What if all the religions, myths, legends, and folklore of all humanity were true… at the same time. This is one of the major premises behind Neil Gaiman’s epic comic series The Sandman. As a retrospective reviewer, I have the luxury of praising a now complete four-volume series.
In The Sandman, ideas are sentient. Times and places can also be people, and loosely-defined esoteric concepts starting with the letter “D” are gods. Neil Gaiman’s work is not just one of the most iconic comics ever but, I believe, one of the best pieces of literature one can have in one’s library.
The Sandman is true to its title as it follows the events and stories of the “Sandman,” who goes by the name Morpheus, Lord of Dreams. Morpheus is a member of an eclectic family of gods called “The Endless.” While the stories touch on each of the other gods—Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Death, and Destruction—it of course maintains its focus on Dream. As such, our stage is the world of mankind’s dreams, ideas, and imagination. Things that are intangible and effervescent to us become major plot elements in Neil Gaiman’s world.
The Sandman has at any time two methods of storytelling. There are both sequential plot-lines regarding Morpheus’ adventures while ruling the world of dreams, but there are also short stories packed in about different ways the real world and dream world collide. I actually found myself enjoying the short stories a little more than the main plot-lines, mostly because these are where Neil Gaiman took the most liberty stretching the reader’s perceptions.
A couple of my favorite stories included a man who entered the dream of a city (yes, cities can dream in The Sandman), and another where a man decides not to die, and ends up meeting Morpheus for lunch every hundred years to “catch up.” In The Sandman, Hell gets auctioned off to the highest bidder as prime real-estate, a beautiful landscape gets bored and decides to walk around the earth for a while as a Teddy Roosevelt look-alike, and Death gets over-loaded causing dead people to start wandering the earth aimlessly. These are just a few of the colorful and eccentric elements one will find in the vast collection of The Sandman.
Of course, it sounds a little like a comedy as I present this over-simplistic summary, and while Neil Gaiman certainly has a sense of humor, this is a deep and provocative comic series. Neil doesn’t draw lines of good and evil in his stories. Everything is presented “as is,” with no judgments given. All the characters have their own complex motivations, and conflict ensues as their interests collide. Most of the time Morpheus is just trying to keep order of his domain, the world of dreams, but certainly not an altruistic character.
The most powerful idea presented in The Sandman is that all our reality is created by our own wishes. Misery, despair, and suffering are created by man just as much as happiness, joy, and love. The dream world is presented as the emerging reality; everything we dream about eventually turns into something tangible. We suffer because we feel the need to suffer, we despair because we want to despair. It is a very disturbing idea, but not without some merit. While most people in Neil Gaiman’s story never take advantage of the optionality of reality, a few do, who then become focal points of the story.
While I believe that reality is not as fragile as Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman envisions, I think there is value in re-thinking just how much of our realities are self-constructed, simply mis-perceived. How much of our misery is self-inflicted and just in our heads? How much potential do we waste when we give up on our own dreams?
I believe Neil Gaiman’s comic qualifies as literature both because of its quality, and because of how complex and advanced the stories are. It is like nothing else I have read, and don’t expect to read again for several generations. Neil Gaiman’s ability to write without any preconceived notions of right and wrong, good or evil, or even nouns and verbs, creates a playground for the mind to question the reality we return to after pulling ourselves away from this engrossing comic series.
The final collection, called The Absolute Sandman, is a work of art itself. The series comes in a four-volume set of hardback, beautifully-bound books. They are full of extras and rare artwork. They look great on the bookshelf, if not a little over-the-top while reading them. The Absolute Sandman is a worthy investment for lovers of comics, or just great literature.
December 20th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Great review Yaholo! I’ve heard a lot about this very complicated comic series and I hope to get a chance to read it start to finish one day. The fact that there’s a book out increases my likelihood of pulling that off. I’ve wondered who in our crew would be the first to brave a review of this series! Congrat on being “that guy”. I understand The Sandman is as deep and intricate as it is captivating, so I’ll bet your review is right on. Can’t wait to read it! Thanks for the review.
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Thanks!