Gaiman cannot quite make it through the book’s introduction without lapsing into a story, a parable about cartography meant to illustrate that one cannot describe a story without telling the story itself. And as he recounts the origins of each work in the book, it becomes clear that just about everything Gaiman comes into contact with inspires him to write … Many of the protagonists in Fragile Things are themselves inveterate storytellers. They are fantasy writers, journalists, drifters posing as anthropologists, and they don’t like it when their narratives are forced to yield to other people’s tales — which, in a Gaiman story, happens almost all the time … The most compelling entries in Fragile Things return to the mysterious subject of artistic inspiration.
Fragile Things is a delightful compendium rather than a straightforward story collection, but it's a fine sample of the author's versatility. Gaiman writes in different registers: comedy, satire, pastiche, deadpan, lyrical or whimsical, but almost invariably dark. It all depends on whichever sooty, fantastic spirit drops down the chimney of his Minneapolis writing room on any given day … Gaiman's talents and interests lend themselves — perfectly, in fact — to the short form, and there are gems in this collection … One of the pleasures of Gaiman's stories is how often they announce that ‘this is a true story’ or that ‘this happened to a friend,’ though the book's introduction never confirms that any of these things actually happened. But you don't care because the story has already entered the chain of fairy/folk/urban tales, and the vulgar truth is merely academic.
It's a hodgepodge of material, containing everything from a pastiche of both Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft to a shared-world story based on the first Matrix movie … Readers who expect Gaiman to adhere to the styles and subjects he's used before are likely to have a mixed reaction to Fragile Things. Those with a taste for inventive idiosyncrasy will find themselves amply rewarded.
The tales of Fragile Things are nibbles and bits of Gaiman's immensely satisfying inner landscape. They are fiercely playful and very grim, wisps of whimsy and wonder buoyed by the happy heart of a tragic poet. Gaiman is an embedded storyteller, shrugging as his doomed puppets suffer torment and loss … These tales, so quickly written and haphazardly published, get closer to Gaiman's life than even his richest work.
There's not one piece of prose or poetry in Fragile Things that won't repay re-reading. As Gaiman points out, our seemingly fragile hearts are our bodies' toughest muscles, eggs can remain intact when dropped from planes, a butterfly's wing beat can cause a hurricane. And words, when they're as well-chosen and deftly arranged as those in this book, can perform miracles of strength, staying with their audience long after the breath and ink that gave them birth have vanished.
Fragile Things confirms Gaiman's reputation as an ingenious teller of sinister tales, whose whimsical and fine writing, at its best, equals MR James and Edgar Allan Poe . There are occasional stretches of filler among these Fictions and Wonders . Like Poe, Gaiman has tried his hand at poetry and, like Poe, been almost entirely unsuccessful (though some of the poems do well enough if treated as short stories punctuated for reading aloud). The fictions, marvellous in every sense, are more than enough.
Fragile Things feels more like a wank than a yank. Swamping the few gems that actually make the book worth reading are pieces of indulgent puffery and affected explorations of nothing … In some ways, the introduction is the most interesting part of the collection. But, just like in the works themselves, moments of brilliance about the craft of writing and the power of words give way to banal observations that don’t carry any weight … But when the stories do work, they hum … Fragile Things is ultimately disappointing.
Fragile Things, Gaiman's third short-story collection, is probably best viewed as a collection of B-sides rather than any kind of unified artistic statement. The works here include short poems, a novella-length American Gods sequel, and stories compiled from far-flung anthologies, including one written to illustrate a photograph of a sock monkey. So it's understandable that some pieces are more consequential than others. Still, even the trifles are engagingly written … Though Fragile Things' odds-and-ends nature inevitably makes it disjointed, it's also a good showcase for the breadth of Gaiman's darkly whimsical imagination, wry humor, and penchant for elegantly creepy horror.
The 30 short stories and poems in this collection vary widely in theme and tone … Gaiman performs admirably as narrator for the most part, changing his style from story to story to better suit the tone of each. However, in the more experimental pieces in the collection, this practice backfires and may leave listeners reaching for the fast-forward button. The poems often work on paper, but when read aloud many feel like disjointed, nonsensical stories. Gaiman is at his best when narrating his more traditional tales.
Gaiman again proves himself a perverse romantic, heir not only to Poe and Baudelaire but to the breathless Pre-Raphaelites. (The poetry he includes here, for example, is generally less creepy than drippy.) He wears his pop cred in boldface, and street-smart hipness saturates these eerie epiphanies. But the collection also boasts lush prose, a lack of irony and a winning faith in the enchantment of stories.
