The Absolute Sandman vol. 1 - Neil Gaiman

Thanks to my awesome library, I've been able to finally read this first volume of The Absolute Sandman. A comic series that's almost a legend, a cult among those in the know.
I had read some individual issues found on secondhand stalls, and also the beautiful novella The Dream Hunters.
But this is the real deal, where everything begins. And I loved it.
There were three major narrative arches:
- "Preludes and Nocturnes"
- "The Doll's House"
- "Dream Country"
If I had to choose a favourite, it would be "The Doll's House", although I loved every single story in its own right.
It wasn't anything I expected, primarily because it was so eclectic.
Sandman for one, is ever-changing. At the beginning he appears trapped in a human-conjured prison, and it takes him years to free himself. When eventually he manages to break free, he finds that his dreamworld has changed, that Nature has created other Sandmen to fill the gap left, and that he has to fight to regain his absolute power.
It's not what I expected from Dream. In my mind he was somewhat intimidating. Unreadable. Even invincible. He's an Immortal, after all. Lord of the Dreams. While here, at the very beginning, he's weak and powerless. It takes time to track down his tools - the pouch, the helmet, the ruby - and even after he's done, he feels empty, as if after achieving his goals he doesn't have anything left to do.
It wasn't something I had expected, but it was fascinating.

Also, I didn't think it would be a horror comic. I thought it would lean more on the fantasy side. But some stories are definitely scarier and gorier than what I thought they would be. Take "24 hours" for example. Or "Collectors". These stories, and their atmospheres reminded me a lot of an Italian comic series I used to read as a tween/teenager and which is still printed, called Dylan Dog. Dark Horse apparently has published some issues in English. If you can get hold of them, I highly recommend them, by the way.

As I was saying, one of its most striking feature was its diversity. Because if some stories are horror, some others were completely different. "Tales in the Sand" is a version of the myth of Sandman seen through an African perspective. "Men of good fortune" is a story of a man in the 14th century, who doesn't believe in death, and he's granted the gift of immortality, as a sort of game between Dream and Death. Then "A dream of a thousand cats" is a story showing us cats' view of the world, which is not pleasant nor cute.
There was so much into these stories, I find it hard to review it without failing to mention some great things about them. What I can say is that for a week or two, this volume sat by my nightstand, granting me one bedtime story, each night. I figured it was fitting for a comic all about dreams:) And it was a moment I looked forward to.(Although I wouldn't recommend it at night-time to the faint-hearted. It was, after all, a horror comic, at times!)
About the art...at first I wasn't too impressed . The stories made up for it, though.
Then with "The Doll's House" it really takes off. Some stuff was wonderful, especially the visualisation of people's dreams. I loved them.
Also, of course I have to mention all the fantastic extra material which would make any fan drool: the initial original Sandman proposal, the provisional sketches, the characters outline, and then the surprisingly-funny-to-read script for "A midsummer Night's Dream".

It pains me to bring this back to the library, but I have to let other people enjoy it too.
Thankfully, I have volume 2 ready to go:)

other bloggers' reviews:
Firefly
Stuff as dreams are made on (Preludes and Nocturnes)
Andi of Tripping Towards Lucidity (Preludes and Nocturnes)
Chain Letters (Doll's House)
Dewey (Preludes and Nocturnes)
Debi (Preludes and Nocturnes)

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Laika - Nick Abadzis

Laika tells a story that I would have normally tried to stay away from. I have a soft heart and a tendency to be easily reduced to tears by the smallest tragedy, let alone unjustified cruelty toward helpless animals. But I have to thank Nymeth once again, for sending it to me, because it was a wonderful read. Of course I cried, and of course it's incredibly sad, but at the end I wanted to hug the book, as if to hug little Krudyavka, another name for Laika, and all the people who loved her and cared for her. And this, I think, is a sign of a book worth reading.

I assume most of you would be familiar with Laika's story, as it's one that tends to stick into people's mind and heart.
In 1957, when the USA and the USSR where competing against each other to show the world who was the most powerful and efficient, a soviet dog was chosen to be the first living creature to be sent into space. The dog died shortly after the launch due to a malfunction in the thermal control system.
This graphic novel blends facts and fiction to tell her story, from her troubled puppyhood to her stray life, till the time when she was brought to the Institute for Aviation and Space Medicine, where she started her training along with a group of other stray dogs.



