I enjoyed the film, as it was more a love story than a fairy tale (what girl does not enjoy watching a bit of love story?) so I started reading the book pretty soon after Thomas gave me it, but I struggled. I struggled to get used to Gaiman's writing style in the first chapter. It could also be because it was long after I had watched the film, that I forgot how the story started in the film, and I could not picture what was going on. Anyway, I put the book away after about 10 short paragraphs, for a couple of months up until this weekend when I came back to it and decided that I wanted to tackle it again.
Once I restarted the book (Still with a slight struggle at the opening chapter), it was much easier for me to jump into the world of Faerie that Gaiman presented...
The story consists of three main interests, and they intertwine cleverly.
In the village of Wall in England, Tristan Thorn, much like his own father Dustan Thorn, embarks on a journey over to the other side of the Wall that separates the ordinary England and the extraordinary world of Faerie - To, of course, gain his Hearts' Desire, Victoria Forester, by bringing back the fallen star. Tristan travels far into Faerie before finding the star, and finally when he finds it, much to his surprise, the star is in a human form named Yvaine. He temporarily "captures" the star by a binding chain, and starts travelling back to the village of Wall much against Yvaine's will.
It was, however, not only Tristan's interest to capture the fallen star. The Witch-queen and her two sisters also wanted the star, and more to point, the star's glowing heart to restore their youth. So the Witch-queen also sets off to seek the fallen star.
The third interest of the story is the Lordship of the Stormhold in the land of Faerie. Before the death of the Lord of Stormhold, he sets a task to his three remaining sons (out of seven, four have already been killed by their own siblings). He explains to them - to become the Lord of Stormhold, one must have the ownership of the topaz which is the Power of Stormhold which was worn by the Lord. Then, he throws the topaz out of the balcony, then he falls to his death. So the three sons sets off to find the topaz, although what they don't know is the topaz had hit the star and was the reason it fell from the sky - and in fact, Yvaine is in possession of the topaz since she fell...
It was interesting to compare the novel with the film (which I also re-watched over the weekend). Funnily, I thought the development of feelings and growth of the characters are portrayed much more in depth in the film, in comparison to Gaiman, who captures other senses such as colours, smells, and the touch more vividly and poetically in his book. This, I feel, is because Gaiman focused more on discovering and exploring the magical world of Faerie than the character emotions in the book. So in the sense, I enjoyed the descriptive side of Gaiman's writing more than the actual story line. When stripped down, the story line in the book is rather linear in the sense that everything happens one by one whereas the film made it more all rounded - then I suppose that is the beauty of any film. Obviously the film was based on the story line of the book, but the film maker did very well to convert Gaiman's tale to a more emotional, comical and humane theatrical piece.
It is not to say the film version of Stardust was better than the book. They seem to hold a very different purpose. The book definitely evoked imagination as there are pages full of senses which we can relate to, but not at all ordinary. The film focused and expanded on the theme of love - although Gaiman's story was based on Tristan and his love, I did not think it was the main focus at all. The theme of love was much more intense at the start of the book than the end, whereas in the film, love is a almost constantly prominent throughout.
Stardust is a relatively short book, and there are more creatures, characters and events that happen when compared to the film. Maybe Gaiman could have focused more on each event so that we could emotionally engage with the characters as in places, the character interactions seemed a little shallow (especially the part where Tristan and Yvaine are on the Free Ship Perdita which in the film is called "Caspertine" (named after the film director's two sons) - although in the book Tristan describes the experience on the ship as one of his best in the whole journey, it was nowhere near as expanded as the film version. And I must admit I was a little disappointed as that was the best part of the film, and the captain in the film had much more significance in the film carrying a moral message and becoming the bond between the ordinary world and the Faerie. Maybe the film version tried to incorporate two of the book characters - the captain of the ship as well as the hairy gentleman, who did not make an appearance in the film)
The book is indeed magical. It will enable to travel you to the land of Faerie if you wanted to escape from the reality. Having said that, in Gaiman's world of Faerie, there are lots of things you can relate to. It is a classic fairy tale for the modern world.
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