Marvelous Stories

This Wednesday Neil Gaiman curated an evening of magical realism called "The World of Marvelous Stories" at the Upper West Side's Symphony Space. "Magical realism," he began, was often defined as "stories written by people in Argentina," and conceded it is one of those things where you know it when you see it. He described its effect as looking across a room at a strange and unfamiliar figure, only to realize suddenly you are looking at yourself in a mirror.

The event kicked off with a story called "A Life in Fictions," written by one of Gaiman's former Clarion students named Kat Howard who happened to be lurking in the audience and was promptly outed. This was read by Marin Ireland. Gaiman tackled his own story "The Troll Bridge," a modern update of the Three Billy Goats Gruff folktale. Also on the program were Jorge Luis Borges' mesmerizing "The Circular Ruins," read by Boyd Gaines, and, to conclude the evening, Gaiman's "The Thing About Cassandra," performed by Josh Hamilton with Marin Ireland returning for a dramatic cameo.



Neil Gaiman was charming and affable, and from my balcony vantage looked like a somewhat ghoulish version of Harpo Marx. "He's so talented," I heard the woman behind me gush before the show. He indeed turned out to be the ideal narrator for his own tale, voicing his troll with more vulnerability than one might expect from a matted, salivating creature who lives under a bridge. The audience clung to his every word and I was amazed by how few cellphone glows were visible across the darkened theater seats as he spoke. After the program ended half the population of Manhattan lined up to have their books graciously autographed by the man himself. I stuck around long enough to watch him approached bashfully by the little girl in pink who headed the line.

The evening was recorded and will undoubtedly soon turn up on the Selected Shorts website. Worth a listen.