The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
graphic literature, adventure, dark fantasy, occult, humor...? 238 pages
I must admit that I have been putting off this review for some time mostly because Annie recommended this series to me a couple months ago, and then when I finally took her up on the offer, she warned me in advance that the first two volumes of Gaiman's graphic novel epic "The Sandman" were pretty bad but worth reading in order to get to the good stuff (which, for the record, is one of the WORST ways to get someone to dive head-first into a series). Then, after I finished this first volume, my review of the book came in the form of spoken sarcastic comments at the expense of Annie, Neil Gaiman, and the plethora of characters in the Sandman's first volume. Now, I feel that I have put off blogging about it for long enough and will dive right into my review of Sandman volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes.
The first 80-ish pages, which would normally act as an attention-grabber in any reasonable book or graphic novel, instead act like a buffer to weed out the weak of concentration. Had I not made a promise to at least read the series through volume 4, I would have quit within this frame myself, because not only does Gaiman quickly bounce around from pointless instance to pointless instance in an extremely disconnected manner, but he manages to go almost 100 pages without hinting at any possibility of what this series could be about!!! I almost want to applaud Gaiman on this fact because it must have taken a truly dedicated effort to tell almost NO story in 80 FREAKIN PAGES!!!
When the story finally DOES pick up, we learn that the protagonist of the volume is an anthropomorphous manifestation of the Dreamworld who goes by multiple names throughout the volume, including Morpheus, Dream, Sandman, and a few others that I didn't bother to revisit. The premise of the first novel is that Morpheus, upon being released from his imprisonment by an underground gathering of occult-wranglers attempting to capture his sibling, Death, must get all of his power-holding possessions back in order to regain the power he has lost in imprisonment. It is clear that Gaiman was attempting to appeal to the pre-existing DC fanbase because on his quest (which will seem oddly familiar to anyone who has lost their wallet, keys, and phone after a night of heavy drinking) Morpheus meets up with DC favorites like the Justice League and John Constantine. While these over-commercialized cameos may have been crucial when nobody had heard of Gaiman's series, to a reader who already knows that the series will develop into a graphic literature phenomenon, such guest appearances end up looking extremely cheesy.
I must also point out that the primary villain of the first volume, a character known as Dr. Dee, is an extremely weak antagonist. Dee is weak, whiny, and has an extremely disturbed mommy-complex, and maybe Gaiman's choice to make him the main villain of the first volume was to show readers what happens when Dream's powers are used by one who is weak-minded like Dee, but I found myself mostly just annoyed at the constantly-naked, mostly-senseless Dr. Dee and hoping that a more interesting villain lurks in the future volumes.
Amidst the piles of crap that make up the first volume of Sandman, I will admit that there are two major strengths of the novel, and sadly, I can only REALLY delve into one of them. The one I can't mention is the introduction of a surprising character at the end of the first novel ( a surprise that was ruined for me by one Annie Fuller, and with the exception of me totally blowing the ending of Josh Bazzell's "Beat the Reaper" in my review of it, I wouldn't do you like that). Let's just leave it with me saying that while the surprise doesn't even come close to making up for 180 pages of pure horsedump, it may still be worth reading 'til the end to see it. The second strength is a chapter within the first volume entitled "24 hours" which shows hour-by-hour how the world (and on a far-more-interesting micro-level, a diner where Dr. Dee is spending his time) plummets into darkness and chaos under the control of Dr. Dee and the ruby of power he has taken from Morpheus. I don't quite know what I like about this chapter, but I think it has a lot to do with the systematic nature of it. We see, step-by-step, just how much power Morpheus' ruby has and what it can do when used by those with less experience controlling such power.
What more can I say except that getting through this graphic novel (although reading it has almost undone all the good work that Scott Pilgrim and the Walking Dead did to get me on the side of graphic novels) was an uphill struggle and a painful endeavor. I will be reading through volume four because I promised I would give the series that much of a chance, but I am publicly putting out the warning now that if I have to read through 700 more pages of what I read in volume 1, then the Sandman may be what it takes to make me never read again (and considering I'm an English major with plans on becoming an English Teacher, I hope the severity of this claim is understood)
