The Sandman, Volume 2, The Doll House

The Sandman, Volume 2, The Doll House-Neil Gaiman

How I found this book: Crack, crack I tell you, I read the first one in a night and suddenly needed the second.

Setting: Circa 1989

Main Characters:

Dream/Morpheus: The personification of dreams, Dream is trying to piece back his domain since his long imprisonment during most of the 20th century. He is forced to deal with a relic of his past, a romance, long ago ended, that he did not handle well, and because of that, Desire is using it against him.

Rose Walker: An American woman who has just discovered her biological grandmother, (her mother was adopted), was a woman who had been in a deep sleep for decades thanks to the imprisonment of Dream. Rose is unknowingly a ‘dream vortex’, a person who draws rogue dreams and nightmares to herself. She is a danger to the dreaming, and Dream must remove her threat, even if it means he has to kill her.

Nada: The queen of an ancient city who had fallen in love with Dream, she realizes that no good can come of love between a mortal and one of the Endless, but makes love to him anyway. When her city is destroyed by a meteor, she realizes the grave mistake she has made, and she kills herself before Dream can stop her. He goes to her in Death’s realm to convince her to return, but she refuses, so in a fit of anger he sends her to hell and torment.

Desire: One of Dream’s younger siblings and twin to Despair, Desire is it, neither female nor male. Desire is playing its own games with Dream, as it has an angry vendetta against its brother, and is trying to bring about its downfall by the only means that can bring down one of the Endless…murder of one of the members of the family.

Unity Kinkaid: The daughter of a prominent British family, she was one of the many victims of the imprisonment of Dream earlier, and was raped in her sleep, giving birth to a daughter who she never met. That daughter was adopted out, and is now the mother of Rose Walker. Unity has sent for them so that she can meet them both before she dies.

Jed Walker: Rose’s younger brother, for mysterious reasons he was living with Rose’s estranged father, but her father has since died, and the brother was taken into state custody. Rose is now out searching for him.

Hal: He runs a boarding house that Rose stays in while searching for her brother. He wishes to get into show business. His boarding house is full of kooky characters, including one that will figure prominently in a later volume.

Hector Hall: Another DC Comic character, he is known as the Silver Scarab, but was killed. Now he and his wife are the puppets of two of Dreams escaped creatures who are manipulating the dreams of Jed Walker.

Lyta Hall: Another DC Comic character, known as Fury, she is married to Hector and is pregnant with their child. She has been manipulated in this dream by two of Dreams escaped creatures.

Hob Gadling: Perhaps Dream’s only true friend, he was born in the 14th century, and declared he had no intention of dying. Death and Dream over hear this, and so Death grants his wish, for as long as he wishes to live. He and Dream meet once every 100 years or so.

The Corinthian: A particularly nasty nightmare of the dreaming, he is supposed to reflect the dark side of humanity, but in the years he’s been running amok since Dream’s imprisonment he’s only been a gruesome, serial killer, eating the eyes of his victims through his eye sockets, (they contain tiny mouths). He manages to kidnap Jed Walker, Rose Walker’s brother.

Gilbert: A kindly fellow who has befriended Rose Walker, he comes off as a sort of old fashioned, befuddled gentleman. It turns out he is actually Fiddler’s Green, an area of the Dreaming that anthropomorphized itself and wandered off. He is very protective of Rose and tries to look over her and aid her in her search for her brother.


Plot: Dream is trying to rebuild the shambles that has become the dreaming since he has been away. Many of his creatures and even whole areas of the dreaming have wandered off, and he is forced to trace them down. In the meantime, a dream vortex has developed, that has the potential of destroying the already fragile dreaming, and it must be addressed by Dream. The vortex, otherwise known as Rose Walker, has been confronted with the discovery of a new, unknown grandmother, and the death of her father, leaving her younger brother nowhere to be found. She goes off in search of him, and meets interesting characters in her journey, including a particularly nasty character who might be more than Rose can handle. Little does she know that she is part of an elaborate plot on the part of one of the Endless to get back at Dream for a slight committed ages ago.

Themes:

The danger of Desire: Desire is a powerful emotion, and apparently a mean and vindictive one at that. Desire has it out bad for Dream, and is determined to see its proud, arrogant brother fall, going to great, elaborate lengths to do it, callously using others to achieve what it wants. Such is the way with desire I suppose, but Desire’s plans, while foiled for the moment, aren’t laid to rest. They will come back in later issues to haunt all of the Endless, especially Dream.

The Endless exist for the mortals: Dream has to remind Desire of this that the Endless exist for the mortals, and they are not the Endless’s playthings. Because of this, Dream takes his duties as the lord of the dreaming very seriously, which is why he is so diligent through much of the book, searching for his missing creatures, and trying to prevent the vortex. He has seen the damage that humanity has suffered through his long imprisonment, and that it is his duty to rule over his domain.

Even Dream has a bad love life: As we see in the story of poor Nada, and reoccurring over the future stories, Dream is notorious for having a bad love life. One could say it’s his nature, he is Dream after all, and love isn’t always about those. But it’s perhaps also the nature of being one of the Endless, you exist forever, but mortals, and mortal love do not.

Every book sucks somewhere: I would say that this one has few sucky spots. Really, I feel the only shabby spot would be in not adequately explaining what the hell sort of bug is up Desire’s ass, (and you never know with Desire), that has pissed it off so much against Dream. Desire is fickle, and there usually isn’t a good reason, I know, but someone needs to bitch slap that thing.

What did I like: I love the intricate turns of this story, and how Gaiman reuses not only plot points from the first story, (which he keeps reusing in future stories, along with other plot threads), but goes back into the mythos of the DC universe to draw new and fresh ideas from old or forgotten story lines. The one about Hector and Lyta will prove to be very important in the future, and Gaiman tries to tie everything in together neatly, though not always how you would expect it.

How would I rate this wormy book: Again, another FAT WORM, this story is great if you loved the first one, and keeps you wanting to keep reading more.