Tim Lieder

64. The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman & artists - On the cover is "volume 2" and the other one afterwards is "The Dream Hunters" which is I think I read as well. I actually forgot I read this one mostly because there are two very memorable stories and some forgettable ones. Or more accurately, I read two of the stories and instantly recognized them as stories that I had read. I had forgotten the Desire story where she tells her entire life story as the lover of a Viking lord including the part where the enemy soldiers presented his head and she didn't flinch.

The two stories that I recognize are Death and Dream, which makes sense as the Death story about the party that never ends before the soldier kicks in a magic door and then everyone gets their fates read to them. They are merely in place repeating the day and how they decide to spend the day ranges from orgies to extreme repentance in the Catholic sense. It really is quite beautiful.

The Dream one is the one where we get introduced to the seven in their earlier forms. Despair is much more ambitious and a different version (did Neil ever write about how that original Despair died) with Desire and Dream as the two friendly siblings with Death scaring the fuck out of everyone (all the stars). It's a social comedy and a new way to see things. Dream isn't amused by Desire making his girlfriend fall in love with a star. It's one of the better Sandman stories.

Oh holy shit. Despair is telling the Kryptonian sun to blow up. Nice in-joke there.

65.The Sandman Overture by Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams & Dave Stewart - This is a beautiful comic. Every page looks painted and absorbing. The story itself, well it moves along but it doesn't make a lot of sense. That's partially by design with Dream being part of a greater whole but every version of Dream should be the same. So Morpheus comes to investigate a death of another planet's Dream. And then there are the parents of the Endless who are Time and I forget. But also Dream has to return something to Time only Daniel returns it, with Morpheus kind of letting it go. Also I think the ending is about turning the universe off and on. With an ending that suggests that Desire pretended to be a giant cat version of Dream in order to help Dream out. So that's nice. Only Desire forgets about it and keeps on trying to get Dream killed.

So definitely worth reading. And of course it ends with the panel from issue 1 where Dream is stuck in a circle in Burgess' house.

66Dreaming Waking Hours by G. Willow Wilson and others - This one makes up for the "Kill Your Gays (actually trans)" trope adherence from A Game of You in a big way by having a transgender character being the most powerful character in many ways, not just magic strength but also in rejecting her family's bullshit and then at the very end when Puck shows up to read her "real name". Of course, since her "real name" is her dead name and not really going to be part of any spell. Now the rest of it is really G. Willow Wilson's show with Ruin, a nightmare, falling in love with a mortal and learning his place in the world. Daniel shows up as a possible source of failure but not really. There is also an angel and a ton of stuff about Nuala taking over Faery but not necessarily doing a good job of it (she owes way too much to some very unfriendly Seelies)

It's a great series and I hope to see more from G. Willow Wilson in the Sandman universe. she did great things with Ms. Marvel.

32. Sandman: Seasons of Mists by Neil Gaiman and Various - In the quasi-mythological way that the story of Morpheus and Nada was told originally, it felt like the kind of tragic love story that happens in mythology. But it's also the kind of thing that the old religions traffick in. I even wrote about it in my tumblr posts on The Book of Job which is "Don't attract the attention of the gods". Only Morpheus is not JUST a god in the Greek mythology way. He's also a stand-in for the author and a metaphor for story telling.

So we return to Nada in this one and it sets everything off as the theme of the comic book series - the ways that change can be painful and even destructive but is also inevitable - we see it from the perspective of an early 30s/late 20s viewpoint where growing up means examining your actions and admitting that you were really shitty in many ways. The "Time Traveler slapping their younger self" trope is common here. Only Morpheus is millions of years old and he's being written by a writer in his early 30s So he's in that reflective but also likely to get angry when his faults are pointed out phase.

I have always hated that "if you hurt her, we'll kill you" trope. I get that it means "don't be an abusive prick" but I still remember shitty things that I've said and angry emails I've sent when my feelings were wounded, and really how can you avoid hurting someone that you are close to? So you might say "don't hurt my friend, sister, etc" and mean "don't punch her in the face" or "don't gaslight her and tear down her sense of self-worth until she's a shell of her former self" and I'm going to remember the time when I was first dating my college girlfriend and she came back from vacation and I told her that I didn't miss her that much. I think I meant it in a "this is a healthy non-obsessive relationship" or maybe I was trying to "be honest" but either way I made her cry (and this was reported from someone else) and as much shit as we did to each other and as much as we've both moved on to the point that I can't even email her without feeling weird about it because what the hell do we have to talk about, that memory still hits me with a fresh wave of guilt.

We are fragile sad creatures.

So anyhow, this isn't even the main plot of the book. It's just that Morpheus is finally made aware that he was a total asshole when he condemned his lover to hell for thousands of years (not forgiving her) first by Desire who angered him and then by Death who told him it in a concerned way. (there's symbolism there too. I just see that. In the midst of desire, you can hear the truth and do everything to deny it, but under the shadow of death there really is no place to engage in self-deception.)

