VOLUME VII Main Discussion

Daniel

(Helping out during the mini-Tour)

Here is the discussion thread for Sandman Vol. VII: Brief Lives!

Spoiler-free discussion here up to Vol. VII!  Take extra care with wikipedia links etc. to warn people if they might read more than they intend to.

Svithrir

Gosh, this volume. I'm two-thirds of the way through a second reading to solidify some thoughts, but I can't wait to get this out there (it would have been a good one for the questions thread if I had thought of it sooner):

In every volume so far, we've seen the maiden-mother-crone motif appear. In case you hadn't guessed by now, it's important. It's in this volume too, in its way, in plain sight, but hidden, or perhaps even subverted. Do you see it? (Here's a hint: it even overlaps with some other repeated imagery we've seen.)

jonsager

A lot of family back story I here. I felt a lot of this was establishing the family fault lines and possibly setting up for the next big battle.

I liked how Delirum wore down Dream's emo. It is the kind of thing that family can do.

Jon.

twodogs9

I'm seeing this volume as being summarized as "endings" the same as the previous one was "beginnings." We have the end of some lives, the end of Destruction on this plane, the end of the order of Orpheus, the end of Dream's deal with Pharamond. We also see what's become of Bast now that most of her worshipers are gone. She's become old and tired. The end of Astarte/Ishtar. Again, maybe only ends on this plane, but ends, nevertheless.
Morpheus ends his self-imposed exile of and from his son and his son's exile from being collected by his aunt.

Endings. Not necessarily bad changes, just changes. Maybe unintended and unforseen (by everyone other than Destiny, of course,) but change. The inevitable. Dream becomes a softer being. More tolerant? More flexible? More something. Less rigid.

Svithrir

This volume is such a turning point for the series, it's fitting that change plays such a major theme.

Considering how Dream chastised Desire about interfering in mortal lives at the end of volume II, it's interesting to see him getting a similar lecture himself. Destruction takes things a step further than Dream did, declaring the Endless to be "repeating motifs," reflections of patterns in the experiences of the living, and in so doing comes wonderfully, perilously close to giving away the game that this is all fiction. Dream, who not infrequently takes refuge in his work when his feelings turn dark, must confront the idea that the responsibilities of his station aren't important after all.

Destruction gets the same sort of glint in his eye that Dream sometimes gets. There's a closeness there.

We've been watching how Dream grows and changes over the course of the past several volumes; in this one, the changes in his character over the centuries are made even more explicit. And yet he denies it, which itself tells us something about him.

And on top of all that, he experiences a further abrupt change—or a deep change becomes abruptly visible—when he has to confront his son. He goes spoggly just at the thought of it, but he does it, and he emerges changed. (The exact nature of that change might have to wait for the next few weeks to reveal itself, though.)


Fun easter egg: the little character Delirium conjures while in Destruction's garden is Cerebus the Aardvark. Gaiman was apparently a fan.

scorcha

I always forget how powerful this particular volume is. I read it last night and felt myself getting sad, but I couldn't stop until I'd finished. Ugh.

And everyone so far commenting on the family dynamics in this one - spot on. 

Why do you think Dream denies that he's changed?

Svithrir

Good question, @scorcha. I think Destruction gets to the crux of it: "Dream, my brother, you forget nothing you have interest in; you forget, instantly, those things you do not care to know." Dream denies having changed because to do otherwise requires thinking about how and why he has changed, about all that means for his past and his future. And those things frighten him.

Consider, for instance, how many of Dream's most recent changes stemmed from the trauma of his seventy years imprisoned.

Svithrir

We never see Destruction execute his function, even in flashbacks. He speaks about it at times: "Then follows my time, brother. The age of fire and flame…" But we never see it. We see Despair's Plague Year of 1665, but not the Great Fire of London that followed it.

This serves a few purposes. Foremost, especially where nuclear weapons are concerned, it builds an ominous sense of a scale of destruction the page cannot adequately express. (Remember, this comic was written around the end of the Cold War.)

It gives us space to appreciate Destruction as a character. Academically we know what his function is, it's right there in his name. But who we see is an affable man who waxes philosophic, and who held his family together while he was with them. Reconciling those is left as an exercise to the reader.

