Stardust

Written by Neil Gaiman and made into a film starring Michelle Pfeifer, Robert De Niro, and Ricky Gervais, Stardust is a wonderful, modern little fantasy that sparkles with intrigue, adventure, and magic. Its fusion of a Victorian England setting attached by a stonewall to a parallel world of magic and mystery proves to be most delightful and makes the reading experience of this book akin to those you might have read with your parents as a child. Innocence and an engulfment into the magical world of Faerie are the sensations and desires that get piqued by Gaiman’s tale and it’s really wonderful, a book that you can just fly through as though on the wings of a dragon! 

In the little village of Wall, Tristran Thorn has his heart set on the beautiful Victoria Forester, so much so that on a night when he walks her home the two see a falling star and he vows to cross the gap in the wall that surrounds the village and bring her back that star. And so, driven by love, Tristran ventures into the magical land of Faerie to seek the fallen star, unaware that along the way he shall encounter dangers unheard of: witches, lions, unicorns, and even make some discoveries about himself. 

Gaiman writes with a prose that might look incredibly simple, but somehow really sparkles and pops with this amazing sort of energy and there’s a power in it that so beautifully allows us to visualise this world and these characters in brilliant technicolour. Like the bedtime stories that thrilled us as kids, Stardust dazzles and engages and opens up the floodgates that hold up the nostalgia and memories of these feelings we had when we read as children, which we keep closed for lengthy bouts as adults. That’s the magical ability that this book has, it transports us emotionally into the same place we dwelt when we were kids reading before bedtime! 

I have to admit that I had seen the film first before I’d read the book, and so I was already sort of armed with images of the events unfolding in my mind as I read along. But what’s really interesting is how the movie is actually not a very close adaptation and there are many things that happen very differently in the book. I say this is funny because, rather than flare up an anger that the film was not ‘true’ to the book, I actually was made more impressed by screenwriters John Goldman and Matthew Vaughn because they took Gaiman’s world and characters and really fleshed them out, elevated them and the story they inhabit into one of immense fairytale pleasure. I might even go so far as to say that this might be a situation where I favour the movie to the book. 

Written in the third person register, Gaiman’s tale of fantasticalness and chase is one that gets narrated from a broad, atmospheric voice that sees all. Whilst the central storyline follows the travels of Tristran and the star, large chunks of the chapters outline the actions, adventures, and back-stories of other characters such as Primus and Septimus, two princes out hunting for their birthright, and the witch-queen who also seeks the fallen star to bring youth back to herself and her sisters. As so many characters are followed over the course of the story, it really rounds it out and makes the world of Faerie a real place with real people that we can love, loath, or limply ignore. This particularly demonstrates just what a good writer Gaiman is because the book itself is less than 200 pages long and to be able to create this entire world and really flesh it out and make it real on the page and in our minds in such a small book takes talent… or some form of magic. 

Filled with action, adventure, romance, and magic, Stardust is a wonderful book that is ideal for any age group! More is the marvel of this read! It’s easy, engaging, and engulfing: a book that sparks interest within the first paragraph and doesn’t allow you to put it down.