My Weekly Book

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman

Another one of those reviews that is damn-near impossible to write. What do you say about a classic of its genre on which everything worth saying has already been said? I suppose giving your personal reaction is all there is left and, if people do read a blog like this one, then I suspect it is often because they will be interested in others’ personal reactions to books they have read or would like to read. So I guess that answers the question, eh?

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Time to get writing then. This was not my first exposure to The Sandman, as I had already read Dream Country (volume three), the spinoff Death: the High Cost of Living and also Hy Bender’s The Sandman Companion (see link at the bottom of this entry). My decision to buy and read the companion was informed by Dream Country, which is a set of highly-acclaimed short stories rather than a continuous narrative that materially furthers the plot. I read it first for the simple reason that it was sitting on the shelf in my local library and I was curious. But I came away from that feeling that I didn’t get it at all, and in retrospect I am not surprised.

A result of reading the companion is that I am well and truly spoilered, and I am glad that this is the case. I know broadly what happens right the way through the series and now, equipped with the plot arc and with some idea about what the hell is supposed to be going on in a broader sense, I at last feel able to approach the actual story. A few well-established basics about Preludes and Nocturnes: it is widely held not to be the best of The Sandman but the volume in which Gaiman and various other members of the team were finding their feet. It also contains numerous important plot points without which it would be mighty hard to follow the rest of the series, an important reason for reading it. Several elements of the DC comics universe are incorporated in this volume, but as the series continues Gaiman becomes much more independent of this, and it is arguable whether it actually works here. It certainly looks and reads much more like a conventional comic book series at this point than it will later on. One of the most significant things that happens is a change of artist six episodes in - this is described by many as the point when the series really takes flight. And it introduces that fatal thing, the supporting character that ends up way, way more popular than the supposed hero (think Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The character in this case is Death, big sister to our actual hero, Dream. You’ll have a lot of exposure to this character if you decide to read the series, so I won’t say much more about her here.

So, does The Sandman live up to all the extraordinary claims made for it? Just eight issues in, I am inclined to say that it does, in that it attempts something that I can’t recall seeing in any other comic book story. Like many others before me I am astounded by the scope of what is being covered in this series. It is no less than the creation of an entire mythology and anyone familiar with Gaiman’s later work, the stuff that tends to get published in conventional book format, will hardly be surprised to see where he started out. In other seminal graphic novels, and here I’m thinking mainly of stuff by Alan Moore, the superhero genre is subverted and played about with. Conversely, The Sandman is simply not a superhero tale, nor a conventional horror comic (although it arguably contains elements of both these genres), and Gaiman’s great achievement was to get those readerships as well as people who weren’t normally card-carrying members of the comic-buying public to become faithful readers. It is famous for having a far higher female readership than DC comics could usually command.

So, what is it about, roughly? Well, we start off in Edwardian England in the company of a magician with ideas above his psychic station. Like so many hubristic fools both before and after, Roderick Burgess (think Aleister Crowley) fancies having a crack at binding Death to do his every bidding. Unfortunately he gets his magicks a bit wrong and is saddled with her younger brother, the Sandman of the series title, instead. And he’s an uncommunicative bastard, as Burgess and his son discover to their chagrin and eventual bitter regret. The path taken by Dream to free himself from his imprisonment, track down his tools and regain his kingdom are the substance of this tale.

But I’m not going to tell you any more. Because I’m almost certain that you’ll want to read it for yourself. And just to prove that Sod’s Law is alive and well in west London, I went into Borders a day or two ago after spending ages and ages trying to track this volume down, by means both virtual and physical. Eventually, after a wait of months, Amazon had been able to sell me a copy. But, on that day, there were no less than four copies of it on the bloody shelf. There. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is…

Some links:

• Grovel.org.uk: Preludes and Nocturnes
• Bureau42.com review
• ArtBomb review
• Neil Gaiman’s website: Sandman FAQ
• Wikipedia: Sandman overview
• Wikipedia: Preludes and Nocturnes
• Wikipedia: The Endless
• Wikipedia: Dream (DC Comics)
• Wikipedia: Death (DC Comics)
• MyWeeklyBook review of Hy Bender’s The Sandman Companion

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 at 3:11 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge, Reads I recommend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.