VOLUME II Weekly Book Discussion
Welcome to the main Volume II Discussion! Here we talk about The Doll's House.
This thread will have spoilers for folks who have not yet read volume I and II, but please, **NO SPOILERS** for books or material beyond that.
There are discussion questions about Vol. II to get you started over at http://mariancall.com/vanilla/discussion/14/questions-for-volume-ii-the-doll039s-house. <i>If you're behind, no worries, there's still a very active discussion taking place on Vol. I here: http://mariancall.com/vanilla/discussion/12/volume-i-main-discussion-thread. In fact, there's a ton of awesome stuff there, I recommend you read some of it before you dive in here!</i> There are a lot of other active discussion threads, including talk of a Google Tea & Scones hangout next week, right here: http://mariancall.com/vanilla/categories/sandman-book-club
It's bedtime for me, but morning for some of you -- take it away! I'll be posting and making a video when it's morningtime in Alaska.
This thread will have spoilers for folks who have not yet read volume I and II, but please, **NO SPOILERS** for books or material beyond that.
There are discussion questions about Vol. II to get you started over at http://mariancall.com/vanilla/discussion/14/questions-for-volume-ii-the-doll039s-house. <i>If you're behind, no worries, there's still a very active discussion taking place on Vol. I here: http://mariancall.com/vanilla/discussion/12/volume-i-main-discussion-thread. In fact, there's a ton of awesome stuff there, I recommend you read some of it before you dive in here!</i> There are a lot of other active discussion threads, including talk of a Google Tea & Scones hangout next week, right here: http://mariancall.com/vanilla/categories/sandman-book-club
It's bedtime for me, but morning for some of you -- take it away! I'll be posting and making a video when it's morningtime in Alaska.
Comments
And, I think it's safe to interpret, both at the center of a vortex? The way Dream explains the vortex: That describes "Tales in the Sand": Kai'ckul and Nada made love; and every living thing that dreamed, dreamed of Nada and of love; and the walls of a glass city were shattered, and everyone in it was lost.
I speculate that the two versions of Nada's story are tailored to their audience. The one relating to Kai'ckul third damning proposal is the story is for men, and ends with his words. Perhaps the women's story focuses on Nada refusing the proposal is the story for women, ending with her fatal last words. They might have the same lessons and themes in both versions, but the way it is told highlights the lessons that the audience is meant to learn.
The proposal story is to Morpheus when he was younger: pride, arrogance, control, and possession (@Daniel). When Kai'ckul acted selfish and prideful he destroyed a civilization (a world) when he should have let Nada go. He did not do what was best for his and Nada's kingdom. Men should learn from Kai'ckul's mistake.
I believe women's story is already to some extent in the text, its the story of a queen that fell in love with a dangerous and prideful god. What's the lesson here? Maybe Hold your ground, sacrifice, and do what you believe is best for your family. Women should learn from Nada's mistake and her resolve.
Why do we read the man's story and not the women's?
Author's choice.
Aaah! That is an incredible idea @Svithrir! That makes it more tragic when Nada says "You ordered me confined here! Your forgiveness can free me! I implore you."
I don't have the book in front of me at the moment. Did morpheus say that he always had the power to kill the Vortex or was it after the Nada incident?
We had another scene, of an human empowered by the dreaming, impacting the dreams of others. And also affecting their lives. Yet somehow, this felt somewhat happy. I was trying to figure out why.
It's not dignified, but it's how I feel about literature.
Boing boing boing boing
I have always loved how Gaiman deals with women. So few authors have his reserve, his boldness, his respect, his understanding when it comes to female characters.
On my very first reading of the Nada story, new to the series, when I realized that the men were telling the men's version of the story, but the women have another version, which these two men did not get to hear -- I believe I almost physically put the book down and wanted to say out loud "Thank you" to the author who had that good sense. In that gesture there's an element of respect and understanding about the limits of storytelling that so few artists have. It was just one of the most beautiful ways I've ever seen for a male author to loudly acknowledge the limits of his voice.
Now, on many deeper readings of the series, I have a lot of ideas about what the women's version is. And I do think that Kai'ckul was the cruel one in their version. Whether he killed her -- not sure, but in my mind, probably. But his sense of entitlement to her, his anger, even when she refuses and refuses, is the most terrible moral lesson. Women shouldn't have to learn the consequences of that dynamic, refusing a man who believes he has a right to her -- but we do.
I didn't realize Nada was the earlier vortex until you pointed it out though, @svithrir, brilliant! Interesting that over time Dream comes to realize that he "...failed in [his] duties" with respect to the earlier vortex, when talking with Rose and Unity, yet he still is not ready to forgive Nada. Dream's evolution as a character is marked in time by how he deals with Nada.
