Stardust: Catching a fallen star and finding out your heart’s true desire
It’s been a while since I last wrote a book review. I don’t know if I can still write one but I do hope that I can find it somewhere within me so I can give this book quite a fair judgment.
This book made its way to my hands during the day that I’ve been battling over my own self on what book I should review. A close friend lent me the book and I decided right then and there to use it for my Media Lit class. Since I am a hands-down fanatic of fiction novels, I started reading right away.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
THE STORY (BEWARE OF SPOILERS)
Stardust started off with, of course, Wall being introduced and how the young Tristan Thorn ever came into existence.
During this first chapter, the land of Faerie also became known, the wall that separates the two, the gap in the wall and how the market, that occurs every nine years, played a huge role in the story. The market served as the connecting point where people from the town of Wall get to interact with the Faerie people.
How the young and beautiful Victoria Forester came into the story was also revealed. Victoria will be playing quite a role in the story. She will be like the spark that will cause fire in the life of young Tristan Thorn.
And so the two of them grew up, together with all the introduction of the other characters that will be of a purpose later on.
It was the cold-hearted Victoria that pushed Tristan Thorn to ever cross the boundary between Wall and Faerie when the former wished for Tristan to get the fallen star they watch together fall from the night sky.
And so Tristan set off and started his journey right away, leaving Wall and facing the vast and huge world of Faerie with nothing but his clothes on, some foods inside his bag and a strong heart that is willing to go anywhere just to win his young love.
In the next revealing chapter, the author makes known the other characters that are of interest with the fallen star too just like Tristan. The other characters, the witch-queen that wanted the fallen star’s happy heart for her to regain youth and the young lords of Stromhold that wanted the topaz stone that their father threw to the star before he died.
Tristan, on the other hand, gets to meet a good friend along the way who will be of great help to him. The small man will help him get to the star first using a magical candle light.
When Tristan meets the star, he was quite surprised to see that she was a lady; not some cold, hard stone that he was expecting of her. He captures her, and though with a limp, he still chained her to him.
This is where Tristan and the fallen star’s journey back to Wall started.
At one point of the journey, the fallen star gets to escape away from Tristan when he decided to unchain her as he searched for food in a town they came by to. All lost and helpless, lucky as what he is, someone helped Tristan Thorn again. It was a magical tree that brought him to meet Primus, a lord of The Stormhold and together, they went to the same way the fallen star went; with Tristan concealing the truth that she was a star but some lady he was just after.
It was then the Tristan, Primus and the witch first had an encounter. Primus was killed but because of the remains of the candlelight, Tristan and the fallen star was able to escape the witch-queen.
Due to such, the fallen star was now bounded to Tristan for being her savior.
And so their journey continued on. Along the way, they get to meet a group of pirates and this, Tristan claimed, to be the best experience he ever had of Faerie.
Continuing with their journey on land now, Tristan and Yvaine, the star, came across a wagon where an old lady with a colorful bird, which turned out to be an important person in the life of Tristan later on. They boarded the wagon so they could reach the market in exchange of the snowdrop that Tristan’s father gave him before setting off the journey.
It was in the market of Wall that everything in the life of young Tristan Thorn then, before going to the journey in Faerie, fell into place. It was revealed in the end the co-relation of every character in the story.
Young Tristan Thorn made a journey to catch the fallen star in the mysterious land of Faerie. But what he finds is more than just a fallen star. It’s everything that his heart truly desires.
Stardust is a charming story that made me believe that fairy tales were for adults to.
Okay. For starters, I am really a fan of the classics. And when I do book reviews, I’d always go for them. But this time, Stardust seemed just so appealing to me that I ended up reading the bok and finally deciding I’d make a book review of it.
As I end each chapter, there is this eagerness inside me for the next one. The words and events that unfolded in the story were smoothly woven together with a stroke of adept greatness and vast imagination.
Every piece in the novel fitted together in the end. I was amazed by how Gaiman has created his characters. He has shown the existence of each of the characters with uniqueness and every character has greatly served its purpose for being in the story.
Every character in the novel played a huge role for building up the story itself and for that, Gaiman has earned my respect, awe and everything I could ever think of. Though at some point, I have made quite a few wise guesses, I still enjoyed it as much as I wasn’t expecting it to be. Because honestly, I was expecting it to be boring and I easily judged it by being just like every other fairy tale story out there, lame and for kids.
In the end, I was grateful for having chosen the book. It was not a disappointment. There was never any of it actually; but of pure satisfaction and amazement instead.
Gaiman is indeed a genius for he has brought me into the world of Wall and Faerie, clearly showing his mastery in using vivid language, irony, sarcastic humor and an imagination that knows far no bounds. A fairy tale, but Gaiman proved this one to be unique and original.
I knew it wasn’t such, you know, those heavy kinds of books that I am used to reading. But Stardust is a lightly-written masterpiece that still woke up the literary lover inside me.
(Source: iamzee)
