The late Victorian period in England produced an upswing in the belief of all things magical and mystical. From mediums conducting séances, a resurrection of druidic rites, a fascination with the darker forms of the occult, to a belief in fairies, they all reflected a concerted effort to counterbalance the emergence of the industrial revolution.
As England shifted further away from her rural roots of landed gentry and noblesse oblige to an urban-based industrial economy with power and wealth in the hands of the mercantile class, people developed a romantic, idealistic view of what England used to be. With bucolic pastures giving way to ugly factories and the forests filled with dark nooks and crannies where all types of creatures could be found lurking being felled as raw material to be fed into the maw of industry, it's not surprising there would be some sort of reaction.
Perhaps what is most surprising is the depth of feelings that these events evoked. Aside from people claiming to have photographed fairies, there was a general upsurge in art featuring fanciful portrayals of life in the land of the faerie. Whether the small winged creatures flying amongst frogs and song birds, impish devil faces that were more mischievous that demonic, or scenes of supernatural creatures like unicorns and gryphons, all became familiar presences on the canvasses of that time.
It was around this time that stories telling of people travelling into faerie and losing their wits and time and becoming lost to our world forever became commonplace again. So did stories of the mysterious places that offered entrance to the world of faerie that must be guarded at all times lest some unhappy mortal mistakenly wander where he shouldn't. In some ways you could say that Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust is a product of those more innocent (but not naïve) times, but that would be ridiculous because he is writing over a hundred years after they have gone by.
But you know, have you ever looked real close at Mr. Gaiman? At the look in his eye and the strange little half smile on his lips? It's the look of a man with a secret, I'd say, of a man who's walked the paths of faerie at some point in his life and drifted around in time; touching down here and there, being a visitor for a while and then moving on.
Article comments
1 - Snarkattack
Fab review! Doesn't it make you feel all wide-eyed and expectant as one once did in childhood upon hearing of such places and people?
My copy is the graphic novel version illustrated by Charles Vess and the art is just sumptuous.
I hear they are planning to make a film adaptation of this, I pray it's not true. Something's bound to get...mucked up.
2 - Katie McNeill
I was looking at this online somewhere the other day and now I'll just have to pick it up
3 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
4 - Defying Gravity since 1993
After reading the novel a million and one times i decided that Stardust is possibly the best book ever written. The film version isn't that bad either but i would have liked to have seen the film to follow the book a little better - especially the end of it. The film is too nice and childlike yet the novel is a bit more grown up (for example, Tristan dies at the end of the novel but in the film he and Yvaine live happily ever after in the sky) I think the way Neil Gaiman drew on fairytales and intergrated them into the novel was superb and the use of imagery and gentle reminders that the novel isn't as nice as it seems (like the unicorn dieing) is brilliant! Excellent read! I would recomend it to anyone!