The Sandman: Endless Nights is very good. Perhaps too good.
I bought my copy of the book after work yesterday; despite rumors of selling like hotcakes (which were probably true), there were still a bunch left on the shelves when I got there. I decided I would not read it on the subway though, as that would be a disservice to the work. I also have to admit I get uncomfortable reading comic books on the subway, in that strange way that New Yorkers care about what stangers on the subway think of them. That’s a topic for a whole ‘nother post, though.
I didn’t open the book until I was ready to go to bed. I’ve found that it’s most enjoyable to read the Sandman books in bed, for various reasons, most of them obvious. True to form, I enjoyed the first three stories a lot. “15 Portraits of Despair” was where I started to fade; it obviously is going to reward a carefully re-viewing, but initially my understanding was limited.
Then I started Delirium’s story, and slowly but surely, I completely lost my shit. I was going along fine, and for some reason Radiohead’s “A Wolf at the Door” kept running through my head. It didn’t occur to me then, but the song is well known to be a semi-autobiographical sketch of a nervous breakdown. This should have tipped me off, like the silver fishies before a migraine, but I thought nothing of it. I fell asleep with the book open, roughly halfway through the story.
The dream started out as a ‘real’ dream, the kind that takes you hours to recover from the next day because you have to realize that a number of completely plausible events never actually took place. At this point I only remember two parts of it, the middle and the end. In the middle, I was walking up the white-walled staircase to Dan’s apartment. One of his roomates came down and didn’t acknowledge me; for some reason she and her husband don’t like me. The skylight in the stairwell was nice enough, but the gray light from outside highlighted the uninspired prefab-ness of the building. There was nothing unique or interesting about it; it was only easy to build. At this point I started to realize that something wasn’t right. I was trying hard to remember how this apartment was related to the apartment of Dan’s in Astoria, whic h this certainly was not. Over the course of the rest of the dream, I slowly realized that everything was wrong. The difference from reality was very subtle, and yet every last thing was different. I felt like this was the beginning of the descent into madness, and I saw how close the characters in Delirium’s story are to seeing the world as it is. You just have to twist the world a few degrees, and suddenly we’re all batshit insane. By the end of the dream, I was in a bedroom laid out much like mine, but with a taller bed and less furniture. I desparately wanted to wake up. I was afraid that if I didn’t wake up, I’d give over entirely to the madness of this alternate world. I couldn’t seem to just wake up, though, so I wanted to call Lisa. If I could talk to her at least I’d have a lifeline to reality, but there was a creeping sense of dread, because I knew this world wouldn’t go quietly. It could and would stop my phone from working, and sure enough the phone couldn’t find a signal. I then felt more direct involvement coming on; a woman dressed in a strange peacock costume (or perhaps a half-peacock, half-woman) ran through the door, ready to fight. At this point my fight-or-flight response was in full effect, so I charged her. Then I was fighting some cartoon-man, perhaps drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz (the artist for the Delirium story). I ran into the corner, and finally, by exerting a supreme effort, jolted myself awake.
I woke up with my heart pounding, and I was thoroughly fucked in the head. I didn’t know what to do, so I got some water and turned my cell phone on. There was a full signal available, which made me feel a bit better. My sense of reality was still quite fragile, but I managed to fall asleep again. Today, I am exhausted and still a bit perturbed. I think I’ll finish the book this afternoon, and then go read Maxim or something. However, let me say thank to Gaiman and Sienkiewicz for the wild ride. I’ll keep this one on my bookshelf for a long, long time.
evan :: Sep.18.2003 ::
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