Sandman Papers An Exploration of the Sandman Mythology [Paperback]

An essay collection concerned with Neil Gaiman's much-beloved comic book series "The Sandman" has been long in demand by the series's fans. Gaiman produced an truly astounding work that almost demands critical scrutiny, and this collection will, I think, satisfy the demands of many many readers. It certainly did so for me.

The essays themselves are of superb quality overall. The great majority of them are rigorous enough to satisfy a scholarly intellectual while being readable enough to provide the more casual reader with some wonderful food for thought. But one of the essays stands out as distinctly inferior to the rest of them: the essay titled "Illusory Adversaries". The author sought to examine gender power issues in The Kindly Ones, the 9th volume of "Sandman" that contains the climax of the story. She quotes extensively from a rather obscure radical feminist author and takes said author's statements as facts, which are then used to ground the essay's argument. The main point that the paper seeks to support is that the entire Sandman arc (but especially The Kindly Ones) is supportive of a patriarchal world that denies women any real power.

The argument really doesn't work at all, especially in light of two of Gaiman's most famous and beloved characters: Death and Delirium. Both are distinctly female, and both possess a phenomenal amount of power. Indeed, it is only with the help of his sister Death that Dream is able, in the end, to abdicate his responsibilities and set himself free. The paper's author argues that this is merely a demonstration of female subordination to male desires; Death, she argues, arrives because of her brother's wishes and ends up granting those wishes by killing him. But what the author does not take into account is the fact that these events were demanded by the narrative. Nearly every Sandman reader saw a catastrophe apporoaching since the end of volume 7, Brief Lives. The story is not even remotely concerned with gender power struggles. Instead, it is concerned with Dream's resistance to change being his ultimate tragic flaw, and with the consequences imposed by that flaw. The ultimate flaw in this particular paper is the author's inability to approach The Kindly Ones for what it is: a classical tragedy. Instead, she concerns herself with incidental, unimportant details (like the placement of women on the page, for God's sake!) and how they can be used to support a preconceived ideology.

Incidentally, this essay collection does contain an excellent paper about gender issues as explored in "Sandman" volume 5, A Game of You (which is actually ABOUT gender identity and gender roles). Don't be put of by my criticism of a single essay in the collection; the scholarship in the rest is excellent, and topics range from the role of Asian dress in certain individual stories to the influence (and appearance) of William Shakespeare throughout the series. Well worth the monetary investment for any "Sandman" lover.

The Sandman is, as people know, one of the best comics ever. This edition is beautiful!

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