Deconstructed: Neil Gaiman Brings Us to the End of the World
We can’t always feature full songs and readings on our broadcast, but we love sharing them with listeners when we can. In Deconstructed, we feature full-length production pieces from TTBOOK, with excerpted quotes from the accompanying interview.
We were thrilled to have Neil Gaiman on the show if only for the chance to hear him read some apocalyptic excerpts from his collection of retold Norse legends, “Norse Mythology.” Our technical director Joe Hardtke had a lot of fun imagining what the end of the world might sound like, roiling behind Gaiman’s reading. Gaiman is quite a performer—he did this in one take. It took Joe considerably longer to construct the end of the world.
In the full interview, Gaiman shared some of his thoughts on how this Norse myth might make us reflect on the times we find ourselves living in—here are a few excerpts.
“Everything in the world of the Norse seems to be heading toward Ragnarok. It’s this inevitable darkness.”
“[Ragnarok reflects]the human desire to have that big fight. It’s the thing that sends people to war, the feeling that if we just hit each other, bomb each other, burn things and fight until there’s nobody left standing, maybe that will fix everything.”
“Ragnarok for each of us is very real; we’re all living in the last days.”
Thankfully, Gaiman didn’t leave us in complete and utter despair. There is always a thereafter—when the game begins anew, both for gods and men.
“The book ends with hope. We get to the end of everything, the world has been destroyed, the sun is gone. And yet, even darkness cannot last forever.”
You can listen to the full interview with Neil Gaiman here. If you like this feature, let us know if you have a favorite TTBOOK interview that we can deconstruct.
