April 22 - "How to Sell the Ponti Bridge"

“How to Sell the Ponti Bridge”
by Neil Gaiman
M Is for Magic (2007)

* * * (Good) Fantasy

A tall, bald man steps up to defend the Ponti Bridge con at the Rouges’ Club after listening to a group of ne'er-do-well artists decry it’s merits.

I’m all for the con. But what keeps me away from fantasy, and often drives me out of this story, are the names I cannot pronounce. I was impressed, as always, with the style of writing displayed by Gaiman, and the con of selling the unsellable bridge was engaging, but I couldn’t get past the fact that this was a tale told on a different world, to other rogues I couldn’t picture because of the trappings in which they were dressed (named). It seems like such a little thing, but it’s often those minor details upon which stories find their fans, or do not.