The Princess Bride

I came to this book by way of my dear friend Christy. When we met early in our West Potomac teaching careers, we had plenty in common without discovering that we both loved fantasy and could quote extensively from The Princess Bride film. However, this interesting and probably rather common ability made for great entertainment in the faculty lounge.

Fables: Legends in Exile (Vol. 1)

Our favorite Grimm characters come to the modern world to escape the adversary who has taken all their lands. Snow White's sister Rose Red fakes her own murder to get out of a pending engagement with Bluebeard.

Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and Others

Mike Mignola must be an interesting man. I don't have much experience in comics, but I haven't seen any where the artist and the writer are the same person until this one, of course. He seems to have a penchant for European folk tales: almost all of the Hellboy stories in this volume are based on some folk tale. I really enjoy the artwork! It's not cartoony, but it's not realistic either. It's edgy but not gross. I think I could get addicted to it.

Lioness Rampant (Song of the Lioness 4)

The conclusion to the Song of the Lioness quartet.

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Song of the Lioness 3)

The red-headed, purple-eyed knight spends time in the desert with the bedouins.

In the Hand of the Goddess (Song of the Lioness 2)

In this second installment of the Song of the Lioness quartet, Alanna comes into her own in a big way. The second story is more well structured than the first, but in essence it was a continuation of the first story. Alanna meets the Goddess on her way home from an errand she's running from her overlord (Prince Jonathan). The Goddess tells her she has three fears she must overcome, and the rest of the story details how she overcomes those three fears. Her first fear is of the Ordeal that she must undergo in order to become a knight. The second is her fear of love, and the third fear is her fear of Duke Roger. By the end of the story, Alanna has developed a romantic relationship with Prince Jonathan, undergone the Ordeal for Knighthood, and defeated Duke Roger. It wraps up well.

Alanna The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness 1)

What is it about the idea of fantasy education that fascinates me so much? I don't know. All I know is that there are innumerable reasons why I think educators can learn from the fictional schools created in fantasy novels. One thing I have learned overall is that we coddle our students way too much. Students appreciate a business-like manner in the classroom. They enjoy a challenge. From Ms. Tamora Pierce I have learned that theoretical education is best done in the mornings and physical activity in the afternoon. Another lesson that echoes what can be learned in Rowling's series is that a theoretical education, not balanced by practical application is evil. I will explain, but not in this post. I'll save this one for why I enjoyed this first installment in the Song of the Lioness series.

Alanna, one of twins born to a nobleman who loves his books more than his children, decides to switch places with her brother Thom. Thom has always wanted to be a sorcerer and Alanna has always wanted to be a knight. Forging their father's signature, Alanna becomes Alan and heads to palace for page training, and Thom heads to the convent to be trained in magic. Alanna experiences great success in her ardous training as a page. She makes friends with the Prince (Jonathan) and one of her better teachers (Myles). She defeats her childhood nemesis Ralon, heals Jonathan from the sweating sickness that has been sapping all the healers of their strength, and eventually helps Jonathan to defeat the Ysandir of the Black City. Along the way, Alanna makes a much more adult enemy in the form of Duke Roger who wants to replace Jonathan as heir to the thrown of Tortall.

Alanna is a very strong character, but much of her strength lies in her youth and naivte. Her belief that she can do things seems to be enough to get them done. Often confused as to why she succeeds at tasks she sets for herself, Alanna is not proud or overly confident. She just does things without thinking about the possibility of failure. She has to be told that she is likable and doesn't need to try so hard to be like everyone else. By the end of the first novel, however, she seems to have grown in to her abilities to some extent, as she admits to Jonathan that she would make the best squire for him. One of the best features of the series is Alanna's fear of her own magic. She has the Gift, as they call it in the book, and instead of using it to her advantage at every opportunity, she shuns it and has to be forced to use it by extenuating circumstances. What Alanna achieves in this novel, she achieves with her own strength and the sweat of her brow.

Jonathan, Raoul, Gary, and Myles are fun background characters full of honor and a willingness to jump in on the side of the righteous and the weak. Myles is my favorite though because he is a teacher who manages to make History come alive for his students. He is also modest, though he drinks too much for the respectable knight. Duke Roger is an understandable villain with realistic motives, but he has yet to seem really evil. Alanna hates him inexplicably, but she follows her gut and steers clear of him as often as she can. I hope that we will find him to be more evil and less sympathetic in future books.

I look forward to finishing the Song of the Lioness quartet and returning them to Christy before I leave for Greensboro next month.

Inkdeath

What to say about Inkdeath? It's been a month since I read it, and though I should have written on it immediately, I, of course, did not. I still think my earlier criticisms of the books stand. She has too many characters. I feel like she could have spent a lifetime developing the characters in this book into a longer series or even multiple series. She has some wonderful ideas, but they are way too condensed.

Inkspell

I can't say that I am entirely enthralled with Ms. Funke's characters here. Inkspell did take place in another world, which is more my kind of thing than Inkheart, but there was still something missing from its pages. I think it might have too many characters. I know that's a weird criticism, but hear me out.

I've read several books where the narrator changes throughout the work. It was the case with parts of Twilight, and it happens in some really great works like The Member of the Wedding. I like getting a fresh perspective on things from a new character's point of view, but in the Inkheart Trilogy, the story is told in the third person, and the focus shifts from one character to another or one group of characters to another without any rhyme or reason except that we need to know what's going on with other people. It's a sort of spatial organization that I'm not all that into. I also think it's a kind of sloppy narrative technique because there are other ways of finding out what other characters have been up to. Story time, flashbacks, etc. So, I still felt a little lost by the end of this book. I felt like I still didn't know any of the characters as well as I would like to, and thereby hadn't really gotten close enough to anyone to want to run out and buy the third book.

