Like Dream Country, Fables & Reflections is a series of short stories in which Dream appears. There are nine stories, and many of them deal with historical figures. The stories are well organized; while many will have their favorites, they build from somewhat cute to serious to rather mind-boggling. I was especially fond of "Three Septembers and a January" and "The Parliament of Rooks." I enjoyed "Orpheus" as well, but just as in the story about A Midsummer Night's Dream, the actual story is not all that original, only the telling is original. I'm going to go through them in order though because I think I have something I wanted to say about each.I have never seen a book do what Fables & Reflections did with"Fear of Falling." The story starts right on the first page. I wasn't sure that my book wasn't damaged. The copyright page, the table of contents, and the introduction all come after "Fear of Falling." The story itself was kinda cute, but it was fairly predictable. What intrigued me was the artwork. I am way out of my league discussing comic book artwork. I am only now starting to understand how many different people are required to make the artwork: there's an illustrator or person who draws the pictures, then there's an inker who puts the color in, and there's even a person who just does lettering. That's what I'm gathering from the credits and bio pages anyway. The styles are really different between different artists. It's kinda like the difference between the animation in Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin. It's just got a different feel. Okay, so back to "Fear of Falling." The faces were shaded very differently. Everyone seemed a little shady, and I'm not sure that that was consistent really with the story or even the spirit of the story, but it was interesting. Also, the characters looked stretched. Everyone was just a little overly tall and thin. It kinda reminded me of a Hellboy comic my boyfriend showed me. I wonder if there's a name for this style of artwork. There was a lot of shadow, and the shadow was black, not gray or deeper colored. It was black. And, as a side note, Morpheus was a little less attractive that way.
I found Gene Wolfe's introduction interesting. He writes, "Do you read introductions? I do, and after having read a good many of them, I am sadly aware that most of us who write them do not know what they are supposed to accomplish, which is to enable you to start the stories without embarassment." I hadn't thought about how rarely people actually use introductions to introduce stories, but it's true, hardly anyone does. However, when Wolfe does get around to introducing the characters, he does it in a strange way. He gives us the literary/historical context behind the main characters, but he does not tell us anything that would enable us to have a conversation with the characters. He definitely leaves the human interest for Gaiman. He tells us that Caius is Emperor Augustus, but he doesn't tell us, "Hey, that's Caius, he's an okay guy, but don't mention Caesar; they had a sticky relationship." But I'm really glad I read this introduction. If I ever have to write an introduction of my own someday, I'll be sure to remember Wolfe's advice. Though I can't imagine why I would need to write an introduction.
"Three Septembers and a January" is a story about a challenge between Despair, Desire, and Dream. I liked it a lot. I liked Joshua, and I loved the fact that Dream was able to defeat his Despair by giving him the dream that he was someone. Some of it was obviously unrealistic: a newspaper would never really publish a letter claiming that one was emperor of the United States, for example. But the storyline was a hopeful one, and the minor appearances of Delirium and Death were fun. The scene between Dr. Pain and Joshua was a priceless little bit of Buddhist philosophy. I will eventually share this story with my mother. I may get her to read all the stories, but I definitely want her to read this one.
"Thermidor" is about the French Revolution, which I incidentally just learned about this past summer during my Romantic Poetry class. The main character is Lady Johanna Constantine, who I guess is in some way related to the other Constantines. Trying to protect the head of Orpheus she attempts to get it out of France, but she is waylaid by Louis-Antoine St. Just and Monsieur Robespierre. In the spirit of their revolution, they don't want any religious artifacts roaming around France. When the two are finally confronted with the head of Orpheus, they crack and can no longer run their country. The message seems to be that the way to end a bloody, misguided revolution is to bring a magic head to sing of liberty and freedom. This is, of course, a less than satisfactory answer to one of life's great questions, but...there you have it.
"The Hunt" is a story about a family of werewolves, but you don't know this until thirteen pages into the story. It was kind of romantic, but tales about vampires and werewolves often are these days. I still want to know why the werewolf man walks away from the sleeping "princess" figure toward the end. I guess true love conquers all? The grandfather telling the story was really pretty cute, and I think there are a variety of messages the young girl could take away from the story.
"August" is about Caius Agustus the Roman Emperor after Caesar spending a day each year as a beggar. I think I understood the message of the story. A lot of these stories are about boundaries, this one perhaps more than most. Caius says, "Firstly, Terminus, the god of boundaries. Jupiter must bow to him; boundaries are the most important of things, Lycius." In many ways, the boundaries Caius sets up for Rome are his way to rebel against Caesar, but in other ways, they are boundaries of morality and behavior. After telling Lycius that the number of men he has killed is countless, Caius seems to need a definite end, both physical and temporal, for the empire and its repercussions. I realize that I am talking about these stories like they all have morals, but the book is titled Fables & Reflections, so I don't feel too bad about it. Normally, I try not to talk about literature that way.
Fiddler's Green reappears in "Soft Places" (see The Doll's House), and we meet Marco Polo and Rustichello. The story is reallyabout the soft places in memory and dream where we can get stuck. That is a little obvious, but you know what I mean. Marco Polo almost did not exist because he travelled to a soft place. Dream tells him, "You come in, you do not go out again," but he eventually gets him out. Good ole Dream, huh? Time is an interesting construct in this story. Structurally the layers are interesting. Marco Polo meets a man he will not meet in his life for many years, Fiddler's Green shows up to escape one of Dream's romantic moods, and Dream himself shows up just after his captivity. We are sucked into the time portal as well because we read about Dream's release from captivity five books ago. It's all quite strange, but as I said, the stories get progressively more mind-boggling as the collection continues.
Ah, "Orpheus." What to say about this sad tale? The Endless are inserted in an interesting way. Destruction helps Orpheus seek Death, but Dream is really a horrible father. Death is adorable as ever. It's nice to see Calliope again, but unfortunate to find out that she's not sure she ever really loved Dream. Dream's lovelife is really his own fault, but it's still fairly pathetic. The way he treats his son is unforgivable though. I am not extremely well steeped in Greek myth, but I never really thought of Orpheus as regretting his immortality as much as he does in this story. Of course, he is reduced to a head, so that might have something to do with it. But I really thought he went on trips with Hercules and Jason and stuff even after he lost Euridyce. Oh well.
"The Parliament of Rooks" was one of my favorite stories. Believe it or not, I like Cain and Abel as characters. I also really liked Eve! She is so...over it all. I think it's funny and realistic. She tells Cain, "I've stopped telling stories," and "I'm NOT your mother, Cain" in a way that makes it seem like she's bitter, but handling it. The story is really about Daniel's trip to "The Dreaming," which I think foreshadows a greater role he will have to play. He ends up with Matthew, the talking raven, Eve, Cain, and Abel all telling stories. Abel's story is absolutely adorable! The drawings are so, so cute! Eve's story is pragmatic and actually I think has a basis in other mythology. I've definitely heard of Lilith before.The whole storytelling is framed by some interesting bird talk. I really enjoyed it.
The story "Ramadan" was really interesting until the political protest became too transparent. Dream is all god-like again, and the Caliph is really quite rude to him, but the ending on the streets of Bagdhad was a little too much. I guess I would not have got the point on my own, but I'm really not sure I would be happy to replace Bagdhad the way it is now with what it was in the beginning of the story. It was just too allegorical. Not enough was left up to the imagination.
Okay, so now I have finally finished my thoughts on book 6, finished book 7, and I think I'm going to take a break soon. I started a blog on The Indigo King, and I would hate to see February come along with January's reading unfinished, but we'll see. There are other reasons for giving Sandman a break right now, but I'll talk about those in the next blog.
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