Book #5

Sandman Book 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

Well, sort of a book. I reread Preludes and Nocturnes, the first Sandman graphic novel, since apparently I can't go two weeks without reading something by Neil Gaiman. I tried to read Roy Blount Jr.'s memoir of his mother first, because Roy Blount is very funny on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and because I heard him reading little snippets on Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, and those were great. Unfortunately, the funny little 45-second vignettes he read from this book were not only the funniest parts of the book, they were also the length in which Roy Blount's writing makes sense. Anything over 45 seconds -- say a page -- and he goes off on some strange tangent or makes a garbled self-referential aside or makes some droll joke that I just don't get. I got this book at the Safeway book sale because I read the first page, and it was hilarious; I should have gone on to read the second page, when he lost me.

Anyway, I dragged through 100 pages of that, and then I put it down and got out my comic book. Sandman is an interesting story; the character is a bit narrow at the beginning -- it's necessary for the story, because in the first installment a cult trying to imprison Death and bargain for immortality ends up trapping Morpheus, the King of Dreams instead (Dream is Death's brother), and the rest of this first collection of 8 stories is Morpheus trying to recover from his imprisonment and regain everything he lost. At the end of the book he regains his power, and his sister, Death, reminds him of his role in the world, and he goes off to do it, feeling empowered again. So the second installment should have more about what the king of dreams actually does, which would be nice. The world that is made available to Gaiman through this character is incredibly cool; it's the kind of thing I wish I could play around with, and judging from the collection I have on the shelf next to me, of Sandman short stories written by other writers, I'm not the only one.

I like the story when he goes to Hell, and the part when he goes to his own realm after escaping his imprisonment. I didn't care much for the Justice League (though the flash of Apokolips's world was more than a little freaky) and the John Dee story when he takes over the minds of several people in a diner is one of the more horrifying things I've ever read. The worst part of that one is that he gives them back their minds after ten or twelve hours of making them do horrid things to themselves and each other for his amusement. I can't even think about it. Anyway, the first story and the last story are not really very comic book-y, but they sure are good stories. I loves me my Gaiman.