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A review by nigellicus
The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four by D'Israeli, Charles Vess, Daniel Vozzo, Michael Zulli, Marc Hempel, Neil Gaiman, Teddy Kristiansen, Jon J. Muth, Todd Klein, Dave McKean, Glyn Dillion, Dean Ormston, Richard Case, Kevin Nowlan
5.0
I read a third of this last night with a mug of cider and a few chunks of coffee cake. I got up at five this morning and came downstairs to finish it. The house was dark and I didn't turn on the light in the living room because I didn't want to disturb the dog, so I felt my way down the stairs in my stockinged feet. The door into the bedroom opened and closed behind me, and I stopped, and waited.
'Hello?' I said.
'Daddy,' said a sleepy six-year-old voice right behind me
I wasn't mad keen on the idea of a sleepy six year old going down the stairs in the pitch black of an early winter morning, but I couldn't go past him to get to the light and leave him alone, so together we went slowly downwards in our stockinged feet.
Nicky sat at one end of the table while I filled the kettle and prepared the porridge and made my coffee, then I sat down at the other end with my pot of coffee and a cup and Sandman volume four.
'We must be very quiet,' said Nicky. 'We mustn't make any noise or we will wake Martin and he will be cross.'
Martin's a sort of lodger. He's very nice and I don't think he'd get cross, but Nicky was right, we must be very quiet.
I started to read.
I think Neil Gaiman wrote at night a lot, so it felt appropriate to be reading this at five in the morning. There wasn't a storm lashing the windows with wind and rain, though I noticed later it was foggy, but that was later. I didn't notice Nicky go back upstairs. I was vaguely aware of Eddie getting up and moving around upstairs. I didn't notice the morning getting brighter, dimming the glare of the lights. At some various I did stir the porridge and turn the heat up and yell at the boys to come down and eat and for Eddie to walk the dog and I left the table long enough to take Annemarie's up on a tray and made some Van Morrison jokes.
('Have I told you lately that I love you?'
'Yes, but you haven't told me there's no-one above me.'
'...can't remember what comes next.'
'I fill your bowl with porridge? Take away your.... bowl... with no more porridge?'
'You make my breakfast that's what you do.')
Breakfast runs automatically now, and nothing spoils a morning read like burnt porridge.
So I finished it. I didn't want it to finish, but it did. Poor Lyta Hall. Poor Dream. Poor Clara. Poor everyone. It really was all about death, wasn't it? The story resolves in The Kindly Ones, but the real emotional climax is The Wake. Death and grief and loss and mourning and then waking up and moving on as best you can.
(At some point Eddie sat down to eat his breakfast and said: 'Oh, there's a hair in my porridge. Good thing it isn't a rabbit. Eh? Eh?')
I seem to remember Marc Hempel's art not being popular with everyone. I may have been unsure of it myself at first, but God, it's amazing. And Mike Zulli on the wake, and John J Muth and then holy moley Charles Vess reprising older, wiser, sadder Shakespeare in The Tempest.
The unresolved mystery of who Puck and Loki were really working for lingers. None of my own theories really fit properly, and I guess I appreciate leaving one thing unknown and possibly unknowable to haunt and nag the reader. I do hope it has a solution though - if there was no solution to the mystery, even if we never discover what it is, that would be a cheat.
I think reading The Sandman may have been the one thing I ever did that was cool, and I didn't do it because it was cool, I did it because I loved it, and it became cool for a while. I'm not sure anyone noticed me doing this cool thing while it was cool, but maybe that's what's cool about it.
I still have Overture to read, which I'll get to tonight, and then there's assorted extras like The Dream Hunters and the Death collection and Books Of Magic, which is only vaguely related, which I'll get to eventually. At some point I might try to write something about the whole series from beginning to end, but not now, which is why this review is mostly about me going downstairs in the dark in my stockings with my six year old son behind me like a little familiar spirit. I can go back and read Sandman again, but moments like that come and go, and I'd like to be able to recall it long after it would be forgotten if I hadn't written it here.
Try to remember things, and tell your stories, and be remembered.
'Hello?' I said.
'Daddy,' said a sleepy six-year-old voice right behind me
I wasn't mad keen on the idea of a sleepy six year old going down the stairs in the pitch black of an early winter morning, but I couldn't go past him to get to the light and leave him alone, so together we went slowly downwards in our stockinged feet.
Nicky sat at one end of the table while I filled the kettle and prepared the porridge and made my coffee, then I sat down at the other end with my pot of coffee and a cup and Sandman volume four.
'We must be very quiet,' said Nicky. 'We mustn't make any noise or we will wake Martin and he will be cross.'
Martin's a sort of lodger. He's very nice and I don't think he'd get cross, but Nicky was right, we must be very quiet.
I started to read.
I think Neil Gaiman wrote at night a lot, so it felt appropriate to be reading this at five in the morning. There wasn't a storm lashing the windows with wind and rain, though I noticed later it was foggy, but that was later. I didn't notice Nicky go back upstairs. I was vaguely aware of Eddie getting up and moving around upstairs. I didn't notice the morning getting brighter, dimming the glare of the lights. At some various I did stir the porridge and turn the heat up and yell at the boys to come down and eat and for Eddie to walk the dog and I left the table long enough to take Annemarie's up on a tray and made some Van Morrison jokes.
('Have I told you lately that I love you?'
'Yes, but you haven't told me there's no-one above me.'
'...can't remember what comes next.'
'I fill your bowl with porridge? Take away your.... bowl... with no more porridge?'
'You make my breakfast that's what you do.')
Breakfast runs automatically now, and nothing spoils a morning read like burnt porridge.
So I finished it. I didn't want it to finish, but it did. Poor Lyta Hall. Poor Dream. Poor Clara. Poor everyone. It really was all about death, wasn't it? The story resolves in The Kindly Ones, but the real emotional climax is The Wake. Death and grief and loss and mourning and then waking up and moving on as best you can.
(At some point Eddie sat down to eat his breakfast and said: 'Oh, there's a hair in my porridge. Good thing it isn't a rabbit. Eh? Eh?')
I seem to remember Marc Hempel's art not being popular with everyone. I may have been unsure of it myself at first, but God, it's amazing. And Mike Zulli on the wake, and John J Muth and then holy moley Charles Vess reprising older, wiser, sadder Shakespeare in The Tempest.
The unresolved mystery of who Puck and Loki were really working for lingers. None of my own theories really fit properly, and I guess I appreciate leaving one thing unknown and possibly unknowable to haunt and nag the reader. I do hope it has a solution though - if there was no solution to the mystery, even if we never discover what it is, that would be a cheat.
I think reading The Sandman may have been the one thing I ever did that was cool, and I didn't do it because it was cool, I did it because I loved it, and it became cool for a while. I'm not sure anyone noticed me doing this cool thing while it was cool, but maybe that's what's cool about it.
I still have Overture to read, which I'll get to tonight, and then there's assorted extras like The Dream Hunters and the Death collection and Books Of Magic, which is only vaguely related, which I'll get to eventually. At some point I might try to write something about the whole series from beginning to end, but not now, which is why this review is mostly about me going downstairs in the dark in my stockings with my six year old son behind me like a little familiar spirit. I can go back and read Sandman again, but moments like that come and go, and I'd like to be able to recall it long after it would be forgotten if I hadn't written it here.
Try to remember things, and tell your stories, and be remembered.