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Oh, so *that's* why Gaiman's incommunicado in China. Or rather, that's why he's in China; he's incommunicado for the various reasons he listed in his blog, like having his cell phone hacked.

Am trying not to be Eeyore these days, so shall refrain from laying personal odds on how well this might end.

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I don't know whether to be pleased or horrified.

My own feeling is that I really don't trust him with other people's cultures. Doesn't know his place, grump. Plus the Artist's insistence that all is rightful grist to his mill.

this is the person who conned Terry Pratchett into believing that "I don't speak Chinese" is equivalent to "Do you speak Chinese?" while they were doing Good Omens. meh.

I haven't heard this story. What happened?

ETA: oh OK. Google eventually reveals all. To be pedantic, I wouldn't call that conning, which implies deliberate fraud. Pretty clear that Gaiman got the two phrases confused, which is apt to happen ~~when you can't read a language~~. = is not an ear learner.

Edited 2011-03-11 16:28 (UTC)

I am kind of afraid ... very very afraid ~~and really really hope that me giving him reload 10 had nothing to do with this~~ although when Rasetsunyo and I went to that book signing (oh my was that two years ago?) (http://rasetsunyo.livejournal.com/114304.html) it seemed that the wheels were already in motion for it. So yeah nothing to do with that at all.

*shudders*

Merely a case of great minds thinking alike, yes.

THAT WAS TWO YEARS AGO? REALLY?
And yes, I share the same Eeyore sentiment.

Look, after Damon Albarn's Monkey King opera I'm ready for all comers. XD

(googles) Yes, I guess you would be. I was thinking The Forbidden Kingdom, which was probably bad enough.

Hm. Could be interesting. Or could be ... Gaiman.

Could be interesting Gaiman. I fancy the production and directorial overlords will have something to say if he gets it too rong, for highly variable definitions of rong.

This is true. And he's done decent jobs of writing-to-order and staying within canon in the past, when not branching out on his own things -- there was an episode of Babylon 5, and there was an interesting Marvel Comics sort-of-historical, and probably other stuff I can't think of offhand.

So... possible, I suppose. We'll have to wait and see.

Oh, this is when you want to be Eeyore, and gleefully lay odds and predict dome and gloom. It's the sort of thing that always cheers one up. :P

Anyways, my turn to be Eeyore. I do not see how this will end well. *thinks* Maybe if he... no I really don't. Can't even imagine any scenarios where this will turn out well.

Settled then. This cannot possibly end well.

Gaiman doesn't come off as conventionally clueless and bumptiously self-satisfied, the way film industry types regularly do. He's been visited by the clue fairy. But he's not a nonesuch, an unpredictable, that you never know what he'll think of next. (Am out of this loop, can't think of modern examples. Stoppard, maybe.) He's Gaiman. He thinks in the Gaiman fashion, and I wonder how much he can not think Gaiman.

But as I said to incandescens up there, there are the Chinese industry overlords to be considered as well. *Their* notions and Gaiman's script might result in something very interesting.

The Chinese industry overlords are supremely clueless. These are the people who gave us the curse of the golden boobies! And deprived Uncle Ming of his role in Mei Lanfang! Their approval of Gaiman is actually a strike against him, not for.

They can't *all* be lost causes, surely? Though this one sounds a bit umm. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118033705?refCatId=13)

When Gaiman say things like "there's nothing inherently Greek about the odyssey", it worries me.

Considering that statement, I actually have no idea how true it is or might be. Maybe Gaiman was saying 'Nothing I read in the Odyssey seems to apply to what I saw in Greece.' Rather as nothing about Genji relates to what you see in downtown Tokyo. Which is superficial, but an understandable error. (If it is. I have no idea how yer average Greek feels about Homer.)

I hope he's not saying 'The Odyssey is about the human experience and therefore is not particularly Greek.'

Taken on its own I would probably go with what you said, but as he said it in context of writing script for Journey to the West I have to fear the worst. >_<

(I told you, I'm going to be Eeyore about it to the bitter end)

Alas, you probably have every reason to be Eeyore about this undertaking. It seems to have 'See, I *told* you!!' written all over it.

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