It also emphasizes Destruction's point about how the Endless help define concepts outside their realms, the way visual art may use negative space to define a shape. We get to see firsthand Destruction engaged in diverse acts of creation. (Along those lines, it's interesting that Destruction chose "hatred" as the antithesis of Desire, as he might as easily have said "contentment.")

Speaking of (lowercase-"d") destruction, Mai Lai is a bit of an odd name for a stripper to choose for herself, innit?

MarianCall

I'm looking for your Maiden Mother Crone in here, Svithrir, but mostly I see Ishtar and old Hattie -- maiden and crone -- where's the Mother?  I also don't have the book in front of me ATM but I'll come through it again shortly.

I love that the title of this volume is Brief Lives, and yet it's all about a collection of human (or human-seeming) very very very old beings and declining gods.

Ishtar is the one who haunts me most.  Her story, goddess hiding in a cheap lap dance club, is somehow so compelling -- she's compassionate and almost motherly to the other women, she takes her worship where she can, and she doesn't need to ask for more.  And I love the way her story is drawn, especially her last dance.  (I was surprised to see Desire there, and kept trying to make a plot point of it, then realized: of COURSE Desire would be there!  Just like Death attends at every death!)  Astarte's final act of self-destruction seems to be her choice *before* some dark force tries to find her out for being connected to Destruction.

And in a way isn't it a sort of union between herself and Destruction, her former lover?

To come back to what you mention @svithrir, Destruction not executing his function in this book, I have to disagree.  The construction "accident" at the beginning, the gas explosion, the cigarette fire -- I think these are all Destruction trying to keep anyone from finding him.  Or perhaps he laid those traps long ago to guard his trail.  They have his fingerprints all over.  It's just that he's not there in the moment.  The Alderman is smart enough to sense it coming, and escapes into being a Bear.  Which is, incidentally, my primary Apocalypse survival plan.  Become a bear and chew off my own shadow.

But it is the Astarte - Destruction relationship (that we never get to see) that captures me the most in this volume.  I can't imagine the fireworks that must have been involved in a romance like that.  Was Pompeii collateral damage?  Atlantis?

Destruction is so very likable, the most affable of the Endless except for Death.  Funny that Death and Destruction are so kind and empathetic and centered.  That's so Gaiman.

Destruction's speech at the end -- and Lucifer's speech in Season of Mists -- I ought to put those on my wall and study them awhile as examples of how to construct the moral theory of a fictional universe (or the real one).  Damn you Neil, when you're good you're so good.  And those monologues are epic.

More in a bit, I have to go find my favorite dark pub to film a story for the Vol. VIII discussion!

Daniel

@Svithrir I think you're totally right about Dream being scared, but I don't think it's just a result of the trauma - admitting change is always hard and scary. "The word that lets you know that time is happening". We are taught that time is the enemy, and so admitting change is admitting defeat. 

And the other side of the coin (how common is that metaphor in this story?) is saying that you have changed when you haven't. 

And Destruction is just full of it when he talks about abandoning his realm. He still carried his sigil, his sign of office. Sure, he didn't want the role to be passed to another, but there are many things he could have done with it.

He created traps to cause the destruction of others - his claim that there was nothing he could have done once triggered falls flat. He made the decision to put them in place, and I would guess that he could have retaken his realm to stop them as well. There are always choices to be made.

He did try turn to creation as an outlet, but as Barnabas pointed out - in the process of creation, he was also destroying. (Destroying a marble slab to create a statue)

Granted, he did seem earnest in his desire for retirement, I wonder how much of it was over guilt for what he did to Orpheus? Again, a case where "helping" only lead to destruction.

Daniel

I also wonder, how much his Desire to prevent another from taking over his role actually worked? It seems that ever since he left, Desire has been obsessed with Destruction. Destruction of her brother Dream, Destruction of others through Desire. It seems the two realms have merged into one.

MarianCall

I can see Destruction's abdication from Dream's perspective:  his resignation will not stop any Destruction from happening.  But it will allow Destruction (the personification) to wash his hands of it and claim he has no personal responsibility.

Perhaps he has realized completely the degree to which the Endless are subjects of mortals, not masters, and he sees his own irrelevance.  Or perhaps he just dislikes his work and his role and doesn't want to be responsible for it.

So Destruction sees it as liberation, but Dream will probably always see it as irresponsibility and cowardice.

MarianCall

And yet the actions in the end of this volume set Dream right down the road of Destruction itself.

