to the movie wants him to change things: parts of the plot, the characters, the outcome. Our frustrated author starts spending more time by the goldfish pool at his hotel and meets one of the groundkeepers, an elderly gentleman who has been working at the hotel for 70 years, and now he tends to the fish.

The White Road is a narrative poem that takes the story of Mr. Fox, which is apparently the "English Version of Bluebeard". (I hadn't heard about this one before). It's utterly creepy and extremely well-written!

And finally, The Queen of Knives is another narrative poem about a young boy that goes to see a Variety show while staying with his grandparents. His grandmother gets pulled up on stage by the conjurer and placed in a box. She is never seen again....

Although I wasn't as impressed with this set of stories as I was the last, I still really enjoyed them. I hate Jack-in-the-boxes anyway. They rank right up there with clowns and those creepy ventriloquist dummies for me!! And Gaiman is just such a good writer!! An example:

"I loved her gray eyes, and her fine light-brown hair, and her gawky way of walking (like a fawn just learning to walk which sounds really dumb, for which I apologize): I saw her chewing gum, when I was thirteen, and I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge."

I don't know what makes me love this line so much, but I do. It's not the most eloquent of prose, but it hits you right in the chest!! I completely understand how this boy feels. And I think that's it in a nutshell. When I read Gaiman, I feel very close to his characters. I understand them. And this just keep me coming back for more!!

Till next Monday.......