I appreciated this book on different levels. Although I knew about Laika, I didn't know that much. I wasn't aware of the fact that her death wasn't just an accident. That whatever happened, Laika was destined to die all along. I didn't know about the training, which sounded more like torture. And more importantly, I didn't know that the building of the Sputnik 2 was a rush job, just to exploit the momentum created by the success of Sputnik 1. Which means that probably, if the team had had more time, they could have built a better spacecraft able to keep the dog safe and bring her home. But what is the life of a little dog worth, when there's the image of a nation at stake? Obviously not much.

Possibly the thing I liked most about the book was the way it showed Laika, or Kudryavka, before her recruitment as a space dog. This is the made up part, which could have happened, or could have not, and it's essential in getting the reader to care for the puppy, to see what she has been through even before becoming a national hero. It also explains why she was the chosen one. Her need to be accepted and loved, after being rejected too many times. It's heart-wrenching, I know, but so are all the best stories.


I also liked that the scientists weren't all depicted as just mindless technicians doing what they're told. Some of them have doubts, and a conscience. Especially Yelena, the assistant to the dogs training. She establishes a special relationship with Laika, and in the end, is the one who's hit the most by the outcome.




One last observation must go to the art, as this is a comic book. At first glance I wouldn't have thought it to be great. Abadzis doesn't have the smoothest lines or style,but the story works really well together with the pictures. Laika is especially charming, and some of the panels are truly touching.
I'm really happy I read it.

other views:
Things mean a lot
Biblio File
The Written World
Life in the Thumb
Page 247
Related reading

let me know if I miss any!


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Embroideries - Marjane Satrapi

...and in this way we began a long session of ventilation of the heart...

This one the most entertaining read I've read recently. It was the perfect Read-a-thon choice. Short, smart and absolutely hilarious. If you loved Persepolis, like I did, you don't want to miss this little gem. If you still don't know Marjane Satrapi's work, this is a fast and delightful way to realise what you've missing out all this time.

What do women talk while drinking tea, away from men's ears? Sex, of course! And marriage, men, plastic surgeries...the usual. Only, these are Iranian women, living in a patriarchal society where they have half of the rights of their male partners, so what's usual becomes outrageous!
I'm in awe of Satrapi's gift for irony and subversiveness. Even the sole idea that, behind doors, women talk about these themes, is refreshing. But she just adds that magic touch of lightness and humour that makes it completely irresistible.
Of course, though, being Iranian, the secrets they share are part of a culture that we only know from the media, and from what we read on books (if we do at all). This is a rare opportunity to have a sneak peek at their private lives and thoughts. It's addictive! I wish there were a whole series of these books:D
It was also really interesting to know what is the image that they have of the western culture. For example, when talking about virginity, Marjane's aunt, a free-thinking, divorced artist, declares:

...Why don't we behave as westerns do!? For them, since the problem of sex is resolved, they can move on to other things!
Ha!
I wish. I mean, I see her point, but the "problem" is far from resolved. Especially when you look at the new wave of conservatism which encourages boys and girls to join pledges not to lose their virginity till marriage and advocates abstinence for adolescents as the solution for every problem. I find this very scary, considering it's coming from the so called liberated western society.
But aaaaanyway. I recommend this book wholeheartedly. It's clever, bold, and definitely too damn short!

need more encouragements?
read these:
Tripping Toward Lucidity
American Bibliophile
Things mean a lot
Biblio File
Books of Mee


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Safe Area Goražde - Joe Sacco

Before reading this I had a very vague idea of what happened in the early 90's in Bosnia. I couldn't have picked a better book to introduce me to this topic.
This graphic novel is a brilliant reportage written by Joe Sacco, who decided that in order to tell the world about the Bosnian war, he couldn't just be a normal daytime journalist, there in the morning, gone by the evening. He had to live with the locals, talk to them, eat with them, even become friends with them. Between late 1995 and early 1996 he has travelled to Goražde four times, staying at Edin's (his translator and closest friend there) most of the time.
Why Goražde? Because they were still there. Of the eastern UN designated Safe Areas, only Goražde had survived the ethnic cleansing. But also because...who has ever heard of Goražde? The press concentrated on Sarajevo, making the capital look like a privileged area to those left on the eastern Bosnian areas. The media forgot all about those small towns left to fight for their lives with barely any weapon to defend them.
Now here these people are given a chance to tell their stories. The main voice is Edin's. We get to know him closely, meet this parents, his friends, even his dog. It's him who starts telling how they lived before the war, how different ethnicities coexisted peacefully:

"I didn't make any distinction between Serb, Croat, and Muslim children. We were always together...fishing, in forests, on the playground, the stadium..."