Daniel

I was once taught that the purpose of the overture in a musical was to get the tunes in your head, to make them familiar to you even the first time you hear them. 

The texts on the cover pages (and for some books, the leading panel) seem to form a literary overture - connecting things that are disjointed, making them hauntingly connected when they come up in the story again. 

I wonder if this also helps more people connect to Delirium, or at least make it easier to digest her metal assaults (As I've said previously, Delirium is my favorite character, but others have said that they have a hard time when she is on the page.)

Daniel

@MarianCall I question if he ever actually resigned at all. The phrase "Let them eat cake" just popped into my mind. It's surely more comforting to him to say he's not responsible for what happened, or that he's not involved in the creation of the atomic bomb, but what real indicators do we have that he's not in charge anymore?

He certainly still has powers - where do those powers come from? If they come from his realm, then he is still connected to it. If he is still connected to it, then what is he?

If they are a part of him, coming from what he is - then again I ask, what is he?

The subject vs. master question seems to be a separate issue, but perhaps I need to think of the story from another angle.  

And there go the hairs on the back of my neck again - off to ponder this one...

Daniel

And another thing that I rarely hear talked about - What was Despair before ? Come to think of it - why are Despair and Desire paired together? Outside of Sandman, I would say that Delight and Despair are the two sides.

Perhaps Delight became both Delirium and Despair, and in the same process, destroyed Despair. Or the other way around. 

Which other? That's what the coin said.

Svithrir

@Daniel, I certainly didn't mean to imply that Dream's fears stem only from his imprisonment. That was just a recent and important example. Another example would be how things turned out with Nada. Admitting change means admitting the past was imperfect, that you've made mistakes.

@Marian, you're absolutely right that those deaths (and even Ishtar's self-destruction) were part of Destruction's efforts to prevent anyone from finding him. But those "automatic functions" were set in place long ago; he didn't actively pull the trigger on them. So it hints at the power Destruction wielded when he still held his occupation, but it's still only a hint, and one that puts distance between Destruction and his function. We don't see Destruction as Destruction stoking the fires of London, or drawing down nuclear bombs on an alien world, or we can only imagine what. Meanwhile, we see Destiny obeying his book; Death greeting the dead; Dream shaping nightmares; Desire turning lovers on one another; Despair coercing people through mirrors; Delirium shaping bubbles and conjuring technicolor frogs.

Daniel, I don't think the implication is that Destruction is no longer Destruction. But while embodying that position, he refuses to fulfill its function. He's rather like, say, a mayor who refuses to govern, but who for complicated legal reasons cannot be impeached or otherwise replaced. He's still nominally mayor, but he doesn't perform any mayoral duties. And since he hasn't officially resigned, no one else can step in to perform those duties, either.

To mix and abuse political metaphors, it's almost like he's filibustering destruction.

So yes, he could have stepped in to disable the traps he set in place, but that would mean resuming his function as Destruction. Not to do so is a choice, absolutely… but one he made long ago.

Heh… come to think of it, for all Destruction's talk of change, it seems like the only thing that doesn't change in this volume is Destruction's mind.

twodogs9

Daniel,
I think I wrote this once before and maybe I posted it or took it back. I'm not sure. Reading this volume and absorbing so much of Delirium's stuff, for lack of a better word, has left me spinning a bit. Or maybe it's just spring and e. e. cummings is with us again as the goat-footed little balloon man...

Anyway, what I think I posted before was about I fellow I worked with from 1992-1998/9 (RIP Beau) who often responded with "Hope breeds despair" whenever anyone said he or she hoped for something or that something particular would happen. Hope is a form of desire and so, if we start changing these things to proper names we get Desire breeds Despair from Beau's maxim. From Gaiman we get that they are twins, not one parent to the other, and I would suggest that Desire is the (slightly) older of the two.

Delirium is something else and I'd love to hear the story of how she went from Delight to Delirium. According to Freud, man and dogs have a limitless capacity for pleasure, even to the point of pleasuring themselves to pain, disfigurement or death (as in Ishtar's last dance.) Perhaps too much Delight can lead to Delirium?

Svithrir

Regarding the maiden-mother-crone motif, maybe I was a little misleading in my earlier comment, but maybe not.

