The Doll's House
The Doll's House is my least favorite arc in the entire Sandman series. For me, the horror in this installment crosses the line and makes me truly uncomfortable. John Dee slowly torturing and killing everyone in the diner in 24 Hours is disturbing. But there's an element of fantasy, of metaphor, that makes it a bit more palatable. This arc has some pretty horrific child abuse coupled with a serial killer convention. And while Morpheus metes out justice to everyone involved, I find myself squirming through a lot of this.
Then again, The Doll's House introduces Rose Walker and Hob Gadling, two of the best characters in the entire series. Men of Good Fortune, Gadling's introduction, is one of my favorite single issues. Gadling declares that he's not going to die, and Morpheus sets up a recurring meeting with him - once every hundred years - to see how his life is going. The story leans into the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, with the complaints of the pub-goers echoing down through the ages. And Gadling himself experiences all manner of ups and downs. But no matter how terrible his life gets, he's never ready to give up. And no matter how great it is, he's always just one mistake away from losing everything. There's something so remarkably human about him, even after centuries of life.
But Gadling's slow growth over lifetimes, as his pride gets the best of him again and again but his optimism never lets him give up entirely, really serves as a mirror for Morpheus' own change. Somewhere along the way, he starts to view Hob as a friend. When Hob points that out, Morpheus nearly ruins everything thanks to his own out-sized pride.
And in learning to accept Hob's friendship, Morpheus also learns to see humans as individuals, worthy of mercy and justice. The story of Nada that opens this collection shows a very different Morpheus from the one we come to know over the course of the story. In dealing with Nada, Morpheus is greedy, jealous, proud, and ultimately vengeful. The punishment he visits on Nada is entirely out of proportion to her crime of rejecting him. But now he's been unfairly imprisoned himself. He's had to pull his life back together from scraps. And when Unity offers him an alternative to destroying Rose utterly (again, for a crime that isn't really a crime), he is able to accept and let Rose continue with her life. (It also allows him to dodge a bullet, though that bullet will eventually come back around for him.)
Speaking of Unity Kinkaid, when I saw this article about a woman in a coma giving birth, my mind went to her immediately. The horrors portrayed in the first volume are just as realistic and gruesome as those in this volume.
This volume also introduces Desire, Dream's younger sibling, who seems hell-bent on destroying him for reasons I either don't remember or that are never made entirely clear. But for all Desire's antagonistic qualities, they remain a compelling and unique character. Desire was my first encounter with the concept of gender fluidity. Desire isn't merely androgynous. Desire is both male and female at the same time, all the time, and depending partially on the person viewing them. Gaiman gets this across by switching pronouns with abandon, often within the same sentence.
Encountering Desire made it a lot easier for me to accept gender fluidity when it became a more visible reality. When I read fantasy, I'm a lot more accepting of things being significantly different from my own world. And that lets me sit with the concept and slowly become familiar with it. Reading is one of the best ways to get out of your own head and into someone else's, which makes it that much easier to accept people for who they are when you encounter them in real life. If you already have a piece of their story, it's easier to empathize with them.
That was a lot of words, and actually a lot of praise, for a story that I'm not that keen on. The truth is that all of Sandman is fantastic. There's a reason I keep coming back to it again and again. And if parts of this story make me squirm, well they're mostly there for a reason. And I can appreciate that reason, along with all the other wonderful gems surrounding the less great parts. The goods news is that's is (basically) all up hill from here.
Then again, The Doll's House introduces Rose Walker and Hob Gadling, two of the best characters in the entire series. Men of Good Fortune, Gadling's introduction, is one of my favorite single issues. Gadling declares that he's not going to die, and Morpheus sets up a recurring meeting with him - once every hundred years - to see how his life is going. The story leans into the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, with the complaints of the pub-goers echoing down through the ages. And Gadling himself experiences all manner of ups and downs. But no matter how terrible his life gets, he's never ready to give up. And no matter how great it is, he's always just one mistake away from losing everything. There's something so remarkably human about him, even after centuries of life.
But Gadling's slow growth over lifetimes, as his pride gets the best of him again and again but his optimism never lets him give up entirely, really serves as a mirror for Morpheus' own change. Somewhere along the way, he starts to view Hob as a friend. When Hob points that out, Morpheus nearly ruins everything thanks to his own out-sized pride.
And in learning to accept Hob's friendship, Morpheus also learns to see humans as individuals, worthy of mercy and justice. The story of Nada that opens this collection shows a very different Morpheus from the one we come to know over the course of the story. In dealing with Nada, Morpheus is greedy, jealous, proud, and ultimately vengeful. The punishment he visits on Nada is entirely out of proportion to her crime of rejecting him. But now he's been unfairly imprisoned himself. He's had to pull his life back together from scraps. And when Unity offers him an alternative to destroying Rose utterly (again, for a crime that isn't really a crime), he is able to accept and let Rose continue with her life. (It also allows him to dodge a bullet, though that bullet will eventually come back around for him.)
Speaking of Unity Kinkaid, when I saw this article about a woman in a coma giving birth, my mind went to her immediately. The horrors portrayed in the first volume are just as realistic and gruesome as those in this volume.
This volume also introduces Desire, Dream's younger sibling, who seems hell-bent on destroying him for reasons I either don't remember or that are never made entirely clear. But for all Desire's antagonistic qualities, they remain a compelling and unique character. Desire was my first encounter with the concept of gender fluidity. Desire isn't merely androgynous. Desire is both male and female at the same time, all the time, and depending partially on the person viewing them. Gaiman gets this across by switching pronouns with abandon, often within the same sentence.
Encountering Desire made it a lot easier for me to accept gender fluidity when it became a more visible reality. When I read fantasy, I'm a lot more accepting of things being significantly different from my own world. And that lets me sit with the concept and slowly become familiar with it. Reading is one of the best ways to get out of your own head and into someone else's, which makes it that much easier to accept people for who they are when you encounter them in real life. If you already have a piece of their story, it's easier to empathize with them.
That was a lot of words, and actually a lot of praise, for a story that I'm not that keen on. The truth is that all of Sandman is fantastic. There's a reason I keep coming back to it again and again. And if parts of this story make me squirm, well they're mostly there for a reason. And I can appreciate that reason, along with all the other wonderful gems surrounding the less great parts. The goods news is that's is (basically) all up hill from here.
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