Plot wise, we're dealing with similar issues. Yes, Capricorn is dead, but Meggie decides she wants to read herself into what she has christened the "Inkworld" that her mother has told her so much about. As Dustfinger has already been read back home, Farid brings Meggie the piece of paper that took Dustfinger home, and she reads both herself and Farid into the book. We haven't heard the last from Basta or Mortola (obviously) and these two almost interesting villans show back up to seek revenge on Mo and Resa. They are all read back into the book. So, the major portion of the action takes place in "Inkworld," but it's basically the same deal. Basta and Mortola are after Meggie, Mo, and Theresa (Resa). Dustfinger is trying not to die because he knows the original story dictated his death, and Farid is trying to stay as close to Dustfinger as possible. In the "Inkworld" things have gone awry since Capricorn was read out of the book. The Laughing Prince becomes The Prince of Sighs after his son's death, and the Adderhead is preparing to take over the land. The geography of "Inkworld" doesn't seem too vast, so this is a lot of royalty and a lot of government for such a small place. In any case, Fenoglio (read into the story in Inkheart) is trying to fix things by writing and getting Meggie to read aloud. It all gets jumbled and messy, obviously.

What is great about this book? Dustfinger. In the first book, he was simply a quasi-villain. He had sympathy for the heroes, and he had a good motivation for working with the bad guys, but he was a traitor and rather annoying with his constant drive toward his own world. In this book, he is attractive, daring, loving, inventive, brave...you know, all those great hero traits. He's still slightly Byronic--he hasn't been a good father or husband, he loves fire more than people, but he really does show an amazing capacity for self sacrifice. And the self sacrifice culminates in the final scenes. Farid is stabbed in the back by Basta (this did not upset me, but I would be admitting some rather personal prejudices here to explain), and Dustfinger is crushed. Even though he loves his wife, Roxanne (the most beautiful woman in the land), he gives himself to the "white women" (harbingers of death) in order to restore Farid's life. Farid's a whiny baby. Ugh.

So, as if the whole slightly flat characters, spatial organization, and abundance of government didn't put me off enough, she's now killed off one of the most interesting of the flat characters. Needless to say, I didn't run out to by Inkdeath. I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye now, and I'll pick up Inkdeath when I have more money.

Inkheart

I was a junior in college when my mother called me and told me she wanted me to watch the first Harry Potter film with her over Thanksgiving break. I laughed and told her that I could not as I had not read the book. "English majors' rule," I said. The next day I found myself begrudgingly buying the book in a local shop. The rest, as they say, is history. I fell in love with Harry Potter and went so far as to write almost forty pages on the series in my master's thesis. The "English majors' rule" has become somewhat of a joke. I know a lot of English majors who appreciate film as much as books, and almost all of them realize that it's a completely separate medium that needs to be viewed differently than the printed word. Still, when my mother asked me recently to see Inkheart with her, I made a mental note to buy the book. I bought it on Thursday evening, and I finished it just now.

It's no Harry Potter, but it was entertaining. The basic premise (as I'm sure we all know by now from movie trailers) is that Mo can read characters out of books. Nine years before the story takes place, he read Capricorn and Basta out of Inkheart, a fantasy novel by a man named Fenoglio. Capricorn and Basta have set up their evil villian camp in our world and have been trying to catch Mo to have him read more villians out of the book. They like money and inspiring fear in the people around them, especially fear that results in their gain. However, the book felt like cops and robbers while I was reading it. When a story is 534 pages long, I should not be able to summarize ALL the major action in two basic compound sentences, but I can. Capricorn and his men capture Mo, Meggie, Dustfinger, and Elinor, but Dustfinger helps them all escape. Capricorn and his men recapture Meggie and Fenoglio (the author), and they make Meggie read a monster out of a book. It dragged a little at times. The second time we were caught by Capricorn's men, I couldn't help but wonder what we needed the previous capture for...plotwise that is.

I am also complaining because I like my fantasy to take me to another world, and this one did not. Several supernatural things happened, but they all happened here in our own world. Speaking of setting, the setting was weird. The book apparently takes place in Italy, but there is no nod to the language at all. It seems as if everyone in Italy is just running around speaking English. I found it a little disconcerting. I thought it was otherwise well written, and I like the characters (Mo and Meggie, especially, but Elinor also), so I have picked up Inkspell in our school library, and it seems as though we might get another world after all, from the maps at the opening at least.

I think my mom will enjoy the movie though, if that counts for anything! :)

The Indigo King

Incidentally, I also finally finished The Indigo King last night. I started reading this book last month, and put it down when I started The Sandman series. I really, really enjoyed being drawn into a fantasy plot again, and though the plot was often complicated, it was an engrossing read compared with the forced nonfiction I've been battling.

In this book, Jack (C.S. Lewis) and John (J.R.R. Tolkien) meet with their friend Hugo Dyson to investigate a mysterious book delivered to them as Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. The book is dated from the 6th century, but it has modern English writing on it in Dyson's hand. Little of this novel actually takes place in the Archipelago, instead the majority of the action takes place in Albion, the catastrophic "would be" England had Mordred been king rather than Arthur. A poorly educated man named Chaz also replaces Charles as the third Caretaker for the bulk of the novel.

