The Graveyard Book [audio] and ramblings

This is not going to be a standard book-post, because I have yet to read The Graveyard Book [by Neil Gaiman, if you missed that previous note]. As of this moment, I have merely finished listening to it on tape and have decided that I do, in fact, love the story. But I will forever have reservations about it. Why? Because, when you read a book on your own, for the first time, you develop your own notions, none of them preconcieved...unless, perhaps, you have previously read the author or it is a sequal or a follow-up in a series you are reading. Your mind is free to decide just how tall, how short, how skinny or fat, quite what hair color a person may have or just how spooky the shadows really are. You bring your own experiences and create a truly unique experience, guided only by the words on the pages before you, and maybe the texture of the book in your hands.
When you read a book after having any other exposure to the material, this experience is tainted. Maybe tainted is a poor word choice, as it has more negative connotations than otherwise, but it is accurate enough. By listening to The Graveyard Book as read by Neil Gaiman, I have taken an otherwise autonomous text [which I believe all books to be] and placed a filter over the light in which I see it. Now, when I do go back and physically read Gaiman's book, I will hear his accents and his voice and probably see his face during much of the dialogue. Inasmuch, the experience will not be purely my own. Normally, I might take an issue with this, being a person who far prefers to read a book before seeing the movie [which doesn't always work out when I discover the movie is based on a book, much like Jurassic Park from so long ago], and normally I would take a major exception in it being the author who has tainted or altered the reading, but I cannot.
I knowingly chose to listen to a book I knew I would read. I knew this would happen...but I'm so in love with some of these characters, such as Silas, Bod's parents and the poet [whose name escapes me at this instance--I blame hunger and poor memory for this!]. And I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Gaiman's portrayals. His reading, though I could be playing along [can I use willing suspension of disbelief or something here?] with the intentional fallacy, felt very true and clear to the text, and not as though he were trying to forcibly pull something out of the text that is unapparent or unrelated to the stories at hand [ex: Rowling's declaration that Dumbledor is gay. Can you point it out to me clearly in the words on the page, without using your all-powerful authorial knowledge? And so what if he is? Bah humbug!]. He was merely reading the words and adding accents and sometimes tones where he felt they were appropriate.
I need to stop this...but I suppose I could say I'm just justifying an interpretation/reading of a text as a viable presentation, which I do support. Let's go with that.
Moving on to why I actually had decided to do this...
I wanted to make public a realization that came to me while I was talking with my roommate [who had just yelled at me for buying myself a copy of the book when she had apparently wanted to buy it as my birthday present] about how I was enjoying it and a little about the story. I realized that I knew the story before I had heard it. No, I hadn't read spoilers [nothing beyond Gaiman's commentary in his blog which I do follow because I'm a bit of a dork], but because it was a very simple story in an unusual setting. I could have made numerous predictions while reading it and been correct [although one character's ending did take me a bit by surprise], kind of like people do when they're watching a movie that doesn't impress them. But what amazed me is that the book was so well founded in its little world that I had no desire to be cynical or critical this time through. I didn't want to know the logistics, I wanted to know the story. I willingly suspended my logic my cynicism and my general cantakerous nature to step into and immerse myself in this simple but wonderful adventure of a boy called Nobody.
And that, I think, is what makes a story enjoyable. I do not know enough of the critical world to say anything about what scholars will think, but I know enough about people to believe that this book will be well-loved by many many people, and for a long time. [Heaven knows I plan on being a good god-parent when my friends start having kids and innundating them with this and many other fabulously adventurous tales.] I have no hopes to be the next Hemmingway, Lewis or even Austen [seriously not on that last one, no offense Austen-fans]. I don't believe I'll ever write a masterpiece to be read for hundreds or even a hundred years. My main hope is that I will reach a point in my writings that I can create a book nearly as well crafted as this one, so that I can present one of the innumerable stories beneath the sun in a new and different way. In a way so that people will put aside their "well it's obvious that"s and let themselves enjoy the adventure.
Serious acclamations belong to Mr. Gaiman. Though I have only technically looked at and read about a half-dozen pages in the book, and I have only listened to the words, I willingly make the statement that it is an excellent book that deserves to be read and experienced by children of all ages [aka those of us who still cling to the wonder and hope of childhood]. Neil Gaiman--you rock.

[And now, I must dash away in a mild panic because I have to be at work in forty-five minutes and haven't had lunch or put together a dinner or done anything remarkably productive in a real-world sense. Crap.]