Here are my thoughts. We can expect the three-in-one to play a role in volume IX, at least, based on its title. (N.B., from volume II: "Be satisfied with the trinity you have. F'r example, you wouldn't want to meet us as the Kindly Ones.") Well, this volume presumably sets the stage for it. Consider what Desire had to say in the Emperor Norton story: "I'll make him spill family blood; I'll bring the Kindly Ones down on his blasted head…" Dream has now spilled family blood. He ended his son's life.

So the maiden-mother-crone motif is conspicuously absent from this volume, perhaps to build anticipation for the Kindly Ones. But it isn't forgotten entirely.

"Brief Lives" is bookended by their spear counterparts: the grandson; his father Kris; and Andros, whose name even means "man." They acts as caretakers to Orpheus. Read into that what you will.

As for imagery, the wordless penultimate panel—of Andros handing the linen-wrapped bundle to his grandson—reminds me of nothing so much as the handing of the glass heart.

MarianCall

Ah! Interesting!  The three as men for the first time!  And I noticed that similarity with the bundle and the glass heart as well.

reo_1963

One favorite theme in here: Putting the Endless in Typical Day Situations 

1) The reception room when Dream and Del are waiting for Pharamond. The standard receptionist tactic is to tell you person is not in (when they are). Dream tells the receptionist we will wait here for however long it takes. The receptionist doing her best to cope with the frog situation. (Awesome!)

2) The police officer giving Del a ticket. The great cop line (when you are pulled over for speeding) is: "Do you know how fast you were going?" No matter what you say or do, you are screwed unless you have your wife in the car and she is very pregnant and you are heading to the hospital. But short of that, there is no response that will not make matters worse. Except for Del. She gets a little heavy handed to Dream's liking and she even tells Dream to back off in her own trippy way. Still classic!

3) The owner of the Go-Go Club telling Dream, Del, and Matthew they are not welcome. One bit of illusion and they all walk in. Subtle and in a quiet way it is Dream showing Del, this is how you do it.

reo_1963

Svithrir, your Destruction quote about Dream not remembering things that do not immediately apply is right on the money. Dream is aware he has the problem. (It comes up when Dream has a flashback about walking with the Corinthian & Destruction.) I thought it was brilliant writing by Mr Gaiman that Dream would suffer from this because it is in the nature of Dreams to easily forget.

At one point Destruction asks Dream if he blames himself for Destruction's leaving. And Dream says says no. It made it seem like something happened. Something Dream cannot remember at all. And Destruction lets it go.

Daniel, I agree with you that Destruction's arguments for not getting involved once his traps start going off do fall flat. But Destruction explains he cannot undo the traps without returning to his responsibilities.

The character stays consistent but this is where I start disagreeing with the author.

My personal opinion is that when Destruction walked away from his responsibilities, another Destruction should have appeared. Destruction said he did not want to allow his problems to be inherited by the next incarnation, but this too is garbage. The character can think that all he wants but and I disagree with the author here for allowing it without having a substitute appear.

For over 20 years I have also disliked the author's decision for Dream to agree to his son's wish.
I can think of alternates.
1) Orpheus is not the son of Morpheus. Morpheus was just his adopted father.

2) Dream asks someone else to do the job. Asks Death directly. Or he tell his son's caretakers to do whatever Orpheus asks and Orpheus could demand that they toss him into a lava flow in live volcano.

3) Make a body regeneration potion (from troll blood or future tech cloning) for Orpheus.

4) Bring Orpheus into the Dreaming and allow him to live there with a living Eurydice.

5) Several of them go for family counseling with a therapist (they could burn through a few bad ones) until thy find one who can help them (an actual Angel perhaps).

One of the advantages of having the original comic books was there are ads in the comics for all sorts of junk. (Movies, bands, video games, other DC titles, etc.) At this time DC was advertising the story line of the "Death of Superman". Shocking stuff then. But then he is brought back to life. (???) I am tempted to believe this is Mr Gaiman showing DC Comics: watch me kill an an immortal. Orpheus, who is immortal, is now dead. Over. Done. See. Learn. Move on to a new character please.

Marian, I wonder if Ishtar's last dance was because she made a choice on her own to die or because of one of Destruction's traps catching up to her and she just rode it. But it made me feel sad that these incarnations of Love & Destruction could not find a creative way to keep their relationship afloat even with his job problems and the family related problems. You make a great point about her doing what she did to somehow connect to her former lover.

I did like how Desire showed up at various story thread ends to voice this was not what she wanted.