The central question the plot seeks to answer is what is Mordred's (who is also the Winter King - see Here, There Be Dragons) true name. Like Paolini's Inheritance Cycle and other fantasy novels of some note, names are extremely powerful and important. They have the power to bind one to the servitude of another. Aided by the absent Jules Verne, the three men (and two badgers) go through time via a special projector with slides into the past. In the first slide, their mission is complicated considerably by the knowledge that Mordred is one of a pair of twins. They also find out that his other twin is the Cartographer of Lost places. Misguided by this knowledge, their journeys through four more slides encompass their efforts to turn the mapmaker against his brother.

As with the other stories, literary references abound. Mordred and his twin (Merlin) are the sons of Odysseus and Calypso, and their line intertwines with that of Jesus (and his mythical -- perhaps it's all mythical -- children). At one point, Chaz mispronounces the Argo as Aragorn, and anyone who is familiar with The Lord of the Rings will see what Owen is playing with there. A huge portion of the complicated plot is so because of the intricacies of time travel. Owen seems to prefer to blend science fiction with fantasy rather than delineate between the two.

I enjoyed this book, but I have discoverd that it is not a trilogy. Owen can continue to write these books indefinitely (although I imagine he is not a young man). I'm not sure that I will be looking for his next release, but if I find it accidentally in my future book buying ventures, I'll pick it up again.

The Sandman: Endless Nights (11)

I also finished Endless Nights last night. Two graphic novels in one day! I probably need to get a life, or figure how to get paid to read. :)

Endless Nights is a collection of seven short stories with one short story for each of the Endless. I keep using the horror label for these books, but they've gotten less horrific progressively through the series. However, this book needs another label, and I'm not sure I know what it is. It's a very sexual book. I would normally say "graphic" but since they are graphic novels, that term doesn't seem to apply. Anyway, it's adult fiction.

Death is the focus of the first story, "Death and Venice." It's about a young American who meets Death on an island outside of Venice as a child. When he returns to Venice, he meets her again and travels with her to destroy an enclave of celebrating Venetians who have locked out time for over two hundred years. The man ponders the idea that he has been in love with Death since he first saw her as a child, which seems to be a common theme with Death. She's the cutie that every guy falls in love with. Perhaps if that happened more to Desire, she wouldn't be so bitter. I really liked this story. It was mostly cute, and it seemed like a reasonably favorable depiction of the soldier, despite the fact that he is shown sneaking up on and killing an unarmed man at the end. Life is complicated, and I don't think Gaiman shies away from that fact at all.

The second story, "What I've tasted of Desire," is about a young woman who tames the village playboy. However unrealistic it seems, she manages to fall in love with him after a brief encounter, refuse him for long enough that he wants her, and then marry him. It's pretty impressive. Unfortunately, she does not keep him for long. He leaves on tribe business, and the enemies bring back his head and place it on her table. She is really an impressive figure: she ignores the head and manages to serve the enemies for long enough to wait for her village's men to get back and kill them. I will say that I really think Desire's story is a lot cooler than she is. She is really quite mean, and while I know that the Buddha said that desire was the enemy of nirvana, I just don't think she would be that off putting. Just a theory.

"The Heart of a Star" is the third story, and the story of Dream's first love. In it we see Desire's first attempt to hurt her brother for fun, in which she succeeds amazingly well. Dream is naive and adorable, but he doesn't even come close to Delight. Delight is really cute in this piece. The woman, Killalla of the Glow, is really quite charming until you see how fickle she is. She falls in love with her own sun just moments after she finds out that Dream is in love with her. I felt really, really bad for Dream. I think that can only happen so many times before you swear off for good. It seems Dream's immortality would have been spent much more pleasantly if he had come to my conclusion rather than to keep trying.

"Fifteen Portraits of Despair" was not a story. I have a very obnoxiously structuralist definition of story, and it includes a beginning, a middle, and an end. It may have been poetry. Maybe. I really liked portrait #13 though. It was a test. I think I will take it someday and post it here. It would be interesting to see how I respond to despair.

The fifth story featured Delirium and was as unlike the adorable Delirium that we met as Desire's story was unlike her nasty personality. I'm not sure I said that well, but I know what I mean. In this story, a group of "crazy" people are recruited to help Barnabas and Dream reclaim Delirium who has gone inside herself. Matthew helps too. At least one of the "crazy" girls finds sanity in her efforts. I liked the happy ending, and I liked that the new Dream (Daniel) was helping out with his siblings willingly. Barnabas is a cool dog. I'd like a dog like that, but you have to train it and everything. I just don't know about that.

"On the Peninsula" was a story about an archeolgoical dig of the future. Apparently, Delirium did something that made time do something weird. Destruction was told to look after her. I'm not sure if this story took place after Morpheus's death or before, but I guess it's too much to hope that Destruction returns to his family again, even if he did like the new Dream. I will say that there were some weird wordless panels on page 131 that I wouldn't mind having explained to me.

"Endless Nights" is also NOT a story about Destiny. It's perhaps an illustrated expository essay. I did not feel that it was in any way a satisfactory conclusion. I would have prefered Destiny's "story" came first.

I really enjoyed Endless Nights more than I enjoyed the last three books, I think. It has a simplicity of structure that was found in the earlier books but got slightly lost as the plot thickened. Also, this book could be read at any time. It's not necessary to read Dream's saga first.