Unity! How I love that name!
What about Nada's story makes it appropriate for a coming-of-age ritual? Is it the idea of learning how men and women should relate? Why is it only told once? How does the telling of an inherited legend differ from a story one creates? Are their different responsibilities to the characters? In the men’s story, Nada pursues Dream, resulting eventually in her destruction. Perhaps, in the women’s story, Dream is the pursuer?
The storyteller asserts that love has no place in dreams, because love is part of desire, and desire is always cruel. Is this true? Is it true even of familial love? Note: Nada does awake in a forest on the other side of death, presumably the wood of the suicides?
I’ve always resonated with the portrayal of Despair’s little hooked ring. It says so much about the feeling of despair: little things that rip and tear at you, draining you bit by bit.
Fiddler’s Green is a place of journey’s end; why does he/it leave the Dreaming and accompany Rose on her journey? Again, why G. K. Chesterton specifically? Is it because of “The Man Who Was Thursday,” which is subtitled, “A Nightmare”? If so, why the lack of any references to that book at all?
What’s the significance of Unity reuniting the women of the family: maiden (Rose), mother (Miranda), and crone (Unity)? Jed’s dreams, which are unconnected to the true Dreaming, are pure escapism. Is this because they are “false” stories? If so, what makes
other dreams “true”?
Why serial killers? Is it because they are real-life people who become legends and nightmares? A serial killer isn’t a serial killer without a story, at least to the general public. We give them special names and know their symbols and modus operandi. Do they function as bogeymen in the modern
world?
That last image in part 2, of Dream geared for war, is one of my favorites in the entire series. So iconic.
There are two kinds of abnormal dreaming in this book: the false Dreaming that Brute and Glob create, and the vortex of dreams that is Rose and/or Unity. One is walled off and almost impenetrable, the other has no walls at all. It’s clear that both are harmful. So, true Dreaming is both
individual and collective; in what way are Dreams collective? Is it Jungian, do we pull from a common store of images and stories? Freudian, based in biology and psychology? Why is it important to be connected to the true Dreaming?
Is there any correlation between Dream and Nada, and Hector and Hippolyta? In the first, a relationship that should not have happened, did; in the second, a relationship that should not have happened was undone. Both seem to be disastrous.
Why is Hob Gadling introduced in this story arc? The themes are change and sameness; the more things change, the more they stay the same. This story also introduces Johanna Constantine and William Shakespeare, who have larger parts later, but that seems incidental. I love the depiction of Dream in the last panel; so totally Bowie!
Why does Gilbert tell Rose an original version of Little Red Riding Hood? Why that story? It does set up the theme of violence, largely against women, in the “Collectors” storyline. Nimrod’s warm-up joke is a rape joke, with death imagery. Strong wolf imagery with Fun Land. His talk of preying on children, his wolf t-shirt, even the pointy ears of his cap.
Once again, the notion of false stories, with the guy who’s masquerading as the serial killer, The Bogeyman. His false story gets him killed. But is his more false than the stories any of the other “collectors” tell? They think so, but Dream doesn’t seem to agree.
This book begins to deal with blurred gender lines. The Connoisseur targets pre-operative transsexuals. (Plus, there was Hal’s drag routine earlier in the book) This theme continues throughout the series, especially in A Game of You.
There’s the one unnamed killer who is honest. “I know it’s not normal for a man to go out and dismember a woman just because he wants to have sex with her.” He’s never named; maybe he hasn’t succumbed to the lie enough to give himself a name yet? And no one else wants to listen, because
they’re too deep in their own shared story. The truth makes them uncomfortable. Names are important in the “Collectors” story. Each killer has a name, and that name is important to them. Rose summons Morpheus by calling his name.
The Corinthian’s story: “You are special people.” “We are the American dreamers.” “We are gladiators and we are soldiers of fortune, and we are swashbucklers and heroes and kings of the night. We are the living.” But it’s all a lie. A false dream. And Dream takes it away from them.
I love the way all the different dreams in the house are depicted. Ken’s brutal, ugly dreams; Barbie’s sugary fantasy; Zelda’s Gothic childhood; Chantal’s textual relationship, etc.
Unity and Jed are both in limbo at the beginning of Rose’s dream. If Unity had not sacrificed herself for Rose, would it have impacted Jed? Going off the idea that Nada was a vortex, what are we to make of Dream’s claim that the vortex that he failed to stop was “Aeons ago, and half a universe away”? Is Nada’s story the story of that vortex? Some sort of memory that has trickled down to humanity through the Dreaming? Or are they different? Is that part of why Dream offered to marry Nada, so that she would be taken out of the physical realm and therefore end the danger of the vortex?