AK_Becky

A few random thoughts on this volume. 

I seriously love the Dream and Delirium interaction throughout this book. They are such an odd couple, two family members that rarely get along or choose to spend time together, but decide to undertake this journey anyway...and hilarity (and awkwardness and sadness) ensue. 

And does anyone else see drag personas in all of Desire's incarnations? (Also, gonna borrow the invented gender neutral pronoun zie/ze/zir from here on out, I think it fits Desire quite well and my women/gender studies prof would be proud). Zie is always so carefully androgynous, but rather than true androgyny, I'm always reminded of a performance persona (either drag queen or king, depending on outfit) or, sometimes, a character out of Rocky Horror Picture Show (which I'm sure Desire is a HUGE fan of, so that fits). And, not gonna lie, I kind of LOVE it. As annoying as the character of Desire can sometimes be, I adore how ze is drawn, and I find the gender bending and purposeful blurring of lines oddly very appropriate. 

Finale note: Ishtar's story is kind of painfully sad to me. Can you imagine, having been worshiped in a time when love and desire (small d) were considered so sacred, there were temples built, and people willingly served as sacred prostitutes in your name, and were actually respected for it? Not only was she a goddess of physical love and desire, she was a goddess of EVERYTHING. Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna was said  to have given humankind the gift of knowledge and tools and farming and the written word, language. She was considered by the Sumerians/Babylonians to have basically given us civilization. And yes, we remember her now for the sacred prostitutes because (to the Hebrews) that was the most noteworthy thing - and because probably the most famous story is how she traveled to the underworld (basically as another Orpheus figure) to beg for the return of her lover, and gave up everything she prized, stood naked and helpless before the god of the underworld and was humiliated...all for love. But, as opposed to Orpheus, she was successful. (Sorry, taking this all from the original story rather than the Sandman mythos, so extrapolating). And now, the only worship she can find is in the form of lap dances...it just kind of breaks my heart, and makes me sad for the world we now live in. Of course, not everyone associates shame with nudity, nor do we all see the physical expression of love and beauty as so tawdry, but it is rather indicative of how far we have come and how much the world has changed. 

Also, the more I think about it, the more hilarious it is to me that she was Destruction's lover. I mean, Ishtar, known for fertility and knowledge (basically creation itself - creation of people, creation of food and language and civilization) being in love with the yang to her yin? It's beautifully poetic and must have been seriously volatile. 

(Sorry for the ramble, my one tattoo is a star of Ishtar and her stories have always been very important to me, and I think Neil Gaiman had a really interesting take on her)

 

reo_1963

AK_Becky, I never knew about Astarte's trip to the Underworld. Looking forward to researching that! What color is your Ishtar star tattoo?

After having made the jump that something Dream did really put a wrinkle in Destruction's life,
it occurred to me that one possibility that could have happened is if Ishtar and Destruction had been an item

at the time of Orpheus & Eurydice, was how the after discussion could have gone down between them...

  Astarte: We need to talk.

  Destruction: Sure, my pet. What's up?

  Astarte: Why didn't you invite me to the wedding?

  Destruction: Whose?

  Astarte: Orpheus & Eurydice.

  Destruction: Oh, yeah. Well, I just stopped by it briefly. Didn't want to bother you.

  Astarte: Bother me? I am the Goddess of Love. I exist for such things. And another thing, why did you send Orpheus to your sister for help?

  Destruction: Because he asked me for help in getting to the Underworld. 

  Astarte: You could have gone with him. Escorted him there, helped him get Eurydice from Hades, and escorted them both back. Hello! What kind of fucking idiot are you? 

  Destruction: I really am not prepared for an essay question. Can you give me 5 or 6 multiple choice examples to pick from so I can just check the boxes that apply to me?

  Astarte: Between you and his father, those 2 wonderful kids are dead. 

  Destruction: Technically, only 1 of them is dead. The other is a living disembodied head.

  Astarte: Technically, that's worse! If they were both dead, they could at least be together. Have you no compassion or remorse?

  Destruction: Yes. I do. But it's complicated. It's family business. And it's my job.

  Astarte: It's my job too. Here's your toothbrush. You are out of here. And do not come back until you have learned to be more compassionate.

   <DOOR SLAM>

***

From the actual dialog at the end of the campfire, it sounded like Destruction never even knew that Astarte was dead.

