“American Gods: The Moment of the Storm” by Neil Gaiman: Issue #09

This issue concludes the graphic telling of Gaiman’s masterpiece. I followed it from the inception, and enjoyed every issue. In fact, I may reread the entire series at some point.

After going through the trials of exploring the realms of the gods, of going through death and rebirth, of observing the cycles of the various manifestations of the Divine, Shadow is left wondering what to do. He realizes he cannot go back to his old life. Once you have plunged into the mystic, you can never return to your old life. You are forever changed.

Shadow said nothing. He had had enough of gods and their ways to last a lifetime. He would take a bus to the airport, he decided. Get on a plane and go somewhere he had never been. He would keep moving.

As a reader reaching the end of this tale, one feels like Shadow. It is not realistic to think you can just go back to your old ways after glimpsing the mysteries of the gods. You must move on to some place you have never been, and likely, that will be somewhere inside yourself.

Thanks for stopping by, and keep reading and exploring.

“American Gods: The Moment of the Storm” by Neil Gaiman: Issue #07

People believe. It’s what people do. They conjure things, and then do not trust the conjurations. They populate the darkness with ghosts, with gods, with electrons. People imagine and people believe. And it is that belief that makes things happen.

There is a lot of truth here. Our thoughts play a tremendous part in the manifestation of our realities. When we step back and consider the fear, mistrust, anger, and cynicism of the past couple decades, should it be all that surprising that we find ourselves in the current socio-political climate?

But I for one am seeing things that give me hope and inspiration, and I am making a conscious effort to believe in the better possibilities. Because let’s face it—all possibilities exist. But the possibilities which receive the most energy are the ones most likely to actualize.

Thanks for believing.

“American Gods: The Moment of the Storm” by Neil Gaiman: Issue #5

Look, this is not a good country for gods. My people figured that out early on. There are creator spirits who made the earth and so we say thank you. But we never built churches. The land was our church. It gave us salmon and corn and buffalo, and wild rice. You follow that river for a way, you’ll get to the lakes where the wild rice grows. You go far enough south, there are orange trees, lemon trees, and those squishy green things… avocados. What I’m saying is that America is like that. It’s not good growing country for gods. They’re like avocados trying to grow in wild rice country.

It’s a strange paradox that a country with a strong fundamentalist movement would not be fertile ground for gods. To me it seems more like we choose to collectively idolize the wrong things, or choose our gods for the wrong reasons. We love our distractions, we love our teams, we want to be a part of a community, we want to be freed from our guilt and shame, and so on. America is a country of “God, Guns, and Guts.” Personally, I have a difficult time reconciling those three things in my life.

There is a palpable feeling that we are on the cusp of a major global shift, that this is the “moment of the storm.” It will be curious to see how things play out in the next few years.

“American Gods: The Moment of the Storm” by Neil Gaiman: Issue #4

I didn’t write about the last couple issues, not because they weren’t great (they were!), but because they didn’t include any quotes that I thought were worth looking at more closely. But this one certainly did.

Early in this issue, Shadow is entering the realm of the dead, after being sacrificed on the World Tree. He meets a cat woman, who seems to be some sort of spirit guide in the underworld. When Shadow inquires about her nature, her response is very intriguing.

Shadow: What are you? Who are you people?

Cat-woman: Think of us as symbols — we’re the dream humanity creates to make sense of the shadows on the cave wall.

This immediately made me think of Plato’s allegory of the cave from The Republic. Everything we perceive in this reality is but a shadow of a form that exists in another plane of existence. And we cannot comprehend the forms in their true essence, so we must approach them through the use of symbolism, which allows our subconscious mind fleeting glimpses of understanding, impressions of what thrives beyond our limited scope of awareness.

I know this is heavy stuff, and Gaiman’s work is very complex. But that said, he is a master storyteller, so he presents heady material within the structure of fun and imaginative tales.

That’s all I have to share for today. Thanks for stopping by.

“American Gods: The Moment of the Storm” by Neil Gaiman: Issue #1

Starting to catch up on my backlog of reading. This arc is already on issue #4, so I’m a little behind, but that’s OK.

This new arc in the American Gods saga continues where “My Ainsel” left off, and is classic Gaiman, steeped in mythology. I only need one example to sum up the gist of this issue.

In the god business, it’s not death that matters, it’s the opportunity for resurrection.

The death of a god is required for the renewal of the cycle. Osiris, Jesus, Mithras, the list goes on. One need only refer back to Frazer to understand that this is a dominant trope in mythology.

Not much else to share on this. Thanks for stopping by, and keep reading cool stuff.

“Death” by Neil Gaiman

I actually finished reading this book a few weeks ago, but I’ve been in the process of moving so the book got packed and I have also been way too busy to sit down and write up a post. But, alas, I’m settled in, so here we go.

This book is an offshoot of Gaiman’s classic Sandman saga. Death is Dream’s sister, depicted as a somewhat hipster woman with a touch of goth. I’d seen this on the shelves, but hadn’t bothered to buy it since I (wrongly) assumed it was nothing more that vignettes from Sandman that featured Death. While there were a few of those, most of what is in the compilation is stuff I had not read before. Anyway, I had donated a nice filing cabinet to the local comic store prior to my move, and as a show of gratitude, the owner offered me a book, so I chose this one.

