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A review by dyno8426
The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
5.0
I had been meaning to read this perhaps the most popular and acclaimed of Gaiman's works for quite a long time. And I didn't know that giving colours to his imagination could be so justified as this book very first volume does. To those who haven't read other works of magical realism by Neil Gaiman, this is a foreword that he reimagines myths and represents folklores in his stories, and sets them up in the "real" world as we know. That's why, the first impression that his books (based on personal experience) will usually have is of its uniqueness and inability to place them in any similar category of fictions read before. Among those I have read, I don't find other magical-realist authors achieving the same leap of imagination in terms of his characters and fantastic stories which Gaiman achieves.
The Sandman series is another such fictional rendition of Morpheus, the God of Dreams, and this volume talks about his capture and consequent quest to reacquire his tools that provide him the power of dreams. Like all of his stories, his style has the same fairy tale like quality in content and writing. But for grown ups, as the fantasy here is really dark. His imagination crafts up the darkest corners of vices and symbols of evil and constructs realms of netherworlds, the boundaries of which are just hairline away from our tragic, pain inflicted world. I always find his books refreshing and awe inspiring in this respect of giving dimensions to the things which we couldn't believe to exist. And like fairy tales, he leaves the readers with that everything's-going-to-be-alright feeling of goodness and normalcy, both of whose fragility he asserted in the course of story. Taking dreams as the language of sub-conscious of humans, the author weaves into his themes the purpose that dreams serve for us and the stability of our consciousness. How the absence of dreams is horrifying and can even be catastrophic. Using parallels that he draws with death - dreams also being a transition from one form of consciousness to the other, dreams are seen as powerful tools in defining who we are and how we are connected to reality.
I am really looking forward to read the next serial volumes to see the adventures that Dream will stir up.
The Sandman series is another such fictional rendition of Morpheus, the God of Dreams, and this volume talks about his capture and consequent quest to reacquire his tools that provide him the power of dreams. Like all of his stories, his style has the same fairy tale like quality in content and writing. But for grown ups, as the fantasy here is really dark. His imagination crafts up the darkest corners of vices and symbols of evil and constructs realms of netherworlds, the boundaries of which are just hairline away from our tragic, pain inflicted world. I always find his books refreshing and awe inspiring in this respect of giving dimensions to the things which we couldn't believe to exist. And like fairy tales, he leaves the readers with that everything's-going-to-be-alright feeling of goodness and normalcy, both of whose fragility he asserted in the course of story. Taking dreams as the language of sub-conscious of humans, the author weaves into his themes the purpose that dreams serve for us and the stability of our consciousness. How the absence of dreams is horrifying and can even be catastrophic. Using parallels that he draws with death - dreams also being a transition from one form of consciousness to the other, dreams are seen as powerful tools in defining who we are and how we are connected to reality.
I am really looking forward to read the next serial volumes to see the adventures that Dream will stir up.