Acquired Tastes: Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

My mother-in-law has an absolute passion for literature and learning, which is why I wasn't even mildly surprised when I spied, next to her copy of Elie Wiesel's Messengers of God, the graphic adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, a distinct combination of eclectic intelligentsia that merely confirms that Mama Dodie is a nerd of the highest order. Still, I borrowed her copy of Mike Carey's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's first full length novel with trepidation. Given my critical misgivings (and wholehearted, gleeful appreciation) of the cinematic adaptation of Frank Miller's 300, I understood all too clearly the dangers of adaptation.

Fortunately, we're in good hands with Mike Carey. In his introduction to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (a clunky title which is probably a source of profound embarrassment to Mr. Gaiman), Carey writes:

I was asked in an interview recently what I thought of the Constantine movie, and I said that it was very enjoyable as long as you didn't go into it expecting "the film of the book." What that glib comment conceals is the extent--the enormous extent--to which any adaptation splits itself off from its source and becomes its own journey: its own answer to a set of questions that only formulate themselves as you set to work. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, Brecht and Weil's Threepenny Opera, the stage versions of The Producers and His Dark Materials, they're all straight jazz riffs on their wonderful originals rather than straight translations. Because straight translation from one medium to another is both impossible and undesirable.

It is this understanding of the problems involved in adaptation, as well as the gorgeous art by Glenn Fabry, that probably accounts for my enjoyment of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I heartily recommend it, even if you aren't slogging through less than triumphant adaptations of scholastic thought that my students have been submitting lately. It's one way to get through the painstaking task of walking the fine line between constructive criticism and the utter annihilation that shoddy academic work deserves.

Oh well. One has to be several kinds of madman to even want to teach, really. To borrow liberally from Mr. Gaiman's insight into the character of Emperor Joshua Norton in "Three Septembers and a January", my madness keeps me sane.

Picture of Neverwhere comes courtesy of Amazon.