The statue that Destruction carved, in the moonlight looked female. I like to think that it was Destruction's best effort of a remembrance of Astarte. A bit tragically romantic that each still held memories of the other. But this is all weak links and only vaguely inferred.

AK_Becky

For the record, the stories about her trip to the underworld that I've found are under the Inanna/Ishtar incarnation, I'm not sure if they show up in the Greek versions as Astarte (since of course,every culture has to have their own take) but if they do, I'd be interested to see the differences. I know they were a big thing in Mesopotamia. And as for my tattoo, it's just a simple black line tattoo with some green shading on leaves/vines spreading out from the star. It's based on this design here - but on my stomach rather than lower back. http://luckyfishart.com/starofishtar.html

reo_1963

Cool!

http://fairytalesoftheworld.com/quick-reads/ishtars-journey-into-the-underworld/

I did not connect the dots to realize that this Ishtar / Astarte was the same entity who appears in the "Epic of Gilgamesh".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

MarianCall

Thanks guys, I wanted to do more research into Astarte/Ishtar but haven't had the minutes yet!

I think it is absolutely totally fair and fun to look for those connections and imagine more about the relationship between Destruction and his girlfriend, @reo, while acknowledging (as you did) that it's our speculation.  I have a lot of fun wondering what more there was to their relationship, and I'm sure if the author wanted us to have more concrete ideas about it, he wouldn't have left so much scope for the imagination.

AK_Becky

I found this book about Inanna/Ishtar several years back...I don't even remember where, probably in a used bookstore. If anyone is feeling particularly curious about her stories and hymns, and if you ALSO happen to be a bit of an archaeology nerd, and want pictures and descriptions of the original artifacts and texts, check it out.  

 http://www.amazon.com/Inanna-Queen-Heaven-Earth-Stories/dp/0060908548/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397716198&sr=1-1&keywords=inanna

Joi_the_Artist

I am depressingly far behind. Argh. Posting my comments here now, then will try to go back and respond to some other things. These may be pretty disconnected, as I'm not taking separate notes, just typing them here. 

I love Delirium's line to Dream: "You've never apologized to me. You just act like you know stuff I don't know tht makes everything you do okay."

If I may get personal for a minute, I really struggle with the part in Ishtar's story where they talk about temple prostitution. Nancy says, "The historian made some sexist crack about the women. Because they couldn't leave until someone made love to them. He said the good-looking ones got off early, but the rougher-looking ones sometimes waited in the temple courtyard for months.But that's history for you. All written by men." We so rarely, if ever, get to hear the stories of ugly women. There are stories about women who are cursed with ugliness and have that curse broken, women who are plain but "blossom" in the end, stories about women who are average-looking but find someone who sees their true beauty, and goodness knows there are stories about beautiful women. But there are so damned few stories about ugly women. I can only think of two off the top of my head: Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, and Orual in Til We Have Faces. And here's where it gets difficult and personal: I am one of those women. I'm nearly 32, and until last summer, no guy who'd seen me in person had been interested in me. One person I met online lost interest the instant we met in person; I could literally see it on his face. I've never been kissed, and the only person to hold my hand was a guy who wanted a warm body around until he found someone hot enough to date (almost his own words there.) So, in a way, I appreciate this acknowledgement that it's not just the beautiful women who have stories worthy of hearing. And there are some female characters who are not conventionally pretty; Hazel, Maisie, Nuala, Despair. I don't have any answers here, just putting out some of my responses to that story. 

I love the scene where Delirium has to be the collected one for Dream. It's simple and lovely. 

AK_Becky

Joi - I think that is an EXCELLENT point about us rarely hearing the stories of "ugly" or unconventionally pretty women. This may seem silly and inconsequential, but it really bothers me when I get really into a book series, and the main character is one of the few that is described as NOT pretty by conventional standards, and they then proceed to make her look much prettier in the cover art. Like, sometimes to the point that you wouldn't recognize her as the main character at all if she wasn't on the damn cover. I don't recall right now which series I'm thinking of specifically, but there were several fantasy series (probably more urban fantasy) that I was into that were like that...

And I have to agree, anytime that Delirium is more put together than someone, it's a great scene and REALLY makes the other characters think.

MarianCall

I've always wondered about the Cover Art Imperative.  I expect it depends on the publisher, but -- are the cover artists compelled to make a cover sexy regardless of the book's contents?  And how often do they get to read the book at all?