The Sandman: The Wake (10)

I finished The Wake just now. Just this second. I have spoken to no one about its contents. This is an instant reaction, a far cry from the last few posts. I wonder what I thought it would be. No, I don't. I know that I thought I would be introduced to the new Dream, but I was not. He is a minor character in these stories. In many ways it seems these are the stories that didn't fit anywhere else. Gaiman writes on the page after the last of the story that he is good at goodbyes. I am not. I am a little confused. I think there is some sort of memory thing I am supposed to be cherishing with the last tale, but all I can think is: he's dead, let him be.
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The story begins with the actual wake for the Dream who has just died: Morpheus. I truly enjoyed Matthew's journey from denial into acceptance. I really identify with Matthew. The new Dream (Daniel) who we meet briefly is actually quite charming. He is very sympathetic, and his sense of duty seems mingled with doing what is right by others. This is a change from the last Dream who did what was his duty, but did not always seem to consider the well-being of the others around him. Only five of the Endless show up for the wake and funeral. Destruction visits Daniel, but he does not visit his siblings. I like him less for that. Mostly I am disappointed that we don't hear what Death says, only that "her words make sense of everything. She gives you peace. She gives you meaning." I want peace and meaning! I feel a little cheated by that. This story/episode/whatever breaks the fourth wall and makes use of the second person. It's rarely done in modern lit, and it's always disconcerting to me. We were all there, supposedly, but I have no memory of it. It's a strange blending of realities.

After the wake and funeral have concluded, we catch up with our friend Hob Gadling. He has found new love and still does not desire death, even though he knows Morhpeus is dead. He is an interesting character. I like him. I like the fact that when he falls asleep he dreams that Dream and Destruction walk with him on a beach. When his girlfriend asks him how the story ends, he says, "Well, there's only one way to end a story, really." I love the contrasting worldviews here. Amidst this great tragedy, someone random tells us the only way to end a story is happily. It's my kind of worldview for sure.

Gadling's story is followed by a weird Chinese one that seems to have happened in the past, but I think Daniel is the Dream rather than Morpheus. You can't really tell from the artwork, but at one point it says, "Flames flicker in the whiteness of his robe," and that sounds like Daniel to me rather than Morpheus. Besides, Daniel gives the man an open invitation, which does not seem like something Morpheus would do. Once rejected, Morpheus seems to be incapable of renewing the offer. Daniel is much more human, as one of the introductions pointed out (not this one because I haven't read it). I think though, that the ability to retain one's humanity once you become a god might diminish with age. Death is very cool, but not everyone can have her upbeat personality. Definitely most people would be jaded by immortality. I think even my boyfriend, but who knows.

The final story returns to Shakespeare, and it is about the writing of The Tempest rather than A Midsummer Night's Dream. We meet Judith and Anne. Anne is horrible, but at one point Judith points out that she was really heartbroken when her husband left for London. She at least allows him to sleep in his house and see his daughter. It is, perhaps, more than I could have done. I can't harbor ill will towards her. Shakespeare is a little whiny in this piece, and I wonder what critics have made of that. He is very concerned with his afterlife in a way that upsets me a little. I guess one of the coolest things about Shakespeare is that we know so damned little about him. We can make him whatever we like. There is also some amazing hubris in the idea that Gaiman's Morpheus inspires Shakespeare. Shakespeare admits to borrowing tales and speeches. Isn't that enough?

I am keenly aware now of the fact that I have finished the series. I felt like I had finished it with Worlds' End. By the time, I got to The Kindly Ones, I had already accepted Dream's death. Now, I feel like I have mourned him and am ready for a new distraction/fascination. As far as book exchanges go though, this one was way more my thing than Stephen King's Dark Tower series, although I enjoyed that too in my own way. I find more and more that reading is a way for me to get through hard times. I know I am probably escaping rather than dealing, but I don't see a need to fight every battle. Lonliness and disappointment need not be thought about so much; there isn't really much one can do about them anyway. Lesson planning is necessary, however, and I must think on that now. :) Blessed with work and blessed with children. That I am.

I forgot to mention that in this book we figure out who Dream has been brooding over! It's Thessaly/Larissa the witch!!! I hate to sound gossipy (kind of), but I just can't believe she's his type. How could he ever be fooled into thinking she had a heart? Okay, I'm done now.

The Sandman: The Kindly Ones (9)

Yes, yes. I'm behind. I finished The Kindly Ones this evening, and I still need to write about the last three books. Yikes! Maybe Sunday afternoon I'll have time to catch up.

So, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm catching up. :) The Kindly Ones was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, and I truly believe it will someday be regarded as such by people much more important than myself. Our basic plot: Dream has killed his son, Orpheus, and the Kindly Ones (the Furies) are now at liberty to pursue him because they are "allowed" to avenge blood debts. Hippolyta Hall (mother to Daniel) has her son stolen, and she blames Dream, despite the fact that Dream does not steal her son initially. She is the one who awakens the furies wrath against dream, and it only spirals downward from there. We also discover in this volume that Nuala is in love with Dream, and we see the reappearance of Thessaly as Larissa. She kind of falls in love with Dream too. Dream is one of those tortured souls that attracts women apparently. I wouldn't say I'm in love with him, but I can certainly see the attraction. So Dream dies, but Death spares him being tortured further by the furies. My favorite characters were definitely Matthew (the raven), Rose Walker, and Delirium. In some ways, Dream ceases to be a character in this book, but I'm not sure I could explain why. He just reacts to things rather than actually initiating action himself.

