Neil Gaiman on the Power of Fantasy in our Lives

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Neil Gaiman, one of the great fantasy writers of our time, first started writing his comic series “The Sandman” in the nineteen-eightiess. Decades later, a TV adaptation is a huge hit on Netflix, topping the platform’s charts in countries across the globe. Gaiman talks with the producer Ngofeen Mputubwele about the powerful role that fantasy can play in helping audiences process real experiences in their lives. “You’re making things that aren’t true,” he says, “and you’re giving them to people in order to allow them to see—we hope—greater truths.” Though the Netflix début marks a major expansion of “The Sandman” ’s visibility, the series has long attracted audiences beyond ardent comic fans. Looking back to the early success of his comics, Gaiman recalls, “I would go to conventions and large, sweaty gentlemen would come over to me, grab my hands and say, ‘You brought women into my store. . . . Let me shake your hand.’ ”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I'm Gauphin, Puttuueuuele. There are about
0:16.0	193 countries in the world. In 89 of them, the Sandman is the most popular show on Netflix.
0:23.4	So this is the Neil Gaiman show, of course, based on his comic series. I have to admit O'Fand, I don't follow fantasy that closely, but Neil Gaiman's got a huge list of really successful books. I don't think there's anyone even close to him in the genre right now.
0:37.7	What draws you to his work? His books ask readers to trust him and step into this new world,
0:45.3	and then the world always delivers. I think one of my favorites is his story, the graveyard book,
0:50.6	where this baby, his parents are killed, and then he gets adopted by ghosts in a graveyard,
0:57.8	and the story sort of unspools from there, or the story Coraline or the series American Gods.
1:05.1	There's just so, so many stories that are kind of filled with these, like, fantastical tales that are really great.
1:11.3	How involved was he in the new Netflix adaptation of Sandman?
1:14.9	Super involved, which is one of the things that's very cool about it. This is not the situation
1:18.7	where the author says, uh, I'm selling the rights and hopefully they don't mess it up. He
1:24.3	was getting dailies, like the shots of
1:27.5	what they recorded every day. He helped
1:29.4	on the script. He helped with
1:31.4	casting. He was very, very
1:33.4	involved, and I think that the result is something
1:35.5	that is as expansive and dreamy as
1:39.3	the rest of his canon.
1:42.2	We begin.
1:57.0	No his canon we begin in the waking world which humanity insists on calling the real world as if your dreams have no effect upon the choices you make.
2:05.1	I want to take you back to December of 1988.
	...

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