Stardust is chock-a-block full with such matters of importance. Never would I have known that when in faerie one should never say where one has come from or where one is going, but you should also on no account lie. Rather say you've come from behind and are going ahead and that will do nicely. You see, that's where everyone has been and are headed themselves, so they will understand.
Now I've gotten slightly ahead of myself, or I'm leaving you behind, which is equally unfair, so I need to start over again at the beginning of the story. It's about a father and son, from the family of Thorn, who live in the small village of Wall during the time of Queen Victoria.
Now Wall is so named for the wall that runs between it and, well... you know... unbroken save for one gate. The people of Wall guard that gate to prevent anyone - well nearly anyone - from crossing through from Wall to beyond the wall. Nobody ever seems to want to come from beyond the wall into Wall, so that isn't a concern.
But every nine years, people from all over the world come to boring little Wall so they can cross through the wall into the field where the Market is to be run — the Market being when the people who live in faerie (you did know that's what I meant by living beyond the wall didn't you? I thought such an intelligent reader like yourself would figure that one out) come to trade with people who live in the world of men.
Now Mr. Thorn senior went to the market beyond the wall to see if he could find a gift for his girlfriend, but he found more than he bargained for. He met and became besotted with the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen (who cared that there was something feline about her furry pointed ears?) and readily agreed to meet her that evening. The result of that tryst was pushed through the gate in the wall to Wall just over nine months later, about seven months after Mr. Thorn had married his human girlfriend.
Well Mr. Thorn accepts his responsibilities and takes young Mr. Thorn into his home, and if his wife bears any resentment, she quickly loses it for love of her new son. He's a gentle boy, meek and mild, and grows up to be far too unassuming to talk with girls. But he's been secretly in love with the fairest maiden in the village of Wall and finally one night he summons the courage to walk her home from where he works and even more astoundingly finds the courage to tell her of his love for her.
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!