This book was definitely less sad than it might have been without the preparation of the previous two books. Still, the end of a myth is sad no matter what, even if it's a myth we've only known briefly (just this month, in fact). I did keep hoping throughout that Dream wouldn't die. I know that's childish, but I don't think it's fair to expect my readings to be that different than the average person. I'm sad when Romeo and Juliet die too. I keep wishing that they will work it out differently no matter how many times I read the tale.

Okay, so all that being said, I want to mention artwork. This volume was very "cartoony." I'm sure there's a technical word for this style of artwork, but I don't know what it is. The best way I know to describe is that the curves are more emphasized than the lines. It makes everyone seem less sinister and more innocent. There's nothing really hideous here: even the scene where "A makeshift barge made of dead flesh is slowly poled down a river of cold semen" becomes more about the words than the image this way. I normally really like cartoons, and I like that style of artwork. But, it definitely does not do the horror genre as well as some others. For the first time since reading this series (a pitfall of having several different artists), I felt like I was reading an illustrated story rather than a graphic novel. However, this is also the first book I've read in which I've found panels that I would blow up and hang in my bedroom...actually, I might just do that. It could be my next art project :).

I'm thinking about writing a longer blog on the series as a whole. I want to discuss this issue of dying mythologies at length, and it doesn't really fit with the purpose of these individual "reviews," if that's even what they can be called. We'll have to see if I make time to do it.

The Sandman: Worlds' End (8)

So much for quitting Sandman for a while. I was in a weird mood last night, so I picked up World's End, and I finished it today after I exported my grades. I have a bad feeling about this one, and I want to remind myself to talk about the artwork again. But, quite obviously, I still need to finish my blog on Brief Lives, so one thing at a time, eh?

Oh the perils of blogging out of order once the plot thickens! My first thought about this book is that it is out of order! Haha, what I mean to say is that the events in this book take place after the events in the next book. One of the introductions mentions that Gaiman is meticulous about time, but I really beg to differ. Perhaps he knows when all the events take place, but it would take a thesis to figure out the timeline for The Sandman.

Worlds' End is another collection of stories. I guess it's a function of the medium. They were produced monthly, and every once in a while, it must be nice to buy your comic once a month and have the story actually be self-contained. Dream is in most of the stories, but not all. Still the book is about him, and that becomes clear at the end of The Kindly Ones. No matter. The basic plotline is that a large group of travelers are stuck in an inn at the Worlds' End (a place where all the worlds end) because there is a reality storm. We don't know why there is a reality storm, but if we read Brief Lives (and we did), we can surmise that the reality storm might have something to do with Dream having killed Orpheus. The main characters are: Charlene Mooney, Brant Tucker, Klaproth, Cluracain, Jim (only he's really a girl named Peggy), and Petrefax. I say these are the main characters because we learn their names, but really they are only fleeting characters in the greater drama. In any case, much like The Canterbury Tales, each traveler must tell a tale to pass the time at the inn. Actually I think this makes it more like The Decameron.

Mister Gaheris tells a tale of a dreaming city and the man who roamed its streets. Cluracain tells a story of envoy to Aurelian, a city where the position of Lord Carnal and Psychopomp have been usurped by one individual. Cluracain's story is interesting because the climactic moment occurs when he decides to tell the truth about something. He says of his species, "Sometimes we will say true things. And these things we say are neither glamour nor magic, neither prediction nor curse: But sometimes what we say is true." Again, we come back to that recurring theme in Sandman about truth being something other than what has really happened. It's different from reality. Anyway, Jim tells a story titled "Hob's Leviathan," which features our friend Hob Gadling. This story was kind of interesting because of the possibilities for gender analysis. Hob tells Peggy that he is "Old enough to hae learned to keep my mouth shut about seeing a bloody great snake in the middle of the ocean," and somehow this is evidence that Peggy can trust him with her secret as well. The idea of the great submerged snake and the great submerged secret have some possibilities. The next story is told by an unknown slightly Asian looking man, and it is about Prez Rickard, the boy President. There was something very cool about the folding of mythologies, but other than that the story was a little weird. I might have to give it some more thought. The final story was told by Petrefax, and it was about Litharge, the Necropolis. There were a few tales imbedded within this one, and I enjoyed it. There is an interesting foreshadowing/warning about having the tale about the Necropolis in this book. The citizens of the Necropolis are supposed to respect the dead, respect the passing of life, and it is certainly placed so that we heed their beliefs.

The ending of the book is the part most worth writing home about, however, at least in terms of the larger Sandman plot. At the end of the book you see a funeral procession where the Endless are pallbearers. I admit to having read the wikipedia page on The Sandman early in the series, so I had a pretty good guess who was in the casket. I won't say more about it now, but it will come up again in The Kindly Ones.

The Sandman: Brief Lives (7)

These blogs are getting terribly long. I don't suppose that's the function of a blog. I better learn to keep it short! :) This is a problem with me with everything. I talk too much and I write too much! I'll try to keep this one shorter.

Wow! Sad! I really liked this book, but the ending was sad and the introduction (it came at the end--haha) was really, really sad. The conclusion Peter Straub gleans from the book is that the Endless "are merely mythic patterns, and as such do not have the authority to interfere in human lives." Having read so far ahead at this point, I have realized that is Brief Lives that sets up this simple fact as Dream's hamartia (not hubris--people are always getting these confused). Dream's whole existence is based on his responsibility, for the dreamworld, for the dreamers, for the dreams and nightmares. He justifies his actions according to the rules he has created or inherited and set up as his purpose in life. And in many ways he needs Delirium to show him this truth, both literally and figuratively. The character Delirium with her childlike innocence can ask questions and make statements that Dream's rather left brained mind cannot fathom. She tries to lead him to a greater freedom by leaving his beaten path. There is definitely something to be said about the fact that Dream apologizes to Delirium on at least two occassions in this book, but he never manages to apologize for what he needs to apologize for.