He goes on to give a brief historic background of the area, which I particularly appreciated, because when we covered that in school I must have been sleeping.

Through Edin's voice, and through all the other witnesses that are interviewed, the war is being given faces and names. Real people! Gradually I came to care for them and to worry for their safety, even though I knew that those who were telling the story survived. But at what price.
I learned how they were forced to live in fear for years. How their houses were burned, with all their memories and belongings. How they risked their lives to get food that would last for one or two weeks. There are stories of incredible cruelties, unconceivable violence, of rapes and humiliation. Of mass murders and mass graves.
It's not an easy read, you can imagine that. It takes time to digest everything, even to turn the page, sometimes. I still haven't come to terms with all that unjustified violence. It's there, clear as day, drawn vividly in front of you. Sometimes it was more horrifying than a horror movie. Because it really happened, and barely anything has been done to stop it.
If it sounds a heavy read, I won't deny it. But Sacco has managed to include some humour in it, too. Some light and funny moments, sharing his chats with the locals, making fun of himself, of the journalists, of his friends. Riki, for example, with his unbeatable optimism and his love for American songs, is one I will not forget easily.


I loved Sacco's irony and amused observations.
But what I loved most was the obvious passion he puts in his work. It's intimate, detailed, shocking and highly informative. It should be required reading in high schools.

I wish I didn't have to return it to the library, because one read is not enough to grasp everything. So many stories, so many nightmares, and so little international help.
I was appalled at the lack of support that the Bosnian Muslims had, from the UN (so called) peacekeepers. The little faith I had in this organization has crumbled like a shelled house.
At some point, towards the end, Edin is shown defending his town with few others, hiding in an abandoned house and watching the tanks advancing helplessly.
"Our only hope was the support of the world. We'd expected that for months and years. We thought they would stop it...But they didn't do anything"



Luckily they survived. But the consequences were enormous.
This is definitely not a comprehensive view on the Bosnian war, but it could be a great introduction.
I don't think this book is widely read as it should be. I'm going to make sure at least my best friends get a copy!

Another review:
The boston bibliophile

Fun Home - Alison Bechdel

I really enjoyed reading this graphic novel memoir. It seems like the only form where I find memoirs entertaining is this. But while I was swept away emotionally by Persepolis, here my appreciation has been more of the intellectual kind.
I can't say how many times I had to write down words I didn't know, to be looked up later, because it would be embarrassing. But it gives you an idea of the richness of the language.

It's a deeply honest, witty and insightful exploration of of the author's complex relationship with her father, of how it shaped her whole being from her early age till her father's sudden death, and how it continues to make her reflect on her personality in relation to his. It's also a very intimate account of her personal sexual awakening, which reaches its peak the moment she realises she is a lesbian. This epiphany is also the trigger to another revelation, which will make her reconsider all her life

I felt like this memoir was a necessity, something it needed to be done, for Alison Bechdel to connect all the dots, to forgive and understand, and to record how her family's life was shaped by a long series of literary allusions, from The Addams Family to The Great Gatsby, from Proust to Joyce.

I can relate on many levels with Bechdel. I too had to grow up with a father whose personality was (and is) bigger than life. He too has molded my early literary loves, and it's him I see in my earliest and most vivid childhood memories, more than anyone else, even more than my mum. He was very controlling and probably depressed too. Although, fortunately, I didn't develop any obsessive-compulsive disorder because of that, as far as I know.
I also related to her freshman year in college, where she was astonished by the need of every English lecturers to find hidden symbols and metaphors in literary works. I laughed my socks off when she mentioned Heart of Darkness's gender interpretation (Congo = vagina, Marlowe's boat= penis), because that was exactly what my first English class in college was about! But I was intrigued by all these new layers of meanings, while Bechdel's reaction was more like "why can't we just read the books?".
As I mentioned, this book is packed with literary references, but what it really made me want to go and read is Homer, both the Iliad and the Odissey. I'm not sure I'm ready for Proust yet and I will probably never be ready for Ulysses.

The art was great. It's detailed, expressive and just perfect to balance the complexity of the text. It has very strong lines which work very well with the gray-green watercolours. As Bechdel said "(this colour) has a bleak, elegiac quality" which suits the tone of the book.