I absolutely love how Unity talks to Dream. She’s not scared or intimidated, and not even particularly impressed. “You’re obviously not very bright, but I shouldn’t let it bother you.”
And then the brilliant twist at the end, the trap Desire had laid for Dream. This sets up so much of what is to come. “We do not manipulate them. If anything, they manipulate us.” So who is really in the “doll’s house”? Humans, or the Endless? Dream is actually IN Unity’s dollhouse earlier in the book, watching and listening.
I'm also beginning to think that self delusion will prove to be a central theme to the series as a whole.
In a sense, that's what dreams are, in a more temporary manner. Our brain creates these situations that are false but seem so real in the moment.
There's always a grain of reality there. As Morpheus himself says to Constantine in vol. 1, "It is NEVER 'only a dream.""
Within the world of the story, that's very literal, but it's true in a more symbolic way out here as well. Dreams are our subconscious dealing with major issues. It's a fantasy used to try to solve our reality.
That's true of Dee's attempts to drag the world down to his level, Bette's attempts to rewrite her own world, Brute and Glob's attempts to stake out their own Dreaming, Corinthian and the other serial killers' self-made legend, etc.
There's so much more to this story than pure metaphor, but that's the point that's hitting me the hardest right now.
As previously stated, this is my first reading of the series and so I completely failed to pick up on many of the nuances described here during my read through (Nada being a vortex - but of course, so clear, in hindsight etc.).
The biggest element that struck me was that whilst the tales in this volume appear small in nature, they follow the same key themes:
- That while people may wish to change there base nature stays the same ("The Great Stories will always return to their original forms" and as seen through a number of the characters' journeys where - despite outside influence - they always return to their 'true path').
- The importance of names (as raised in the last discussion thread) appears to be confirmed here through a quote that I now cant find (how annoying) and their relationship to form and function.
What really impressed me though, was the inkling that you begin to get of the wider world, the bigger story. The politics of the endless, the relationships that are forged, the hint that there are only a limited number of dreams (stories) that exist and how they play out over time. These are the type of areas that make me excited to continue to the next volume once the story in this one had played out.
Well, that and the art. As posters above have highlighted I love the way the art - and in particular the layout - change to reflect the mood of the story. It makes the story that much more dynamic whilst also giving an easy touch point to the part of the world that the story is taking place in without the need for an establishing shot or caption.
Joi, I find your point about the two different abnormal dreaming - too isolated versus too collective - really interesting. There's something interesting going on with boundaries here.
Clockworkrat - Unity was the COOLEST at the end. Absolutely!
I have been thinking more about the men's and the women's version of the story, and perhaps we get the men's version because that is the version that Dream knows.
I think the way that Gaiman dealt with that convention really made me a convert. I wasn't exactly unimpressed by the rest of the stories, but the Collectors made me laugh out loud at the sheer audacity of trying to write the situation, and at the genius of being able to pull it off. This is in contrast to the diner scene, which made me want to hide under the bed a little. The premise of the convention is disgusting and horrifying, yet it isn't very graphic, more suggested. And the mundanity of the situation is so absurd; the banality of evil.
And, like John Dee, one can't help comparing all these killers to authors at a conference. Pretty sure George R. R. Martin would fit right in.
I feel like as we go on, the punishments are starting to fit the crimes a little better. Perhaps because Dream is growing? There was some imbalance of crime and punishment in Vol. I and in the prologue to this book, but with the Collectors and with Rose and Unity, we start to see some more satisfying endings, where our craving for justice is somewhat sated. (And although he's coarse and unfeeling with Lyta, he's also somewhat forgiving, acknowledging her grief, and he laughs at the Little Ghost instead of smiting him.)
For me to keep reading a book, I find I need a balance between just desserts and unfairness; unfairness because that's how the real world is, but a few proper punishments that suit the crime, because the real world is not right and we read for the satisfaction of imagining a better one.
This is a messy collection of thoughts, I'd clean it up more but I have to get the email out!
Desire must be irked by Dream's belief that they are subjects rather than rulers. It seems as if all the games Desire plays with Dream are about proving that Dream might be ruled by mortals, but that Desire is in control. And Desire likes to prove that it can control Dream. (SUCH a middle sibling thing to do.)
