As I've been reading through Gaiman's Stardust, I have been surprised to find the read difficult. Not stylistically, of course -- after all, this novel bears the most recent publication date of all the novels we have analyzed. The language is modern and the style is appealing, similar to Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and very dissimilar to The Wood Beyond the World. No, the read has been difficult for me for quite another reason. It lacks, I believe, the element of enchantment.
There are clear differences in all of the novels we have read, but all are bound together by the strangely elusive term fantasy. Early in the semester we attempted to define the genre only to realize how complicated it the task was. Afterwards, we looked at the difference between fairy tales and fantasy stories. Now, as our study of British Fantasy Literature comes to an end, I find it appropriate to look back on these distinctions and apply them to Stardust.
According to the dictionary of fantasy terms, "The fairytale is a written story that relies upon the fantastic, although it need not involve fairies or Faerie". Immediately, a distinction is made between a fairytale and Faerie -- they are not mutually exclusive. Neil Gaiman, as he has stated, intentionally wrote Stardust to follow in the Victorian fairytale convention. In fact, he intended it be a "pre-Tolkien" fairytale.
Tolkien discussed Faerie extensively in his famous essay, "On Fairy-Stories", defining it by the many elements that he deemed were necessary to it. Although many of these elements are present in Stardust, many are not. Stardust, as Gaiman intended, is not of Faerie. It is merely a fairytale.
It is, I believe, the enchantment of Faerie that Stardust lacks. The read was not difficult because of what it had (sexual desire and profanity) but because of what it lacked.
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