The Most Creative Thing I've Read

Creativity is on the lips of writers, speakers, and bloggers today. Everyone wants to be creative. But

exactly what is creativity? In some upcoming blogs I will explore this question—which is a question to me as well (though I do have some theories or ideas on it). I want to suggest that creativity is hard to define but easy to recognize. A Supreme Court Justice in the United States once said of pornography, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” He was ridiculed for that statement—but, really, it’s true! And the same is true of creativity. Everyone is trying to formulate a definition of it. I don’t think I can do that, but I know it when I see it! It has a certain quality. It communicates something. It exudes an unmistakable aura. This is illustrated in the book I will say is the most creative thing I’ve ever read.

The most creative thing I have ever read is Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel, Neverwhere.

Neverwhere began as an assignment. The BBC commissioned Gaiman to write a TV series about homelessness. One would assume he would start by depicting the plight of the homeless—perhaps focus on a family that suddenly ended out on the streets and chronicle their struggle to survive and adjust. Perhaps, he could tell the story of a young woman or young man trying to survive in the hard world of the displaced. He didn’t take this approach at all. He found a way to present homelessness creatively.

If you’ve read Neverwhere, you know it is a fantasy novel. A young Londoner enters a magical realm called “London Below,” which exists in tandem with “London above,” which is the city as we know it. Orcs, elves, vampires, all manner of odd creatures live there. They live on the tops of buildings, in alleys, in abandoned buildings, and in the sewers. They barter. London below is also a dangerous place to live. Dressed in shabby, ill-fitting clothing, exchanging favors or items in the place of money, careful navigating their violent, uncertain world, the citizens of London below make their way.

Of course, they are very much like the homeless. Reading the book or seeing the film series, one

Character of Door

cannot miss the connection. Even the main character from London Below, Door, who comes from a higher-placed and wealthier “fiefdom,” dresses shabbily and barters. Her family’s home is filled with second-hand furniture. She is stalked by two killers who move easily in this violence-ridden netherworld.

Perhaps the most poignant passage is when the main character  muses on an ill-dressed, doting old man who lives in a train car. “Richard found himself imaging the earl sixty, eight, five hundred years ago:  a mighty warrior, a cunning strategist, a great lover of women, a fine friend, a terrifying foe. There was still the wreckage of that man in there somewhere. That was what was so terrible and so sad.” I cannot look upon a homeless man—especially one on whom the lifestyle has wrought damage—without thinking of what he (or she) might have once been before their circumstances took a tragic turn.

Old Bailey, from London Below

This is creativity A realistic story focusing on the homeless might have come across as sentimental or maudlin. But creating a fantasy world where homelessness can be represented and commented upon indirectly—this is creativity. A creative approach proves more effective and makes a deeper impression. If you read Neverwhere and catch the homeless analogy (it’s hard to miss) you will not forget it. You will be more aware of way the homeless live. You will feel more compassion for their plight. Creativity transforms and gives power to the image. Creativity reworks the raw material of story, making it something (as Hamlet said) “wondrous strange.”

You also see this transformation working in:

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

the Genesis creation story

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

I will talk about each of these books and how they use creative technique.

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