I wonder what Sandman covers would have looked like if they were not done by McKean.  Super sexualized Death and Nada and Rose and Barbie and Lyta and so on kind of grosses me out.  (Although more cool Morpheus illustrations -- anytime.  He's so visually compelling.)

MarianCall

I just note that because I have read so many books for which the cover seems to have no relation to the insides.  I wonder how that process all works.

These days too many books have sexy smart-looking covers with no picture of the protagonist at all, and I have often been fooled into buying a dumb book because the cover looks "smart."  Boo.

jillybob

I also think that's a great point about rarely getting a story from the point of view of a woman who's not conventionally attractive. I think it's gotten much, much worse over the years, as TV, film, and music videos have become much more a part of every home. A lot of the TV stars of shows of say, the 80s, would not be considered pretty or thin enough to get a starring role today. And that just reinforces the idea that a story can only center around attractive people, especially now that there's so much money in film and TV rights. Now, every book you open spends a ridiculous amount of time telling you how goodlooking all the characters are. Or you have the female protagonist who doesn't think of herself as attractive enough but manages to snare the attentions of multiple highly desirable men (from Bridget Jones to Sookie Stackhouse). The reality is that all sorts of people are attractive to all sorts of people, and also stories that only define happiness as a fairy-tale ending with a "premium" mate devalue everyone, men, women, cis, trans, gay, bi, straight, and asexual. As long as the permanently-paired-ever-after-with-someone-the-world-recognizes-as-a-catch ending is the primary definition of happiness, then a heroine's worthiness is going to primarily defined by, pardon my language, her fuckable-ness, and that's how we never get any other stories. Gaiman's characters in The Sandman get to represent all sorts of physical types, I believe, largely because for the most part their journeys aren't defined by their romantic destinies. If your story isn't about how you find your Prince (or Princess) Charming, your appearance reflects only you, not your worth to those you hope to attract.

This, by the way, was my favorite volume. I'm not normally a fan of whimsical portrayals of mental illness (oh, look! She's having a manic episode! She how she twirls!), but I love Gaiman's depiction of Delirium. Yes, she's adorable and childlike and quirky, but she's also sad and dark and troubled and occasionally brutal. And Dream's relationship with her is true to what it's like having a loved one with mental illness -- sometimes he's annoyed and sometimes he's fed up and cruel, but sometimes she breaks his heart & he'll do what he can to ease her journey.

The art of this volume had a ton of details that I just keep discovering when I reread. Like how Delirium's appearance changes, when she tells Destruction about their voyage to him, to reflect the appearance she'd adopted at each point in the story. And how the statues of the Endless in Destiny's garden change to reflect their state of mind at the time. And I loved that all labyrinths lead to Destiny.

I am still trying to get my mind around the fact that Despair *became* Despair, because how was Despair V.1.0 destroyed, and what was Despair V.2.0 before she was Despair? Since *this* Despair is Desire's twin, I wonder if Desire split him/herself to fill the void?

Here's a hangup of mine that still cracks me up. It bugs me no end that Destruction gives Barnabas chocolate. Chocolate can be poisonous to dogs! Every time I read it, I get mad all over again. So, yes, I can buy into a universe where there are seven Endless who've existed since time began, where Destruction has fled to a remote Greek island with his talking dog and he can only be found by Dream visiting his disembodied head of a son on a nearby island, but have Destruction feed his talking dog chocolate and YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.

Joi_the_Artist

"Since *this* Despair is Desire's twin, I wonder if Desire split him/herself to fill the void?"

OOH. That's interesting. I like that.

MarianCall

Hahahahaha the chocolate is a step too far!  I cover a song that has dogs and chocolate in it.

Jillybob, that's wonderful, I hadn't thought of it but -- there is mental illness in my family, and you're right, Dream and Delirium really express what it's like to live with and love someone mentally ill.

And I think how seldom I have seen that relationship established in a way that isn't overly dramatized or tragic.  For so many of us it's just everyday, and it can't be scary or horrifying, because the one we love isn't scary or horrifying.  It's just them, and we love them the way they are.

But that doesn't mean they never disturb us.

