Posts When Her Heart Stops Hammering

The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
This falls into that category of Wow, Good But Don't Make Me Read It Again. I'm familiar with "Der Sandman" by E. T. A. Hoffmann but I took a chance on this book anyway. O Weh's mir!

This was a bit gruesome for me and I'm sorta glad it normally hides in the Adult Graphic Novels because "graphic" really describes it. Okay, you have to use a bit of your imagination to finish the picture, but ...

I'd like to know if stories like this satisfy the reptilian part of our brain and when order is restored, we can then feel satisfied that a) we got to enjoy something really violent, grotesque, bloody, gratuitous and b) we know that it is wrong and those people are punished and we're better than that.

Or does this just encourage some of us to go out and do it?

Can't be the latter, or I'd run out now and find people's eyes to gouge out instead of huddling under an afghan hoping I can get the imagery out of my head.

Neil Gaiman, do you actually make this stuff up or do you just hunt for it in headlines? I don't know which is worse.

The story, though, is artfully crafted. There does seem to be a bit of extraneous storytelling (the guy who lives forever) that doesn't seem to have anything to do with this particular plotline. I don't think I'll be picking up any more of these to try to work that out, though.

The artwork doesn't have the grace and clarity of American Born Chinese and the layout strains the limits of my ability to follow. Parts of the narrative are not nicely laid out left to right, but we are talking about dreams. And I'm wondering ... is the Sandman drawing based on Gaiman?

Phew!

Well! Back to that nice, fluffy Stalin's Ghost! Only one serial killer there!


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