BarringtonLibrary Reads discussion

Neil Gaiman has a varied and extensive bibliography ranging from science fiction to fantasy books, graphic novels, screenplays, and short stories. "Stardust" is one of his popular fantasy works. Leave a comment, question, or observation about this book below. We'd love to hear from you!

Hey Ben - was wondering if there was a good list of discussion questions or something that could be included with these to help drive the convo?

Kendryck wrote: "Hey Ben - was wondering if there was a good list of discussion questions or something that could be included with these to help drive the convo?"

Absolutely! I'll put some up today.

Discussion questions to get the conversation (and thinking) started -

Why do you think the book is called Stardust?

How does the bouncing around between different characters' perspectives influence your experience of the plot taking shape?

Which themes from fairytales does Gaiman use in Stardust? Which ones does he plop in straightforwardly and which ones does he twist?

I think this book is called Stardust because ultimately this is a romantic story and stardust has a romantic and magical feel to it. But there's also the discovery through the book that the stardust has properties that several different characters desire to retain for selfish reasons.

The bouncing around between perspectives is something I'm certainly used to at this point across multiple genres so I wouldn't say that it impacted me one way or another. However, I can certainly understand where that literary tool was not necessarily widely used in 1997 when this was published and could have been extremely impactful or at least a talking point among readers. This tool is pretty common in the Fantasy genre as well now with series like Game of Thrones.

I agree that, since it was written in 1998, the singular perspective was the primary mode for writers, especially sci-fi-fantasy. I've read numerous works from that time (and at the time). Writers simply wrote with one character and, well, if you didn't like the character.... Try another book, I guess! I'm not sure if Stardust would've benefited from altering perspectives. The third-person omniscient was effective and kept in line with the fairytale concept, where the reader often feels like they are the center of the story.

I'm not familiar enough with fairytale themes, but I recognize "general ideas" that come up in fairytales. You have the hero's journey, the desire to be young and beautiful, the battle over a newly vacant throne, fantastical creatures, and more.

I also found that the title conjures a mixture of romance and magic. There's a cosmic element there, too, when you think about "stars aligning" and "when two lovers meet." You can also equate Yvaine to "star" and Tristran to "dust" (of earth).