Great Riddlers: Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a well-known English writer who has a very diverse portfolio. He has written successful novels, comic books, graphic novels, short stories and poems. Aside from art in the written form, he has also been involved in film. He co-wrote the screenplay for the movie MirrorMask. His works have earned him a large variety of awards and he has even set the record for being the first person to earn the Newbery and Carnegie awards for a single novel. He earned these awards for his 2008 novel The Graveyard Book. His childhood and his education were fairly normal but he was already reading fairly well by the age of four. He loved reading and had read vast amounts of novels by the time he was a young teenager, developing his style and interests. Later he became a fan of science fiction, which sparked his own novels in the genre. One lesser studied aspect of Neil Gaiman is his riddles. Riddles play a notable part in his works.

Neil Gaiman's use of riddles throughout his works is very similar to many other modern writers, but he puts his own twist on them as well. In his novels he uses riddles as a way to test the wit of his characters. Riddles are posed to characters in the story and they must find the answer to prove themselves worthy of something. In contrast, he uses riddles in his poetry to create metaphors to represent larger ideas, a practice very common in poetry since the Greeks. Another way he uses riddles in his works is to teach lessons. Riddles are a very good way to teach people about real world principals, and making them think about it along the way. His use of riddles throughout his works demonstrates how useful they can be as literary devices in art.

One riddle that Neil Gaiman discusses in one of his works, the film MirrorMask, is not one of his own; but it is a great riddle all the same. The riddle includes asking somebody a riddle and giving them an answer that makes no sense. In this situation the riddle is "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" The supplied answer makes no sense at all with the riddle as given. The answer is a herring which fits none of the criteria. But when the person who is posed the riddle protests each of the clues the person who asked the riddle just adds stipulations to the herring to make the riddle work, such as, the herring can be painted. This type of riddle is used to teach the idea that solutions and actions do not have to make direct logical sense because they can be shifted to make sense.

Neil Gaiman is a very diverse artist making novels, comics, films and more. He has achieved many of the highest literary awards and will continue to make art for years to come, and hopefully more riddles.