I absolutely love the fake dreaming created by Brute and Glob, because it feels like that's what comic books are experiencing at this point in time, between Alan Moore and Gaiman (I don't know, I wasn't there, I'm experiencing it after the fact -- but I can still see it happening). The world the Sandman operates in is SO much larger than the world of the Little Ghost superhero and Jed's imaginary dreaming. The equally sized frames of Jed's dreams, the clean contained illustrations, and the absurd dialogue are exploded by Morpheus. The real world outside, the realm of real humans and the realm of the Endless, is so much larger and darker and scarier and unbounded.
It's a perfect illustration of how not only comics are changing, but how the rest of the arts and cultural dialogue changed as the modernists gave way to the post-modernists. Superheroes were just a little late to the party of what was already changed in the postmodern psyche.
Love this I love this.
Poor Jed!
I was so happy when he got rescued.
I was never into comics as a kid, only discovering them via Sandman and DC's other 'mature readers' titles in the late 80s and early 90s. 'A Doll's House' was actually the first volume I read, and the first monthly issue I got on its release date was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' a couple months later. My original collection of this story got passed around to many others, but I don't think it ever registered with them to the extent it did for me, and I remember being disappointed that I had no one to share it with who cared.
The series ran throughout two major periods of challenge in my life: being away from home for the first time at university, and the breakdown and end of my parents' marriage. So even now, 20 years or so later (gulp), I'm finding that these stories dredge up powerful emotions and memories of those days.
So, I'm disappointed to find that I don't have as much to contribute to any sensible discussion here as I'd hoped. But it's such a pleasure to be revisiting this very important part of my life, and to read all your great insights. There are so many things coming up here that I'd never really noticed. Thanks again.
I didn't know that the first time I read vol. 2, but re-reading it with that knowledge really changed my perspective on the way things go.
Also, if you guys remember, Karen Berger's introduction to vol. 1 says that Neil Gaiman wanted to revive the character of the Sandman for the series before being convinced to create a new one.
When I first read that, I assumed that she meant Wesley Dodds or Sandy Hawkins, but now it makes me wonder if the Halls and Jed Walker weren't the central characters he had in mind.
Which also fits in with the nature of dreams, really. Dreams are literally both the mind's escape from the troubles of the waking world, and the subconscious's way to try to solve those problems simultaneously.
Re-casting the Hall Sandman stories that way really makes sense given the themes of the series.
I mean, it makes sense seeing as Lyda's son Daniel ends up replacing Morpheus as Dream in the end. Which is one of the very few things I've been spoiled about, regarding the latter part of the series.
Also, I wonder if Morpheus telling Lyta that "the child you have carried so long in dreams. That child is mine," isn't a self-fulfilling prophecy...
I also wonder if Brute and Glob aren't responsible for that child belonging to the Dreaming rather than the world of man...
Obviously B&G set up shop in Jed's mind because his sister was a vortex, right? Or is it the other way around? Did Rose become a vortex because Brute and Glob set up shop in her brother's mind?
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Anyway, on to the structure of dreams. I've said before that dreams are the mind's way of using a delusion to help deal with the real world. Where moreso than within poor Jed?
Brute and Glob use Jed to try to make their own Dreaming, which allows Jed to escape his torturous existence, Lyta to escape the truth of her husband's demise, and Hector to escape Death herself.
Which brings me to the dichotomy of Dream and Desire's perspectives on humanity.
Brute and Glob, like Desire, see humans as playthings. They play with humans like dolls (or puppets as @MarianCall says). Desire, in fact, sets up her own doll house to play with Rose in, but Dream is willing to look out of a Doll House into the human world.
Dream used to look at things the way Desire did, even allowing some of his "toys" to be broken just to get his way (the destruction of Nada's kingdom), but now he's realized, just as Nada did in the story, that the Endless aren't gods, they're something else entirely.
I forget who said it, and I can't find the bit in these comments, but someone related the Nada/Dream story to the negative effects of humans and Greek gods getting it on... I don't see that.
Dream was willing to let Nada's kingdom be destroyed, yes, but he didn't destroy it himself. That was an outside force. Remember, the Bird King tells Nada, "So, this is no man, no god, but something else."
I want to discuss that hubris and its ultimate nemesis more, but I know only bits about the later series. Obviously it's very key to the story, but the discussion is too early in the series for that, and I don't know the information that I want to dissect either, so... I'll just leave it here as something to think about as we move forward.
And when he has to destroy her, he seems reluctant to do so, apologetic, and a little slow. It's very different from how quickly he dispatches Hector.
I also realized that Unity breaking her own heart is a parallel to Nada throwing herself off a cliff to save her people. She sacrifices herself to preserve the Dreaming and to save her granddaughter.
I truly wonder where she gets the gall to talk to Dream the way she does though. I love Unity! How can she be so confident and motherly with Morpheus!?