Stardust - Neil Gaiman

★★★★★★★★★★ (4/10)

I am uncommonly depressed. This is quite possibly the most disappointing book I have ever read.  I watched the film version of Stardust and was impressed by it; it was funny, well scripted, and I loved every minute of it.  That being said, I think that the screenwriters did a better job writing Stardust than Neil Gaiman did.  I heard so much about Neil Gaiman and what a fabulous writer he is.  I have no doubt that he is a talented writer, but Stardust is not an example of it.  If he were to go back and rewrite it, I would defintely try to read it again, and hope there were significant expansions.

I refuse to make comparisons with the film, so my post shouldn't be biased by horrible snips of "this didn't happen in the movie," or "I wish this part of the movie had been in the book."  I disliked the novel for its own merits, or lack thereof.

To being with, I felt that Stardust could have been twice as long, telling the same story.  I wanted it to be longer, with more detail, and more time spent on each of Tristran's adventures. (I hate that name, too.  There was no reason to add the extra "r." It just makes it harder to pronounce.)  I felt like I was seeing the images in fast forward, almost as though parts had been skipped.  I even checked to see if the novel I had in my hands was an abridged version (it wasn't).  The best way I can describe this feeling is that the story flitted. It flitted from one scene to the next without really fleshing out what was happening. The plot is intriguing, but the novel seems to be just a bare bones version of what Gaiman is capable of. 

Now on to character development.  This is one thing that makes me truly sad when I read novels.  All the characters seemed very flat: Tristran had one emotion, the star was bland, and even the witch just kind of simmered instead of boiled.  Tristran is an idiot, completely and totally, and he stays that way throughout the story.  At the end, there is a lot of blather about him having grown, being taller than his father, changed physically, but he's still really just an idiot.  The star was absolutely right in her first judgment of him.  The star was more like the lump of rock she is in the sky than a living character.  It's understandable that she is angry when she first meets Tristran, and I hoped that her sass and fire would continue, but it doesn't.  She becomes almost complacent, and docile, and boring. She's just kind of there as a necessity to move on with the plot.  She doesn't "shine."  And the witch.  You expect a witch to be cruel, ugly, and malevolent, just because that is the stigma that goes along with being a witch.  It seems logical, but this witch is simply determined.  Even then, her determination only goes so far.  I felt that she gave up too easily, and her acts of magic to get to the star weren't very witchy.  She turned a boy into a goat; big deal.  She turned a chariot into an inn; ooh, scary.  She killed a man; that's just run-of-the-mill witchery. Gaiman never really makes her truly evil, and that left something wanting in the villain department.

Another problem is that everything was a little too easy.  Tristran just happened to run into a hairy little man with a magic candle that got him to the star quickly.  The star and Tristran just happened to stumble across and save a unicorn who can carry the star.  These two end up on a cloud and just happen to be rescued withing minutes and treated like honored guests. Tristran just gives up Victoria without a second thought (given that he's in love with the star, but he didn't quite know that).  The witch just meekly accepts that she won't be able to get the star's heart, and goes home. Stardust is full of "just's" that come without any real effort.  The only thing that can really claim some trial on Tristran's part is that he burned his hand getting away from the witch in the mountains, but even that doesn't pain him for very long. 

I'm going to stop bad-mouthing this novel now for two reasons. 1) I don't want to talk about it anymore, and 2) I should at least try to say something nice about it so that someone else can read Stardust and disagree with me. 

Nice things.... I liked that Tristran had a perfect sense of direction in Faerie; it made it very convenient for traversing a new world. 

OK, I'm done now.  I just can't continue, and I would like to say that my reaction to Stardust  is the reason libraries exist, and I'm happy that I borrowed this instead of buying it.  I'm sorry to anyone who like Stardust, but I just didn't, and I don't think I'll be changing my opinion.  This, in no way has prejudiced me against Mr. Gaiman, and I look forward to reading another of his works in the future.