The plot of this book is quite unified and quite simple. Delirium decides she needs a change, so she goes to ask her siblings if they will help her seek Destruction, the prodigal brother. Destiny and Desire flat out refuse. Despair refuses slightly more gently. Death manages somehow not to get involved (she does have a job to do), and Dream ends up being the only of the Endless who is willing at all to help Delirium. The quest is multifaceted. Dream needs to get out of his morose mood; another lover has left him in mourning for his humanity (he cannot keep a lover because no woman (or man) can compete with his sense of responsibility as a quasi-god). As the story progresses he is also seeking some closure to the deaths the beginning of the quest incurs. Again he feels beholden to the mortals he has hurt. Finally the quest brings him back to unfinished business with his son Orpheus who he abandoned earlier in life. Orpheus manages to barter his death (which he has been seeking for a thousand years) for information about where Destruction is. Delirium gains Destruction's dog, Barnabus, and Dream returns to his castle to brood over his son's death.

The story is very circular. It begins with Orpheus's guardian's cheerful acceptance and Dream's brooding, and it ends the same way. The highlight seems to be on the two different mindsets. When Dream returns to the Dreaming, he tells Lucien, "For the rest of today I will be retiring to my quarters. I do not wish to be disturbed." While he is dying, Andros muses, "It is going to be a beautiful day." Andros appreciates and accepts his brief life, while Dream has spent the majority of his (much less) brief life feeling sorry for himself. Dream is an interesting character. He always tries to do the right thing. Whenever one of his siblings tells him he has made a mistake, he sets off to correct it. But he never seems to get the point that the real joy comes from treating people (and gods or whatever) the right way the first time. I really like him. I like that he seems to have a sense of honor. When I said he behaves in a godlike fashion, I meant it. He definitely has a code of behavior that surpases that of the mortal world. It just doesn't seem to be enough, and it bothers me that even our gods are saddled with these eternal questions of responsibility to others versus responsibility to self, too much work versus too much play, the constant struggle for balance. Can't life be simple for anyone? It's very frustrating, but it must be a truth. I believe that truth comes from our representations. Truth does come to light with the creation of art. Sometimes though it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

On a happier note, I adore Delirium. I don't know if she is my favorite character, but I really, really like her. She is so cute about her "milk chocolate people:" "Have you got any little milk chocolate people? About threee inches high? Men AND women? I'd like some of them filled with raspberry cream." And when she drives: "I'm good at this, aren't I? I'm really good. I knew I'd be good at driving. Bzuum. Bzuum. Dream? Look at me! Look at me driving!" And, probably most importantly, she accepts truth in a way that Dream cannot. When they finally find Destruction and he explains that he will not return to his realm and make things as they were before, she simply says, "I thought you would," and it's over. She doesn't beg and she doesn't plead. It's simple for her. Perhaps craziness does make things simple.

I'm finding it harder and harder to write frivilously about these books. Straub says, "If this isn't literature, nothing is," and he nails it. Of course, I am getting further and further from my "near instant reaction too." It's hard to find time to write AND read, but still, the themes are just too weighty. What started out simply has become a quagmire of great ideas, and I suppose that is what literature is: a quagmire of great ideas. Still, I must try (it is my passion after all).

The Sandman: Fables and Reflections (6)

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.

The Sandman: A Game of You (5)

I wrote myself a note last night to remind myself that the introduction to A Game of You really irritated me. I wish I had not. Though Samuel R. Delany did initially irritate me because he writes in his introduction to move on and finish the story before reading his thoughts (why on earth don't you put it at the end then!), when I did get back to his thoughts this morning, I found them to be really on point and fabulously written. Once again I find a short but extremely poignant bit of fantasy criticism at the beginning of a graphic novel! Delany writes, "the key to this particular fantasy world is precisely that it is a fantasy world where the natural forces, stated and unstated, whether of myth or of chance, enforce the dominant ideology." It seems like he is truly disparaging Gaiman's work until he says, "And it remains just a nasty fantasy unless, in our reading of it, we can find some irony, something that subverts it, something that resists that fantasy," and this is precisely what we find. Irony is definitely the dominant characteristic of A Game of You.

I was most struck by the idea that Barbie (yes, Barbie formerly married to Ken--yuck!) is our protagonist. I am one of those short, plump, annoying moms who really doesn't want her daughters to play with Barbie because she represents unnatural and unhealthy standards for beauty. They say that if she were alive, she would be seven feet tall with a whopping thirty-eight inch bust (haha---smaller than mine), but it towers over an eighteen inch waist (definitely smaller than mine). A "perfectly proportioned female" would have ten inches difference between bust, waist, and hips (34, 24, 34) supposedly. Barbie, on the other hand, would not be able to stand or walk; she'd fall over at the waist, weighed down not by her expansive intellect, but her crazy long blond hair. Obviously, she is an ideal role model for young children. But, for Gaiman, Barbie is actually only consistent with her childhood toy theme on the surface. The first panel in which she appears shows her half naked in bed, but we learn that she has an interesting group of friends. She is the sweet Barbie the doll makers want her to be, but she is also best friends with a transsexual, strangely insecure about her face (she's always drawing on it), and she is obviously repressed in many ways.

