Reading this collection is a journey into the mind of a writer, a revelation of unexpected questions, and a thought-provoking quest for answers. Along the way, Gaiman offers lessons on how to listen, how to read, and how to value honest writing ... This book is a study in the power of observation. It brings to light Gaiman’s attention to language, to literature, and to everything that makes up a cultural life.
Broken up into sections — 'What I Believe,' 'Music and the People Who Make It,' 'Some People I Have Known,' 'Make Good Art,' and so on — his musings shine with wit, understatement, and a warm lack of pretention ... As these sorts of odds-and-ends collections typically are, View is a mixed bag, both in subject matter and quality ... Together these assorted tidbits form a mosaic — a composite picture of Gaiman as a writer, but also as a thinker, a cult figure, and barometer of genre fiction's trends and sentiments over the past 20-odd years. Not to mention an unassuming guy who just so happens to be a brilliant, best-selling author. As such, View is not only invaluable, but engrossing.
The collected nature of the book works both for and against Gaiman. For those interested in the mechanics of writing, much can be gleaned from his takes on other writers. And the insight into the writer’s mind when his work is taken collectively is invaluable. For those who are simply fans, the collection also acts as a great jumping-off point to the branching cadre of his influences ... The View From The Cheap Seats is a book best taken piecemeal. When taken as a collective, some trends that hurt it emerge. The essays—especially the transcripts of speeches—retread some of the same thematic territory, making it feel repetitive and long. And for those not as invested in the craft of writing, the redundancies, especially early in the collection, have the ability to make Cheap Seats feel a little boring, if only temporarily so.
His [Neil Gaiman] tone of voice is readily identifiable. It’s the careful expository tone of a tale told to children, of a good, scary story that will keep them listening ... That, I think, is very good, even if it does not quite bear sustained scrutiny (you still have to walk around Horror on your own, surely?); and it also shows how adept he is at delivering scripts to be drawn up by artists ... This book is an excellent way of getting a purchase on the man who could be said to have almost single-handedly revived the comic genre, or made it respectable. It is also a great way of learning about the history of comics, science fiction and fantasy ... He is charming, enthusiastic, full of wonder. He is, at heart, the best kind of child reader: an adventurous one, and one willing to learn.
The downside of reading such speeches, however, is this: They were written for a specific place and time and for a specific audience and purpose. Minus the caps and gowns, laughter from the audience, and Gaiman’s accent and genial tone, the text of talks like 'Make Good Art' lose much of their magic. Contrast that with the collection’s best written and reported pieces, such as the eponymous essay, which drolly captures his Oscar awards experiences. Or, one of the book’s most powerful pieces, 'So Many Ways to Die in Syria Now,' based on Gaiman’s insightful reportage from a Jordanian refugee camp.Then again it is largely to his fans that this wide-ranging, hit-or-miss rag bag seems directed. Gaiman geeks will delight in picking through the bones for meaty autobiographical bits ... Above all, The View from the Cheap Seats serves as a spirited defense of reading, art, and the imagination.
Some of the entries might’ve been better left to time, like an odd 1990 piece for Time Out about wandering London after dark that never amounts to much; we might not need two, back-to-back essays on Harlan Ellison. Yet taken as a whole, The View from the Cheap Seats is more than just an assemblage of a man’s clips; it’s Gaiman’s welcome entry into another popular genre: the writing memoir ... For Gaiman, the writing memoir is less about how to write and more about why we need writing. The sections are divided thematically, from music to movies to personal musings ... By the end, the biographical details scattered throughout the book don’t say nearly as much about the author as do his influences, motivations, and beliefs. After all, fans fall in love with authors for the worlds they create, and by inviting readers into his own fandoms, Gaiman reminds readers he is just like them. In one sense, The View from the Cheap Seats is Gaiman’s most personal work to date.
