Kirjahaaste: Lempparikirjailijan kirja

Vaikka Neil Gaiman onkin jo haastetehtävissä esiintynyt aiemmin, oli hän aika varma valinta tähän kohtaan. Hänen teoksistaan valitsin Smoke and Mirror-novellikokoelmaan, joka on tullut luettua useita vuosia sitten mutta on mielestäni yksi Neil Gaimanin parhaista. Muutama novelli on myös kuunneltavissa ilmaiseksi netissä, suosittelen kuuntelemista!

Kokoelman helmiä:

-Shoggoth's Old Peculiar
Nuori amerikkalainen mies on reppumatkalla Britanniassa ja saapuu Innsmouthin kylään, jonka pubissa tapaa pari erehdyttävästi sammakkoa muistuttavaa miestä jotka alkavat keskustella hänen kanssaan H.P Lovecraftin kirjoitustyylistä. Kuunneltavissa Neilin itsensä lukemana.

-We Can Get Them for You Wholesale
Kostaakseen vaimonsa syrjähypyn, Peter Pinter etsii puhelinluettelosta palkkatappajaa. Pian hän onkin pihiytensä takia pulassa, sillä palkkatappajilta saa alennusta isoista ryhmistä.

 -Snow, Glass and Apples 
Kuningattaren näkökulmasta kerrottu Lumikin tarina, jonka jälkeen paluuta vanhaan tarinaan ei enää ole. Valtavan häiritsevä, todella vinosta vinkkelistä nähty "alkuperäinen" versio.
Kuunneltavissa aivan loistavana draamallisena versiona, Bebe Neuwirthin ja The Seeing Ear Theaterin tulkitsemana.

-Troll Bridge 
kertoo pojasta, joka tapaa peikon joka asuu sillan alla. Peikko on aikeissa syödä pojan elämän, mutta poika saa peikon vakuuttuneeksi siitä, että hänessä ei ole nuoruutensa takia vielä paljon syötävää ja lupaa palata peikon luo sitten kun on valmis. Kuunneltavissa Neilin itsensä kertomana.

Kaksi jälkimmäistä olen myös nähnyt tamperelaisen Tukkateatterin versiona, teatteriesityksessä "sadun kääntöpuoli." Kirjoitin silloin lyhyen arvion englanniksi kyseisistä esityksistä, laitan sen tähän loppuun. Varoituksen sana: jos et ole lukenut tai kuunnellut kyseisiä novelleja, seuraava teksti spoilaa hyvin pahasti!

Snow, Glass and Apples is Snow White's story told from the perspective of the queen stepmother. In that version Snow White turns out to be a vampire and the prince that saves her from her crystal coffin, a necrophiliac. It is one of my fave of Gaiman's novels, as it changes the view of that fairy tale completely and you will never look at it the same. The theater adaptation was good, but not as good as I had hoped. In my opinion the actress that played the queen spoke too much with a 'theater-accent' and smiled all the time too much. And as she is a very prominent character with lots of monologue, that irritated me.

Also some of the actors' gestures were too exaggerated, the kind you would never see in real life. I know that on stage you have to add a little extra to your movements and voice, but too much is too much. And I didn't like the look (hair, costume, makeup) of the Snow White. But the set design was great, I loved how a bridge was turned into a royal bed and how herbs and apples were hanging from the 'roof'. Also a scene where the queen sees from her magic mirror how Snow White kills a monk in the forest was superb. The merchants were great and at times even the queen shone, when she commanded her servant (then she really sounded like a queen) and the end scene was really powerful.

Troll Bridge is a story about a boy, who meets this troll that lives under a bridge. Troll is about to eat the boy's life, but the boy convinces him that there isn't enough to eat in him yet, that he will come back when he is ready. They meet again when the boy is in his teens and with a potential girlfriend (which he offers to the troll instead of him), but again he is able to talk his way out of that situation. At the end, when his wife has left him, he goes back to the troll and the troll eats his life:
they change places. The troll leaves as a man and man is left under the bridge as a troll.

This theater version was a lot better than the Snow, Glass and Apples. The troll was simply awesome with his grunting and puffing and growling and he also had great lines that were often quite funny as well. This was the first time that I heard the novels in Finnish, I had read them in English:the translation was great, and the language seemed 'natural'. I liked also the translation of the sound of steps when the troll vocalized them: trip-trap had been translated as kip-kop. The other actors were also good, there was this sweetness when the characters were in their teens.

There were also some things that weren't in the original text: when the man was traveling in a train, the ticket seller was the troll and when he discovered the letter from his wife (telling that she is leaving him), it was the troll's hand that handed it to him. I think it added another layer to the story (as well as a comedic element) and I interpreted it that in a way the man saw the troll everywhere. Maybe he thought that the first encounter was all in his head, a dream or imagination. But that sudden, unexpected second encounter marked his whole life, cast a sort of shadow all over him. He craved for experiences, nothing was enough. He was greedy, selfish and had affairs, he didn't really love anyone and he was afraid that the troll would get him eventually. Everything and everyone was expendable, because he was going to 'die' anyway. In a way he had become what the troll represented to him: less than human, who would even sacrifice someone he cared about in order to save his own life.

There were also a few other things that were in the play but not in the original text: a talk between the man and 'the potential girlfriend' after they haven't seen each other in years and the content of the letter from the man's wife. Those things brought much depth to the story and also in my opinion revealed to the man what he had become. During that talk when the man sees that the woman has changed, he accuses her that she isn't the girl he knew, that maybe that girl was left under that bridge so long ago. The woman answers: No, it was you who was left under that bridge.