As always, Gaiman’s writing is brilliant and evocative. And the rich storytelling is augmented by the rich artwork, which makes this book something worthy of a re-read.

One of the areas where Gaiman’s knowledge excels is in mythology, so it’s not surprising that he does a little bit of myth exploration in this book.

Mythologies take longer to die than people believe. They linger on in a kind of dream country that affects all of you.

(p. 55)

This is true. The thing about myths is that they enter into the subconscious, as well as the collective. Once embedded there, they may “die” in the sense that they fade from our ordinary state of consciousness, but it still lies hidden beneath the surface, affecting our thoughts, beliefs, and actions in ways we are not usually aware of.

Possibly my favorite passage in the book is when Death explains life to a person. I found the whole thing symbolic, that it is only through an understanding of a thing’s opposite that you can fully understand the thing itself.

Well. I think some of it is probably contrasts. Light and shadow. If you never had the bad times, how would you know you had the good times? But some of it is just: if you’re going to be human, then there are a whole load of things that come with it. Eyes, a heart, days and life. It’s the moments that illuminate it, though. The times you don’t see when you’re having them… They make the rest of it matter.

(p. 217)

While it would certainly help to have read at least some of the Sandman saga before reading this, it is by no means necessary. I think anyone can pick up this book and get something out of it. Highly recommended, as is everything Gaiman wrote, in my humble opinion.

Cheers!

A Quote from “American Gods: My Ainsel” by Neil Gaiman: Issue 09

Gods are great. But the heart is greater. From our hearts they come, and to our hearts they return…

The Sandman Universe: Books of Magic – Issue 01

Even though Neil Gaiman is not writing the several offshoot arcs in the Sandman saga, I figured I would read them. So far, they are holding my interest, but still not up to Gaiman’s caliber. I haven’t felt the need to write about the other arcs/issues I have read, but there was a quote in this one that I felt was worth sharing.

Magic is neither good nor bad. Only its use determines its character. There are always consequences for its use.

The quote echoes Hamlet: “Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” It also hints toward the concept of karma, where all our thoughts and actions—good, bad, or indifferent—have an effect on our selves and the universe around us. Nothing that we do happens within a vacuum. There are consequences for every action we take, regardless of how trivial it may appear to be at the time. It’s the butterfly effect.

So far, the jury is still out regarding these offshoot comics. I’ll keep reading them for now and see where they go. Cheers!

“The Sandman Universe” by Neil Gaiman: Issue 01

This has been sitting in my to-be-read pile for a little while, since I wanted to finish up all the other Sandman stuff before delving in to the new arc. This first issue, like all of Gaiman’s work, is excellent storytelling. It seems that Gaiman will be weaving a series of arcs spinning off from this main arc, kind of a fabric of stories, with each one focusing on a particular area of the Dreaming and featuring characters from the Sandman mythology. I have to say, I’m really excited about this. I have two other issues waiting to be read, so expect some thoughts soon.

I am going to keep this short, since I assume I will have a lot to say about the subsequent installments, but I do want to share a quote that was particularly interesting for me, which draws on the Pandora myth:

“You think hope may free us from a bind? It is the cruelest prison YAHWEH built, for from it there is almost no escape. Where you go, you must take no hope. No hope.”

Thoughts on “Sandman: The Dream Hunters” by Neil Gaiman

This book feels like an adaptation of a Japanese fairy tale, but as artist P. Craig Russell points out in the Afterward, it was all a creation of Gaiman’s imagination, so well executed that even Russell believed it was a traditional Japanese tale when working on the illustrations.

The story is about a fox who falls in love with a monk, and while it is not possible for them to consummate their love, their feelings for each other cause each of them to make sacrifices for the other. It is a wonderful and moving story, and one can read it without knowing the background mythology of the Sandman. So without spoiling the story for those who want to read it, I figured I’d share a few passages that stood out for me.

The monk unfolded his token to show it to them, and it was then that he knew for certain he was dreaming, for he could read the characters on the paper he carried. They were simple characters and they described one who transmuted things from formlessness and shapelessness into that-which-was-not-real, but without which the real world would have no meaning.

(p. 72)

This is the way in which art is created, particularly stories and poetry. The mind taps into the vast sea of the subconscious and draws from the wellspring of inspiration. As the story takes shape and becomes an expression of the collective consciousness, it evolves into something that is not “real,” but expresses what is real about the human experience. In other words, stories provide life with meaning. A world without stories would be meaningless.

I serve the king of dreams … and I do his bidding. But you are correct … once I was a poet … and like all poets … I spent too long in the kingdom of dreams.

(p. 79)

I totally relate to this passage. As someone who has written poetry, I know that, for me, poetic inspiration comes from going deep into my subconscious, to draw on the symbols and metaphors that express that which is impossible to convey through plain language. But, there is a risk of spending too long in the realm of inspiration. One can become ungrounded, and that can lead to its own set of personal difficulties.

But dreams are strange things. And none of us but the king of all night’s dreaming can say if they are true or not, nor of what they are able to tell any of us about the times that are still to come.

(p. 125)

Dreams are strange things, but what would life be without them? Our dreams and stories and creative expressions are what define us.