'The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes' by Neil Gaiman

Beginning publication in the late 1980s, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is a graphic novel series that has been touted as a now-classic story that brings literary value to the comic book medium. Only Alan Moore’s works such as Watchmen have probably been given more critical acclaim.

I must, however, stick my neck out for beheading and say that the first volume of Sandman fell short of my expectations, even after repeat readings; it’s still a good book, but I’m not sure it represents the pinnacle of achievement in the comic book medium. I know that Sandman has a large, devoted fan-base, so I am risking my credibility as both a reviewer and a comic-book geek as I type this, but I have always believed that people should be honest about what they read, and not agree on a book’s quality simply due to majority opinion.

Among the most striking aspects of Sandman and Neil Gaiman’s work in general is a heavy use of archetypes; this has often been beneficial for Gaiman’s stories. Coraline, for example, was successful because it features an archetypical child-devourer as its main villain and taps into our innate fears that a smiling murderer will one day lure away our children. In Sandman, though, his heavy use of archetypes is a double-edged sword, because it both emphasizes the ancient universality of Morpheus’ stories and sticks to certain fantasy and mythology clichés that are better left forgotten.

In the first issue of Preludes and Nocturnes, Morpheus, the personification of dreams and stories, is accidentally trapped by a sorcerer trying to gain eternal life. The sorcerer holds him captive for almost a century, so people all around the world begin suffering from sleep problems that vary from suddenly dying in their sleep to falling into a coma to not being able to sleep at all. There is no explanation for why some people begin suffering from sleep problems while others don’t. This event basically shows people around the world being screwed over because of the loss of one deity, and it’s the kind of story you’d expect from ancient myths when humans felt helpless against magical beings and blamed their problems on gods.

In another part of Preludes and Nocturnes, Morpheus and a demon play a game of verbal rock-paper-scissors over one of Morpheus’ artifacts; in the final round, the demon states that he is “anti-life…the end of everything” because he doesn’t think anything can defeat complete annihilation…and then Morpheus says, “I am hope,” and wins the game because the demon can’t think of anything to defeat hope. The idea of hope being the last refuge of desperate humans has been explored in the myth of Pandora’s box, but technically, hope is a concept that needs sentient beings to exist, so if everything is destroyed there can be no hope, and it doesn’t make sense that Morpheus is able to win.

Still, Preludes and Nocturnes has enough interesting fantastical elements that it makes an adequate introduction to Sandman. It’s just a pity that its theatrical clichés and plot holes detract from Gaiman’s considerable imagination and literary skill.