It makes me think back to one of the things I liked about 'Love, Actually' (((LOVE ACTUALLY SPOILERS FOLLOW)))(BET YOU DIDN'T EXPECT THAT) because the moment that film felt real for me -- not just like wish-fulfillment -- was when the Laura Linney character gives up a night with her crush to go be with her brother.  And all the romantic stuff seemed like fluff in comparison, because that was love, actually.  Family.  And total acceptance of family, and bearing a difficult role in family because of love.

Svithrir

A little thought, hardly worth mentioning, but I want to get it off my chest since things are starting to wrap up around here: I'm somewhat baffled by the lines about reason that Destruction and Dream exchange when they visit the Royal Society. It makes a certain amount of sense for Dream to disregard reason, since reality isn't his forte. But it's something else for Destruction to say, "Reason. It is no more reliable a tool than instinct, myth or dream." That just… isn't so. Reason is the most reliable tool we have for teasing out what's true about the world through our fallible minds and senses.

I guess things might work differently in a fictional universe with faeries and gods and the Endless, but still. It's weird to dwell on in that case.

Unless, of course, Destruction is referring to our capacity to wield it, and to what ends. In some sense, a hammer is only as reliable as the hand that holds it. Hoom.

nerd

Hm. When Death takes a day off, people don't die. But when Morpheus is captured, people still dream, normally for the most part - though I assume dreaming was reduced in some way, not as meaningful as before/after his imprisonment. And what would happen if Destiny went on strike? Absolutely nothing? Or would things just go on haphazardly, without cause/effect (assuming cause and effect are real, of course). I suspect Gaiman doesn't answer these sorts of questions of how exactly the Endless work because he's not interested in them -- they aren't important to the stories he wants to tell.

Reading this book really showed me that I'm interested mainly in the plot aspects of Sandman, and much less in the purely storytelling parts of it. The World's End volume, and Fables/Reflections didn't do much for me because I like reading about the stories of the Endless much more than random stories. Yes, they do intertwine eventually in some ways, but I keep looking for the overall arc and often times there isn't anything there. I guess that's just my personality - it'd be easier for me if each standalone story basically was labeled as such: this doesn't connect to anything, it's just a vignette. Enjoy it as such. And I can, once I think of it that way.

As someone who hasn't, at least as of yet, had the fairy-tale romantic love story ending, a lot of the comments about the above and unattractive or unconventionally attractive people hit close to home. At least in these stories, there isn't always a happy ending.

two reasons I haven't given up on it though. One is that it'd likely be sour grapes, where I'm rejecting the goal because I haven't gotten there. Two is that if I give up, the universe wins. and it's going to have to kill me for that to happen. Which it will eventually, but I'm not going without a fight.

Someday I might decide the goal isn't worth having. But I want to prove it to myself instead of just being on the outside looking in all the time. Whether or not that happens... Who can say?

I feel like I have a volume or two inside the library of unwritten books. Probably interlaced with a lot of Dream, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Though I like to believe that everyone is influenced by all of those, just at different frequencies and amounts.

Anyway. Done rambling for now.

MarianCall

@svithrir: "In some sense, a hammer is only as reliable as the hand that holds it. Hoom. "

That's it exactly.

Also -- a tool for what? For making decisions? For building civilizations? Or for knowing oneself and the nature of the universe, for becoming who you want to be?

For the former I would agree, reason simply IS a better tool (depending on how well we wield it). But to understand self, other people, emotion, love, the brevity of existence -- I think putting it about on par with instinct, myth, and dream (story!) is just about right.

MarianCall

@nerd Wow, that's really intense. I'm glad you haven't given it up yet. And you're right, if you ever decide it's something you don't want, it would have to be organically, or it would just be a root for bitterness.

"I suspect Gaiman doesn't answer these sorts of questions of how exactly the Endless work because he's not interested in them -- they aren't important to the stories he wants to tell."

That is one of the best summaries so far of the little inconsistencies we can squabble about in the books -- I'm happy you gave me that sentence to help understand them. There's a little bit of the Artist's Privilege to mess with things, not explain things, and be inconsistent, yet still deliver a great story by pursuing the parts s/he cares about and not worrying so hard about the exact mechanics.

Not to say that mechanics and proofing for consistency are unimportant -- Gaiman does that so much in other respects that it makes the questions like the one you brought up feel more like a mystery. It seems to me the Endless have quite a lot of mysteries and that we only get to peek into a few of them. So that's OK with me.

I like mystery.