Fragile Things Introduction (group read – week 1) by Neil Gaiman

Carl is hosting another group read. This time of Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things. A collection of 32 stories, so that is 4 stories over 8 weeks. Not too intense. But it is always a bit of a challenge to stop reading after only 4 stories :)

First up, the introduction.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Usually if I read an introduction I do so after I have read the entire book that it introduces. Why? because introductions often contain spoilers, or at the very least they point out what someone else thinks you should be noticing in a book. I prefer to come to my own conclusions and then find out what other people think so I can tell myself, doh! of course that is what that was about.

But on this occasion I decided to be a rebel ;) and do as Carl said and read the introduction first.

I think I will reread it again after I have read all the stories and they are fresh in my mind, because Gaiman introduces each one in turn, explaining in a few words where they originated and who or what inspired them.

I always like Gaiman’s style of writing. And he often has great opening lines, as he does in this introduction:

I think… that I would rather recollect a life mis spent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt.”

Gaiman says that they came to him in a dream, and while I’m not one hundred per cent sure what is meant by that sentence it is very dreamlike. And what are fragile things? Well, things like butterflies and eggshells and hearts, all things that are also surprisingly tough.

So would I recommend reading this introduction? Well, yes, although I think I’d read the stories and then come back to it. All introductions should really be afterwords if I had my way :)

The stories are:

1. The introduction – Week 1
2. A study in emerald – Week 1 review
3. The Faery Reel – Week 1 my review
4. October in the Chair – Week 1 my review
5. The Hidden Chamber my review – Week 2
6. Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire – Week 2
7. The Flints of Memory Lane – Week 2
8. Closing Time – Week 2
9. Going Wodwo – Week 3
10. Bitter grounds – Week 3
11. Other people – Week 3
12. Keepsakes and treasures – Week 3
13. Good boys deserve favours – Week 4
14. Strange little girls – Week 4
15. Harlequin Valentine – Week 4
16. Locks – Week 4
17. The problem of Susan -Week 5
18. Instructions – Week 5
19. My life – Week 5
20. Feeders and eaters – Week 5
21. Diseasemaker’s croup – Week 6
22. Goliath – Week 6
23. Pages from a journal found in a shoebox left in a greyhound bus somewhere – Week 6
24. How to talk to girls at parties – Week 6
25. The day the saucers came – Week 7
26. Sunbird – Week 7
27. Inventing Aladdin – Week 7
28. The monarch of the glen – Week 7

I seem to only have 28 stories… maybe I’ve missed something?