It's hard for me to write a sentence summary of what this story was really about because I'm not sure exactly what happened. Barbie's dreamworld was in trouble from the Cuckoo, but this trouble had something to do with Barbie and Rose Walker (see A Doll's House). I was initially frustrated that Barbie was the princess of her realm (don't we get enough of Barbie's awesomeness in the pink aisle of Toys R Us?) but it wore off as the subtle hints showed how powerless and ridiculous she was in that function. Her realm is icy cold, and she has nothing on but a ball gown. She is also at the mercy of her friends/subjects because she has no idea where she is going. After losing, or being betrayed by, all her friends, she is eventually taken to the Cuckoo who turns out to be.........I don't know. I still don't know and I finished the book. There were some really cool parts of this confrontation though. As Barbie approaches the Cuckoo's Citadel, she realizes that it's her old house in Florida. I have to admit that I was really afraid to find out who the Cuckoo was at this point; I have this idea for a book of my own. But I need not have worried, the Lacanian/Freudian psychoanalysis was really quite straight forward. At least in appearance alone, the Cuckoo was Barbie's younger self. I could go on about her public self versus her private self, but I am more interested in the type of analysis Delany did in his introduction than the individual psychoses of a character based off of a plastic goddess. There was some part of her that she repressed and that part took over her dreamworld. But, that's not all there is to it. The Cuckoo was also something outside of Barbie, something like an actual cuckoo...a possessing force or something. When Dream shows up at the end, he speaks of her "kind," but no one ever really says what her "kind" was. The same is true for Thessaly, who is apparently some sort of witch but we never find out which coven or clan she belonged to or anything.

I could spend a great deal of time talking about Wanda, Hazel, Foxglove, and Thessaly too, but I really wanted to mention how interesting Dream's reaction to the whole ordeal is at the end. I think there is something very attractive about Dream. He acts like a god. I know that sounds weird because we really don't have many references for what a god acts like except what we get from mythology and religion and he really doesn't act like any of those gods. He has his own sense of morality and it's so logical that it is hard to resist. Barbie wants him to punish the Cuckoo, but he seems to feel sorry for her. Dream offers her one "boon," but she obviously has to get herself and her friends home, so she can't recreate her dreamworld or anything. I need to think more about how to explain this, but Dream is just so calm and detached. I don't understand why what the Cuckoo has done is not evil, but what Thessaly, Hazel, and Foxglove have done is evil, and yet, I feel like if I asked Dream, he could explain it. Don't get me wrong, this isn't some religious fantasy. I don't feel safe because the world is in Dream's hands or anything. I just think he's cool and godlike. I like Death for a lot of the same reasons, but Death is really nice. I always look forward to her showing up because she's sweet to the other characters. You never really know if Dream is going to be nice or not. He wasn't very sympathetic to Barbie, but he doesn't lose his temper, and he's not mean really. I'm not doing a good job of this. The point is I think Dream is kinda attractive as an Endless...thingy. :)

Best part of this book was the sheer femininity of the whole thing. I really enjoyed one of the last scenes where Barbie tells Wanda what it was like to go into a comic book store. I've only ever been into a comic book store once, and the people there were super nice! But, I thought it was cute that the guys weren't nice to Barbie at all. They made fun of her breasts, and she said they must have taken "unhelpfulness lessons." It makes me wonder if I just got lucky. I would have been more nervous the first time, but I had my kids with me. Luckily though, if I need to go into a comic book store, I can take someone with me to show me the ropes. The really funny part was when Barbie told Wanda she wished she was there because Wanda would have said something to the guys. I have mixed feelings about this. It seems like it would be nice to have someone stick up for you when guys pick on you, but on the other hand, is it really worth it? What was hurt? Her pride. Besides, the guys in the comic book store probably wanted her. Immature way of showing though.

For a guy, Gaiman really does capture women pretty well. Barbie is fairly complex, as are Hazel and Foxglove. Thessaly is cool (weird and scary, but cool), but I don't think she's really human, so I don't think she counts. Gaiman seems like he would be a really cool person to talk to. Perhaps.

The Sandman: Season of Mists (4)

Okay, I am royally pissed now because I wrote a whole blog for this book, and I thought it was quite cute if not really good, and now it is lost! So, I am going to try to remember what I wrote and recreate it, but who knows how that will go. It will probably sound forced and annoying. Blah.

I really see the value of writing these blogs right after I finish the books because I finished Season of Mists last night, and already it is getting confused in my head with A Game of You, which I started today. And that’s no good because Season of Mists was my favorite of The Sandman series so far, although I really liked the first book as well.

So yeah...I finished Season of Mists last night. Let’s start with the introduction this time just for variety’s sake and because…well, it’s at the beginning. When I sat down to read the book, my boyfriend told me that Harlan Ellison was a jerk, and on the second page I knew he was right. I don’t admit this often, so something must have triggered it. Ellison’s comments, like “if you’re one of the few surviving atavists who still read for the pure pleasure of intellectual invigoration,” were really condescending. As I am one of those “atavists,” I can only imagine how an Average Joe would feel when he picks up this book for pleasure and finds the introduction chocked with smatterings of Latin and French. Who needs it? Not me. And furthermore, the introduction seemed to do little besides stroke both Ellison’s and Gaiman’s egos. I failed to see a message besides the fact that Ellison thinks Gaiman is as brilliant, or almost as brilliant, as he finds himself.

