The Monarch of the Glen

Product Information

Read It In : Fragile Things, The Neil Gaiman Reader , the Strange Little Girls liner notes, 2001 Tori Amos Strange Little Girls Tour Book Read It In : Smoke & Mirrors, Twice Cursed, The Neil Gaiman Reader, a particularly beautiful graphic novel version illustrated by Collen Doran

The tale of a shy teenager dragged to a party by his outgoing friend, Enn is simply trying to figure out how he’s supposed to talk to girls. His bestie Vic is a natural, and, in fact, it’s his idea that they crash this particular event—it’s supposed to be full of girls whom they met on a school trip abroad. But when they unknowingly end up at the wrong party “foreign exchange” takes on an entirely new meaning. “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” contains some of Gaiman’s funniest dialogue and an open-ended conclusion that leaves you wondering what kind of men Vic and Enn eventually grew up to be. Si yo fuera Sombra, me daria yuyu eso de los trabajitos que le ofrecen. Aunque quizas ya esta aburrido de pasar sin estar metido en lios, quien sabe.Though the most familiar elements from this tale are all present—poisoned apples, dwarf-like men, a glass coffin—none of them are deployed in the way you expect, and the story contains both violence and graphic sex. The matter-of-fact way in which the stepmother recounts the increasingly horrifying things happening around her is particularly unnerving, and you’ll find it hard to look at the Disney version of this story again anytime soon.

But American Gods was awesome, loved it, and I wanted more and more. Anansi Boys was also awesome, loved it, and I wanted to read more and more. Gaiman’s “Sunbird” follows the story of the Epicurean Club, a group of wealthy elites who pride themselves on having eaten virtually everything that’s worth eating. Every type of cuisine, ranging from bugs to flash frozen mammoth meat, if you can consume it, they’ve tried it. Only now they’re all a bit blue—after all, what good is having an Epicurean Club if there are no more peerless food experiences for them to share? The Highlands are the perfect place to find our hero. Shadow Moon is still a troubled man, a little lost, a little sad, a little wonderful and fantastically human in the end. Two years have passed since the battle of the Gods and Shadow's been running away, dealing with grief and loss, trying to find a place in this broken and wonderful world. It is in Scotland where he will find himself in a new adventure, where his dreams will take him once more to fantastical places and where he will be tested again. Many readers know Neil Gaiman for his novels ( American Gods, Stardust , Coraline ) and comics ( The Sandman ), which are, admittedly, all brilliant and well worth your time . (Go read them, is that what I’m saying.) But what you might not know is that Gaiman is also a prolific short story writer, and has churned out dozens upon dozens of tales that include fairytale retellings, contemporary horror stories, murder mysteries, and several additional tales from the worlds of his novels. Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" – gothic story published in the anthology Gothic!Before the party swings round, Shadow walks the countryside, and meets the people he needs to meet, whether he knows it or not, and before you know it, it feels almost as if we’ve always been in Scotland, and as if we’d never leave. Gaiman’s skill is not in making his stories beautiful – anyone can do that – it is in granting them a sense of permanence by drenching the fantastic in the dust of ordinary details, in the ambiguity of memory. Sure, he’ll tell you about the time he met a woman who wasn’t quite a woman (or was she?), a creature of the fey, but he’ll be sure to mention too, the quality of the cup of coffee he had that morning. One of Gamain’s short stories that encourages—-and really gets even better with—-repeat readings, “Murder Mysteries” is a tale about everything from free will and determinism to love, mercy, and justice. (And, of course, the ever present Ineffable Plan.) Monarch of the Glen isn't quite that, since it's a novella, but it's as close as we'll get, I think. This novella is not a proper sequel to American Gods, but it is a new tale and it's, of course, weird and trippy, otherworldly and full of subtleties, it's deeply atmospheric and so, so wonderful to read.

The hero’s journey is part of the story, but it’s not the blueprint for American Gods, which follows a more complex map of layered influences: it’s a mystery, a road trip narrative, a nexus of history and myth and different folkloric traditions, and an attempt to explore America as an idea (or rather, an immense collection of ideas and beliefs and ideologies). Moreover, all of these aspects serve to drive home deeper thematic questions about belief and history and legend, and why stories are powerful and important and need to be recycled and replenished, like any valuable resource…. Feeders and Eaters" – based on a nightmare of Neil Gaiman's, it first took the form of a comic and later the outline for a pornographic horror film The Mapmaker" – a very short story included in the book's introduction, originally written for American GodsIf you’ve read “Keepsakes and Treasures,” you’ll know that Smith probably qualifies as a monster, in the sense that he’s a cheerfully amoral killer with a penchant for pedophlia. Jennie might qualify, as a hulder, creatures who were blamed for causing madness and luring men to their doom. Certainly no one’s going to defend Gaskell against the charge (and why bother, since he seems to delight in calling himself a monster, repeatedly?) The party guests themselves become monstrous as they devolve into bloodlust and barbarity, but Smith’s reference to The Difficulty of Being at the end of the story also puts one in mind of Jean Cocteau’s use of the phrase “sacred monsters” to define celebrities, who he described as our modern stand-ins for Olympian deities: flawed, just like us, but richer, more attractive, more self-indulgent.

I’ll try to keep this relatively short—even after three months, I could go on and on about all the minutiae of American Gods. And I’m sure that the next time I revisit it, I’ll find connections I haven’t yet made and catch allusions that went right by me during this reread—for me, that’s part of the beauty of the book. I saw that someone commented last week about a friend who complained that there’s so much build-up to the ultimate battle between the gods, and then it all gets defused at the last minute, and I’ve definitely heard similar things from people over the years—that the journey through the novel is more fun or more satisfying than the destination. I ended up reading this kind of by accident (since I'm out of books, I'd planned on getting to the library today, but it was snowing so badly I decided not to). And I had no idea until a few hours ago that Gaiman had written a novella set after American Gods, so I figured why not. American Gods is an award winner several times over, claiming the Hugo Award for Best SF/Fantasy Novel, Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel, Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and Nebula Award for Best Novel. Book two, Anansi Boys, won a Locus Award and praise from Publishers Weekly for its “gleeful, hurtling prose.” In 2017, the Starz network launched American Gods, a fantasy drama television series inspired by the novel, with Neil Gaiman serving as an executive producer. The Problem of Susan" – written for the anthology Flights by Al Sarrantonio, written in response to the character Susan in Narnia Exactly the same could be felt in the drawings. The artist miraculously reflected the terrifying atmosphere of the novel. Darkness and mystery was in every sketch, but somehow they were all able to remain so beautiful and captivating.

It follows a new, little, adventure. A battle again not against a God, but against a monster. Not in the new world, but in the old one. Now, for the first time ever – and available exclusively on vinyl – these masterpieces of imaginative genius are performed by an all-star cast helmed by Sir Derek Jacobi and featuring the return of Daniel Oreskes as Shadow and Maggi-Meg Reed as Bast. Accompanied by the talented voices of Michael Emerson, Marc Thompson, Peter Forbes, Katherine Kingsley, David Rintoul, Siobhan Redmon, Daniel Weyman, and Adjoa Andoh, this superb recording is a true audiophile’s delight. First published in 2004, “The Monarch of the Glen” appears in Neil Gaiman’s 2006 collection Fragile Things. The collection also includes an earlier story, “Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story,” featuring Smith and Mr. Alice, characters from London’s dark underbelly who travel to the wilds of Scotland in this novella, and get more than they bargain for in their dealings with the big American tourist from the local hotel.