Disturb and Perturb the Mind

A while ago I bought a book like I usually do at Barnes and Noble when I have gift cards to spend. I picked this book up off a table of "buy two, get the third free" paperbacks along with "I Love You, Beth Cooper" by Larry Doyle and "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. The third book, the one I'm speaking of, was "Fragile Things" by Neil Gaiman. I had heard positive acclamations of Neil Gaiman and his work before so I guessed this collection of short fiction wouldn't be a bad choice. Plus, the cover was very inviting.

Up to this point, I've read quite a few of the shorts fictions. My favorite so far is "October in the Chair." Most of the stories are off by certainly entertaining. This book is somewhat a new leaf in my endeavorer of fiction reading, as the writing, subject matter, and plot are very different from anything I've read before.

The most recent short story I read was called "Feeders and Eaters." It was about a man's account to another man of an encounter with a strange woman who needed to eat raw meat to survive. She eventually held the cat, owned by her boarding family, hostage and each day sliced some meat off it's hind legs. The man telling the story and this creepy woman ended up together at the end of the story, and the man who was listening to the account was left completely bewildered. I too was left very confused and somewhat disgusted. The image of the mutilated cat left a bad taste in my mouth.

However, that bad taste was not a hindrance in my enjoyment of the story. The language Gaiman uses is easy to comprehend but still reaches a high level of sophistication. I have enjoyed all that I've read so far and look forward to reading my way through the rest of the book. I definitely suggest this book.

Written on 9 November 2009