I'd love to re-read it one day, and maybe in Italian to capture all the nuances of the language and of some turn of phrases that I'm sure have eluded me!


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other reviews:
Nymeth
Dewey
Books for breakfast

Death : The high cost of living - Neil Gaiman, Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham and Dave McKean

I haven't read Sandman properly, and I'm looking forward to the day I will. But this comic was a great prelude. It's dedicated to Death, a character that has always fascinated me, although I had ever only seen pictures of her. The top hat, the black hair, the little kohl spiral below her eye. It's as if I had always known her but never met her.

In this story I find out that she is just as wonderful as I imagined. Smiley, friendly, quirky and a bit naive. She is immortal, but every 100 years she has to live the life of a human , to experience what the lives she takes away feel like. Instead of as a curse, she takes it as a chance to savour every little bit of her 24-hour life: breathing, chewing an apple, meeting people and even saving them.
One of these people is Sexton Furnival, a bored and disillusioned teenager, who doesn't think life is worth living and hence decides it's time to kill himself. The same day his mother decides to have a spring cleaning, in July, and kicks her son out of the house for the whole day. He ends up strolling in a rubbish dump, where he falls from a rubbish mount and gets stuck beneath a fridge. Thanks to his luck, Death is there to help him get out, and then invites him to her house to clean up.
It's the start of a long day for both of them.

Reading Death felt like reading a Charles De Lint's short story, for some reason. Just this is enough to qualify as a great read. The fact that it was in graphic novel form gave it an extra appeal.
Just look at this page:

Beside Death, or Didi as she's called here, I loved the character of Hettie, who's this loony 250-year-old witch who says things like "You knock on that door or the sun will be shining on places inside you that the sun doesn't usually shine", and who's looking for her lost heart. She has hidden it somewhere to escape Death, but now she needs her to find it again!
Actually this story is filled with great characters who could have their own story. For example I'd love to read more about Foxglove, the singer/writer and her girlfriend, who is expecting her first child. They are a lesbian couple, and Hazel, the expecting one, is wearing a badge saying "I chose to have a baby but I'm happy I had a choice". It's these little things that made me fall in love with this story. These, and a simple but profound message: to appreciate life at its fullest, and live every moment of it. Because Death can wait.




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other blog reviews:
Rhinoa
Debi
Nymeth

Graphic Novel Challenge 2009

It's snowing so hard today! It's so beautiful to sit beside the window and see the snow falling! It's all so white!!!
Anyway, I'm here to talk about Graphic Novels. In the past few days it's all I want to read. I'm still reading books and enjoying it, but I suddenly feel the urge to read everything that's been published in a graphic form. It's quick (so no guilty feelings) and usually visually stunning. I was a devourer of comics when I was younger, so it's no surprise that I should love graphic novels now!
I've applied for this challenge, then, just to give me an excuse, so I figure I'll post a little post about it. I shouldn't even start looking at all those reviews on the blog though, because look at the list I already pinned down (from reading the Rough Guide to Graphic Novels, blogging, browing shops, etc..)

Alice in Sunderland (interloan requested- my first, hope it works!)
American Splendor
American born chinese
Black Hole
Blankets
Bone out from Boneville
The Borden Tragedy
Boulevard of broken dreams
Box Office Poison
Brooklyn Dreams
Castaways
Castle Waiting
Chicken with plums (Library)
Epileptic (Borrowed!)
Ethel and Ernest (Library)
Exit Wounds
Death: the high cost of living (will read soon, already borrowed from library)
Fables
From Hell (Library)
Fun Home (interloan requested)
Ghost World
Laika
Maus (library)
Mother Squirrel Stories
La Perdida
Palestine (Library)
Safe Area Gorazde (Library)
Same difference and other stories
Absolute Sandman (interloan requested from Cork. Yay! I'm so happy, can't wait till it arrives!)
Shortcomings (Dewey's reading challenge)
Skim
Watchmen (shop)
We are on our own (Dewey's reading challenge)
When the wind blows (will read soon, borrowed from library)
Yossel, April 19, 1943

Now the main problem is MONEY. I'm broke at the moment, so all I can do is hope the library have them, or hope I can mooch them. Otherwise bribe our buyer to order more graphic novels for our pathetic section in the shop. So I can't say I will read all these, it's just a wishlist really, I'll take what I can get!