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selenakRecently, I browsed through this book in a store, when in the second foreword (not the one by Pterry, the next one) I came across a description of Neil Gaiman as "bearing a startling resemblance to Dr. Gaius Baltar of Battlestar Galactica fame in voice, looks and manner, only slightly less agitated". Hm, thought I, despite being a fan of Mr. G. and somewhat fond of Gaius B. this had not occured to me before, but on the other hand, let's check out the evidence:
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At the very least, I am now wondering about just where Neil Gaiman's story telling abilities come from. :)
Apropos, the other day I reread The Kindly Ones and The Wake, aka the conclusion of the Sandman saga, and found it as awesome and rich as ever. I'm also more affected by Lyta Hall than ever and wish I had the Lyta standalone The Furies by Mike Carey here, butmonanotlisa has it. The Kindly Ones is as much, if not more, Lyta's tragedy as it is Morpheus'. She loses her son twice over; once when he's taken from her, and once again when after becoming the instrument of the Furies allowed her to drive Morpheus to his death Daniel becomes Dream. (Just imagine Sarah Connor - another mother whose love for her son transforms her from victim into warrior fighting a superhuman foe - defeating Skynet only to see her son literally taken over and transformed into a new Skynet.) The brief encounter between Lyta and the new Dream in The Wake is simultanously painful and graceful, as he denies being Daniel but does (both with her and Alex Burgess) what Morpheus wasn't able to do, turn away from vengeance. He also kisses her when he sends her away, which Morpheus never would have done. It's an interesting question: how much of Daniel is there in Dream? In Carey's Furies, featuring another brief and both painful and graceful encounter between Lyta and Dream, he denies being Daniel and being in any way still human again (which made me wonder whether if Morpheus obviously-not-true denial was "I never change", Daniel's is "I'm not in any way human"), but he helps Lyta anyway and does not refute when she, with the Furies still inside her, says "that which is human in me sees that which is human in you", or her subsequent statement in Greek in which she calls him her son. The precedence of an Endless being replaced after the first incarnation dies is Despair, but the readers don't "meet" the first Despair until the short story featuring her in Endless Nights - where she is indeed different from the second Despair, the one Sandman readers are familiar with -, and we never find out who the current Despair was before she became Despair. But her comments in The Wake indicates she thinks of her predecessor as a different entity, much as Daniel, while insisting that he's Dream, is equally instent on not being Morpheus.
Back to Lyta: I can never make up my mind as to whether what really happens to Daniel is better or worse than if he had actually been murdered, from her pov. Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen, either way. But if he had died, she would have had to come to terms with a definite ending. She would have known she could never see him again. Being transformed into the entity that had been her personal nightmare and worst enemy, on the other hand, means he does and does not still exist, and then there's the additional pain of knowing that he might still be her child if she hadn't destroyed Morpheus. Lyta haunted me then - which resulted in my Angel/Sandman crossover, Ouroborous, where she and Connor collide and end up helping each other come to terms with their pasts and presents - and I find she still haunts me now.
At the very least, I am now wondering about just where Neil Gaiman's story telling abilities come from. :)
Apropos, the other day I reread The Kindly Ones and The Wake, aka the conclusion of the Sandman saga, and found it as awesome and rich as ever. I'm also more affected by Lyta Hall than ever and wish I had the Lyta standalone The Furies by Mike Carey here, but
monanotlisa has it. The Kindly Ones is as much, if not more, Lyta's tragedy as it is Morpheus'. She loses her son twice over; once when he's taken from her, and once again when after becoming the instrument of the Furies allowed her to drive Morpheus to his death Daniel becomes Dream. (Just imagine Sarah Connor - another mother whose love for her son transforms her from victim into warrior fighting a superhuman foe - defeating Skynet only to see her son literally taken over and transformed into a new Skynet.) The brief encounter between Lyta and the new Dream in The Wake is simultanously painful and graceful, as he denies being Daniel but does (both with her and Alex Burgess) what Morpheus wasn't able to do, turn away from vengeance. He also kisses her when he sends her away, which Morpheus never would have done. It's an interesting question: how much of Daniel is there in Dream? In Carey's Furies, featuring another brief and both painful and graceful encounter between Lyta and Dream, he denies being Daniel and being in any way still human again (which made me wonder whether if Morpheus obviously-not-true denial was "I never change", Daniel's is "I'm not in any way human"), but he helps Lyta anyway and does not refute when she, with the Furies still inside her, says "that which is human in me sees that which is human in you", or her subsequent statement in Greek in which she calls him her son. The precedence of an Endless being replaced after the first incarnation dies is Despair, but the readers don't "meet" the first Despair until the short story featuring her in Endless Nights - where she is indeed different from the second Despair, the one Sandman readers are familiar with -, and we never find out who the current Despair was before she became Despair. But her comments in The Wake indicates she thinks of her predecessor as a different entity, much as Daniel, while insisting that he's Dream, is equally instent on not being Morpheus. Back to Lyta: I can never make up my mind as to whether what really happens to Daniel is better or worse than if he had actually been murdered, from her pov. Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen, either way. But if he had died, she would have had to come to terms with a definite ending. She would have known she could never see him again. Being transformed into the entity that had been her personal nightmare and worst enemy, on the other hand, means he does and does not still exist, and then there's the additional pain of knowing that he might still be her child if she hadn't destroyed Morpheus. Lyta haunted me then - which resulted in my Angel/Sandman crossover, Ouroborous, where she and Connor collide and end up helping each other come to terms with their pasts and presents - and I find she still haunts me now.
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Date: 2009-12-08 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 07:51 pm (UTC)