And the rest of the book is also about change, or the need to change as well as the inability to change. Lucifer can change and only needed an excuse to change. Nada can only change because she can't continue as her place in a myth. The gods can't change but they can find more advantage or at least ask for an advantage. Loki changes his face but only to continue to be Loki. The fairies come to the Dream Kingdom and one loses her glamor and the other one thinks about his life in a serious way.

And in the end we return to Morpheus and Nada having a conversation and knowing that it won't ever work out and getting closure.

Closure - a literary trope that we never really get in real life at least not in the way we would want it. (in my twenties there was a couple that was famous for breaking up and getting back together and at one point he was calling her and leaving messages asking for closure. She ignored him because really, if they talked they probably wouldn't have gotten closure, just more anger and recrimination).

33. Dead Boy Detectives vol 1: Schoolboy Terrors - Toby Litt & Mark Buckingham - This one is less think piece as it's got a couple characters who were introduced in Seasons of Mists and they are still walking around trying to save people. The main story is about a girl who is the child of a rock star and an artist (I wonder if the trope of the child of artists being neglected is a self-criticism thing. Although I'm not sure if Holly Black has children) and she goes to a private school because she wants to and it's the old school that the boy detectives died in.

So this is a lot of "hey remember this?" material with the old bullies still there and the ghosts wanting to kill students as the daughter of rock star is afraid of making friends because her friends keep getting killed by ghosts. And then her new friend gets killed by a ghost. I think she might come back but my damn library doesn't have the next volume. It's a really unfair and nasty plot twist with the friend being possessed by a demon.

I guess there's a tv show coming to Netflix so that's hopeful.

Also it fits in with the theme because the boys try to save this girl because one has a crush on her, and the boys might be a couple but it's mostly a shipper thing.

34.And Laughter Fell from the Sky by Jyotsna Sreenivasan - I'm not sure what I think about the ways that the publishing companies tend to be friendlier towards books by non-white people when they are adapting a Victorian novel. On one hand, that seems racist. On the other hand, when it comes to immigrant families there is a wealth of material to draw upon when it comes to the Victorian and Regency novels. I was actually trying to figure out if this one was based on a Jane Austen book before looking in the back and seeing that she was adapting House of Mirth but with a curiosity towards the man in that book seemingly being so confident (House of Mirth is one of those books with an ending that has pissed off readers and movie goers for decades. He just decides that he doesn't want to be with her??? At the last minute??? After everything that held them apart is gone??? Fuck you Wharton. I think it's Wharton...yes. It's Wharton).

So I don't have a problem with Indian writers finding a great deal of material in a novel like House of Mirth especially when they find a great deal of inspiration in a novel about arranged marriages and thinking about your family and their needs before your own.

Sreenivasan is not terribly excited by the whole arranged marriage trope. As I talk about this book, I am seeing certain things that she's doing including weighing against her lead woman character - Rasika - and Rasika's intent on being a good Indian daughter who gets married, especially who gets married before a certain date. Her parents are depicted as foolish. In fact, no parents really come off well in this one (Abhoy's parents are also an arranged marriage with his father being an abusive guy and his mother never really knowing what she wanted).

Also Rasika is never really depicted as someone who wants an arranged marriage. She has boyfriends. She has sex. She even has sex with Abhoy almost as soon as they reconnect - after he accidentally interrupts a date with an awful suitor - and ends up getting assaulted by an uncle who tries to blackmail her in regards to seeing her with Abhoy. And she does make Abhoy confused and existentialist not sure about what he wants in life, but in love with Rasika.

Honestly I got into it. Maybe it's because I'm in love with a woman who pulled away from me when I could admit to myself that I was in love with her. Not that I'm waiting around for her to change her mind or even come into my life as a friend (which I would like. I guess I'm ok with these emotions; not nearly as obsessive as they were in the past with different women) and so the dynamic of Abhoy knows that he loves Rasika even as Rasika keeps pulling away from Abhoy because he's not in her vision of how her future should go was something that I could latch onto.

On the other hand, the book ends with a traumatic head injury. I guess that's a plot point that stops the characters from running away from each other.

Ok. Here's the spoiler as if you thought that she would REALLY end the book like House of Mirth. They get married in the epilogue. The book ends with her agreeing to marry Abhoy because she finally has stopped running away and trying to live the life her parents want. The funny part is that at the wedding, no one talks about how much they are in different castes being a major scandal. Everyone is just happy she married another Hindu - unlike her cousin who shows up at the end and narks on her, who is running away with a Muslim. Also traumatic head injury.

I kind of hope I didn't influence anyone not to read the book on the spoiler. It's a romance book. Of course, they end up together in the end. Did anyone go to Bridget Jones's Diary thinking that they are going to break up? Well then again Bridget Jones was based on a book where they do end up together, as opposed to a book where they should end up together but fucking Wharton thought a tragic ending where they just decide not to get together for the sadness.

And there are enough twists to keep the story going.