Neil Gaiman is a star. He constructs stories like some demented

In the words of Clive Barker—“Neil Gaiman is a star. He constructs stories like some demented cook might make a wedding cake, building layer upon layer, including all kinds of sweet and sour in the mix.”—there shines both reverence and wonder. To call a man a star is to say he is not merely of this earth, but of the heavens, radiating light to guide others. Yet the comparison to a wedding cake—layered, ornate, both sweet and complex—reminds us that Gaiman’s brilliance lies not in simplicity but in the weaving together of opposites: sweetness and bitterness, beauty and terror, myth and reality.

The ancients often described poets and storytellers as craftsmen of worlds. Consider Homer, who built the Iliad and Odyssey not as straight paths but as labyrinths of grief and glory, where gods and mortals mingle and the sweetness of victory is never free from the sourness of loss. So too does Gaiman, as Barker observes, create works layered with both delight and darkness, offering readers not mere tales, but feasts of the spirit, rich with flavors that linger long after the last bite.

The wedding cake itself is a fitting image, for it is not merely food but symbol: a structure of celebration, crafted with patience, and designed to be shared by many. In likening Gaiman’s stories to such a creation, Barker reveals that they are not simple sustenance but ritual offerings, layered with care, intended to bind readers together in wonder. Just as a wedding cake crowns the union of two lives, so too Gaiman’s tales crown the union of imagination and truth.

There is wisdom here for all who labor in the arts: greatness lies not in smoothness alone, but in daring to mix the sweet and sour, the light and shadow. Michelangelo, when carving the David, did not seek to hide the veins, the tension, the flaws of flesh; instead, he revealed them, giving life to stone through imperfection. Gaiman, in Barker’s vision, follows the same path: a maker unafraid to blend the grotesque with the divine, trusting that in contradiction lies beauty.

Thus, let us remember: to create is not to make something simple, but to build layers deep enough to contain the fullness of life. A flat tale fades, but a layered tale—like a towering wedding cake—endures in memory, nourishing those who partake. In Barker’s praise of Gaiman, we hear a lesson for every generation: true artistry is not polished sweetness alone, but the bold mingling of flavors that reflect the whole of existence.