Book Review: Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman

Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman

Writers are artists who tootle along the tendrils in their brain to unearth stories that will stir their heart, and the hearts of people who read them. Equipped with a paintbucket consisting only of twenty-six letters, and just a sprinkling of punctuation marks, they construct new worlds and scenarios that immerse and absorb readers’ attention; a healthy distraction from everyday frenzy.

“Art Matters: Because your imagination can change the world” by Neil Gaiman is a non-fiction book that describes the significance of making good art. Although the book is mainly about writers, its insights are also valid for other kind of artists as well, such as dancers, musicians, actors, painters, etc.

Featuring expressive illustrations by Chris Riddell, the book is divided into three parts: Importance of libraries, making a chair, and making good art.

Libraries, he says, are like safe havens that enable us to learn from those who are no longer there with us. By writing books, these writers made the knowledge accessible and incremental. Just imagine if people in history hadn’t written diaries and journals. Life would be so empty and boring with just the current affairs. We wouldn’t know anything about historical empires, inspiring stories of people, and lives of people in old times, without having read all these ancient bookrolls and paperbound journals.

“If you want to be intelligent, read fairy tales. If you want to be more intelligent read more fairy tales,” Einstein said it quite precisely.

At the same time, although we look to the history to have glimpses of human past, creativity, paradoxically, lies in the present moment. Storytellers use memories of the past to create heartwarming stories in the present moment. Its just like making a chair. It comes with a set of instructions and a rulebook. Failing to follow it can leave some hinges loose, which will cause the chair to topple when someone sits in it, making the person trip & fall, perhaps even causing injury. So, art requires following of rules. But once we learn to follow these rules, we can then learn to break them too.

 

In the book, the author also talks about “ideas.” Even though most ideas stem from imagination, they are not always false or illusory. Sometimes they can be true. And they need to be expressed, otherwise, they just linger in space, hovering above our heads like clouds or question marks. Stories need to be told. That’s why both writing and reading fiction are so cathartic.

Fiction is not just a story spun and woven from the wizardry of a writer’s mind, but is also a tool to cultivate empathy. When one reads a book of fiction, it proffers them the feeling that they aren’t alone; in their struggles and sorrows, in their pains and plights, and all the bittersweet melancholies that weep in their hearts from remnants and impressions of everyday lives.

“Make interesting, amazing, glorious, fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art,” the author writes.

And when you do, you need to be thick-skinned, because there will always be things like failure and criticism. A lot of these. We must let people be free to think whatever they want to think, about the story or a poem that we have written, or anything else.

And whatever happens, remember to enjoy the journey. Love your job. In the book, Neil Gaiman says, “I didn’t have a career. I just did the next thing on the list of things I wanted to do. I learned to write by writing.” He said he worked like it was an adventure. He did the things until he loved doing them, and when he stopped loving them, he stopped doing them. “Life didn’t feel like work,” he wrote.

The main thing, in the end, is to be an artist - the artist who expresses their heart’s deepest song, who carves the world they desire to witness, and who is not afraid of getting rejected. Looking at the process of writing, storytelling or art creation as a metamorphosis or as a cosmic phenomenon, one can remain detached from one’s own creation, which is important.

So, make good art, tell stories, weave poetry, and enjoy what you do, because life is too short to do anything less than that!

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