The Sandman/Shutter Island

Newly refurbished Toa Payoh library. Looks fresher, neater. Would be a great place to spend time in if it weren't for the fact that it closes at 9pm and that people usually make a lot of noise.

I'm two-thirds into The Absolute Sandman Vol. 1, and here's a brief list of why I wouldn't be a fan:

1. Too much telling. The comic isn't shy of directly telling the reader who this person is, what is his history, why he needs to do this and this, what just happened. When Dream (the protagonist) overcame John Dee even though the latter had his ruby, an important tool of his, he said: "But you destroyed the ruby. I doubt I would have thought of that. Destroying it, you released the power stored in it. My control of the dreamworld. It's all mine again."

2. There's alot of fluff. When Dream was preparing to leave Hell after he collected something that belongs to him, Lucifer said: "The million lords of hell stand arrayed about you. Tell us why we should let you leave? Helmet or no, you have no power here -- what power have Dreams in hell?"

Dream replied: "You say I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly...But -- you say that DREAMS have no power here? Tell me Lucifer Morningstar...Ask yourselves, all of you...What power would HELL have if those here imprisoned were NOT able to DREAM of HEAVEN?"

That particular section then ended with Dream walking out of Hell, the demons making way for him silently.

3. There's a lot of death, destruction, decay and arbitrary, senseless violence going on in the comic. There's nothing wrong with that in itself. Some parts, though, feel nothing more than a collage of sick acts strung together. Other parts have themes and images that are nothing but banal. Prostitutes and young boys killed, people sleeping too much, people walking through the living as though they were dead, teenager chained in a basement sleeping with his own pee in a corner, Queen who fell in love at first sight with Dream and who tries to flee because mortals falling in love with The Endless can only bring disaster for others.

4. It may be true that it's hard to avoid such recurrent themes, but The Sandman makes it even harder reading by not having a good poetic voice. A lot of the narrative just sounds hollow to me,

5. Things like Lord of the Dreamworld, non-mortal beings like Death and Desire, demons, angels, witches, just don't cut it for me.

Actually, I should have known these points better, because I didn't like Gaiman's American Gods or Mr Punch. But here's why I am going to continue reading The Sandman series, likely to the very end:

1. It makes for good bedtime reading. In fact, comics of any kind make for good bedtime reading, and I've yet to find something like Tintin and Asterix.

2. The Cereal Convention part was good. A convention of murderers at a countryside motel, with the other guests a female and a man who don't know anything about the true nature of the convention. That particular issue was quite gripping, because you don't know what would happen if any of the convention members discover there are two hotel guests who are not of their creed, or if the latter discover the terror nest they're in. (Unfortunately, this part wasn't played up well) I like the premise a lot - I wonder if there's a film or book based on it, there should be. The Sandman would be decent if it stuck to such simple, gripping plots instead of going into surreal, abstract realms.

Speaking of gripping, Shutter Island wasn't too bad. (Spoiler alert - stop reading if you haven't watched the film and would watch it in the future) I feel it would have been much more powerful if the film had remained ambiguous on whether Teddy Daniels was a real federal agent or if he had been effectively brainwashed into believing he has been a mental patient on the island for two years. Unfortunately for my taste, the film came out quite strongly on the Teddy-as-a-genuine-patient side. If it were the ambiguous scenario, the viewer would have been confronted with the unarticulated, unconfirmed possibility that a sane man was successfully manipulated to believing he is insane. From both the viewer's and Teddy's perspective, you'd be unsure of which is reality and which is fiction, and that's always very beautiful.