Enough though, because I really liked this book, and I really don’t want to get stuck being snarky about the introduction. The overarching storyline (I believe it’s called an arc, for whatever reason) is that Dream has to return to Hell after a family meeting because his siblings feel he was unjust to a former lover, Nada (which he WAS). Nada means “nothing” in Spanish, and it means “dew” in Arabic, but this is totally useless and unrelated knowledge that only makes me more like Ellison. Anyway…apparently, Dream pissed off Lucifer in book one (I don’t remember him being pissed off and I haven’t gone back to check), and Lucifer has a very original way of getting revenge. He abdicates. He kicks everybody out of Hell and gives Dream the key. So the story really ends up being about the groups of beings that travel to “The Dreaming” to obtain the key to Hell from Dream.

The factions are: Thor, Odin, and Loki; Anubis, Bast, and Bes; Susano-O-No-Mikoto; Azazel, the Merkin, and Choronzon; Lord Kilderkin (the manifestation of order); Shivering Jemmy of the Shallow Brigade (a princess of Chaos); and Remiel and Duma (angels). Remiel and Duma are just there to observe (haha). Hopefully at least some of these names are familiar as all of the characters are famous mythological deities/creatures from around the world. The borrowed characters aren’t really a problem though, possibly this is because of the medium (I’ve already come to expect that some of the characters will be visitors from other stories). But mostly, I think it’s because like most good artists, Gaiman creates his own mythology as he goes along. This particular story is the mythology of how the war between Heaven and Hell ends. I won’t tell you how it ends, but I will say that I was not happy about who obtained the keys to Hell. Gaiman may be a religious man after all, despite the “r” rated nature of his books.

To return to the beginning (this is becoming an issue for me I fear—this circular writing thing), the family meeting affords the opportunity to meet all the Endless, except Destruction, who is on holiday. I am looking forward to getting to know Delirium better, but she’ll be hard pressed to replace Death or Dream as my favorite character. Death is great! I really hope Gaiman is divinely inspired in this mythology so that when I die an adorable brunette shows up to take me on.

Oh, and did I mention this was my favorite so far? Thank goodness I have seven more to read! :)

The Sandman: Dream Country (3)

I caught a lot of crap this weekend reading my graphic novel around a bunch of veteran comic book readers. Apparently, I am not to read the introductions, and it is absolutely ludicrous that I would read the published script at the end of Volume 3. It was an interesting reading environment; I am a very vocal reader, and when something is funny, I laugh out loud. When something is strange, I read it aloud to make sure it makes sense to me. The guys were quite amused I'm sure. In any case, I digress.

Dream Country was unlike the previous two Sandman books because it was really a collection of short stories in which Dream makes an appearance rather than chapters in a story about Dream. The first story, "Calliope" was about a muse that had been captured by one famous author and given to another in order to inspire further best sellers. I enjoyed this story because I aspire to write, and I can certainly sympathize with the frustration the authors feel when they have no ideas. However, the really sad part of the story is the complete lack of respect both authors have for the muse. The one who captured her refers to her as a cow, and the one who obtains possession during the story rapes her and doesn't even feel guilty about it. Dream rescues her by cursing the latter author with a plethora of ideas, which he finds so all encompassing that he has to write them on the walls with his own blood in order to get them out.

Incidentally, this is also the story for which the script is provided in the back of the book. It was really interesting to see how the artist, Kelley Jones, interpreted Gaiman's words. Gaiman's comments were really amusing too. At some point, he randomly apologized for being too tired to finish a certain number of pages in a night. He also makes several wry comments mid explanations. The script was quite long: several pages longer than the actual story. My boyfriend made the comment that perhaps the bloated scripts were one reason The Sandman series has a new artist for every book. I think not, but whatever.

The second story features felines as the main characters, and it left me a little cold. I wanted the cats to change the world with their dream, as the afflicted cat promised their concurrent dreaming would. However, I guess I see the validity in the idea that cats cannot agree on anything and are therefore incapable of community action. Still, I think from the fantasy aspect, the story would be more subversive if the cats actually did manage to change the world. A theme that seems to be running through the books is that though things never happened, they can still be true. And in this case, our imaginations simply have to make the alternate universe true for the cats.

The third story is the one about Shakespeare that seems to have attracted a great deal of critical attention. The writing was actually mostly Shakespeare's, and the twist to the story was that the actual characters were the audience. Once again, Gaiman seems to be playing with the idea of truth. The truth of the actual characters validates the truth of Shakespeare's version of human nature. It was interesting. I like the completely fictional idea that Shakespeare's son Hamnet hangs out with him for a while though. It increases my respect for Shakespeare as a man, even though I know it is completely untrue.

The fourth story featured a character that I knew nothing about, and I really didn't find it that interesting, except that Death showed back up, and I like her. Rainie, or Element Girl (?), longs for death because she can no longer function in society. She goes out to lunch with a friend and loses her fake face she has put on for the occasion. Death leads her in the right direction for suicide, and it was a little touching maybe. But mostly, I was just interested in what her body was made of. I am sure that there is a running theme through traditional comics about the inconveniences and difficulties of being superhuman, but this story really didn't wrench my heart the way it could have.

So, back to introductions (I'm tacking this on at the end--can you tell?) I did not enjoy the introduction to The Sandman: Dream Country as much as I enjoyed the previous intro (The Doll's House), but Steve Erickson did provide a nice anecdote about a dream he had about his father shortly after his death. I liked the previous intro because it was all about fantasy, and that is really my thing. And, so far, Dream Country is my least favorite of The Sandman series because I like Dream, and I missed him. Thank goodness I have another seven to read.