THIS WEEK’S WINNER
MANILA, Philippines - Melannie Joy D. Lando, 26, was raised by a family of teachers and agriculturists. She inherited her love of reading from her mother. “I see books as an escape from the realities of life, they afford me a breathing space when there is none to be had. am a Neil Gaiman fan and have the complete set of the Sandman series and most of the books that he has published.”
I started reading before I even started first grade, thanks to Sesame Street and my mother. At the time, my mother was a teacher at a high school in our community. She herself loved to read, and I could not remember ever being short of books. Aside from the mystery books that she liked to read, we had encyclopedias, dictionaries, assorted science magazines (Discovery or National Geographic), old issues of Reader’s Digest and, of course, some children’s books for me.
I became an avid reader at a very young age. This is mostly because there was a scarcity of playmates and neighborhood kids. Also, my mother and my grandmother did not think that watching TV was any good, much less for a growing kid. Thus, I was pointed in the direction of the shelves of books that were always available. I started reading fairy tales and fables. I read about Snow White and Cinderella. I read about the Fox and the Hound and all such fables. In time, these books proved too short for me and I moved on to reading books such as White Fang, Black Beauty, Pinnocchio, Little Women and Little Men. I even tried reading some of my mother’s mystery books but they proved a little dry for my taste. Then I discovered my mother’s science fiction books. She had books written by Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock and Stephen King. I simply thought they were the bomb. Reading these books was like walking into a waking dream where I discovered universes and met creatures that had never seen the light of day. This was the beginning of my fascination with science fiction and fantasy, after I had read the books that were available at home, I was introduced to Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. The former, I read all seven books in three days.
In those days, my science fiction-wired brain became steeped in magic and sorcery, in dragons, gold, goblins, elves and orcs. In my head, I could see the forests of Lothlorien and the Great Hall at Hogwarts. I could almost smell the flowers in the gardens at Rivendell, and taste a bogey-flavored jelly bean. I did not care for debates regarding who had the upper hand, was it Harry or was it Frodo. To me, it was all one great story. My flights of fancy kept me sane throughout college and the first years of employment.
My workload eventually affected my free time and I could spare almost no energy to keep reading. At times, it was all I could do to get ready for bed before I actually fell asleep. Longer and longer hours at work kept me focused on spread sheets and PowerPoint presentations and e-mails, so there was no longer any room for imagination. After some time, I feared that I’d outgrown the world of imagination altogether or maybe that it had escaped me. Fortunately, that changed rather unexpectedly.
It was my day off and I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to take a walk and go window shopping. For me, that meant visiting all the closest stores that had books for sale. Shopping for books affects me like shopping for clothes or shoes affects other women. I suppose that means it takes a load off my mind, and besides, I hadn’t read a good book in a while.
At the second book shop I went to, they had a selection of graphic novels and comic books. I never really paid any attention to comic books and graphic novels, except for Pugad Baboy and Kikomachine comic books, which I think are indispensable to every Filipino who has a sense of humor. Still, since I was window shopping, I went through those shelves as well. Of course, there were the Marvel vs. Capcom type comic books, then you have the super hero ones. I picked up a Batman comic book and flipped through it for a few seconds. If there were any superheroes I liked it would be Batman because he is so human and the Martian Manhunter because he is not.
I browsed through a few more titles and was about to leave when a different set of comic books caught my eye. They were for a superhero that I didn’t recognize had never or even heard of before. I picked up the volume marked “1” and stared at the glossy cover. “Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes. I said to myself, “Who the hell is the Sandman?” I was trying to place the comic book in the Marvel vs. Capcom genre but it didn’t look like it fit there at all. Dying of curiosity, I flipped through the initial pages and was surprised to find an introduction. I’d never heard of a comic book with an introduction before. I flipped through that and landed smack in the middle of a story that I had never ever encountered in any nuance or incarnation. It blew me away. This did not even compare to the feeling of discovering alien worlds and alternate realities. I felt like I had discovered the Holy Grail of all stories.
I walked home that day with that comic book in my hand, I knew even then that I would be walking home from that book store with one more volume of that comic book on every pay day for the next 11 pay days...because I had to have all there was of this, this Holy Grail that I stumbled upon. In those pages, I found questions about existence and humanity. It raised questions about circumstances and the human condition. I would discuss these questions with my friends over coffee, lunch and smoke breaks...and while walking home from work. Why is it that other people remember their dreams and others don’t? Are there really people who do not dream at all? Why have we always seen Death as a grim reaper with a scythe...why could Death not be a young woman who is fond of eyeliner and spiky hair?
As I read my way through the series, stumbling every once in a while because I could not cope with everything that seemed to be happening all at once, old stories came back to me. The stories that I had read from when I was six, about the gods of Olympus and the gods of Asgard, jumping out of the pages of these books. The ancient gods of the Nile also existed in those pages, as if they had always belonged there. Here was the world where elves existed with humans and dreams were made of more than just whimsy. Most importantly, this is the home of the Endless. There are seven of them, in order of age, they are: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium (once known as Delight). They are not gods, though they are as old as all of existence. They rarely interfere with human affairs, and they do not seek anything, but simply to carry out their functions. They are ageless but are not immortal, they can die....but since they are functions, existence will replace them with another who will perform their functions...and yet, they are more human than even the Roman gods at times.
Dream is the center of this story, of this telling. He is Morpheus, he is the Sandman. He is powerful, and he holds everything that exists in dreams in the palm of his hand. Indeed, he made all of it. It is in his power to send people dreams that may make them mad, to create nightmares that can walk among humans, to preserve worlds that once existed inside tiny glass bottles. Despite all this power, Dream has the capacity to fall in love, still feels the need to be loved back...and knows that he has a duty to the universe and to existence.
There is no other hero in any other story that tells the story of humanity and existence quite like Dream. In his melancholy demeanor and his temper, you can find most of humanity. In his aspirations, you can find the future of all mankind. He does not limit his understanding to what are usually considered sentient beings, but also extends them to galaxies, stars, animals and every being that dreams...and yet he is no god.
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman brought my imagination back to me and taught me that it is not parallel universes and strange galaxies and advanced scientific discoveries that make existence interesting or worthwhile. It is the human condition and what it is that we hold inside our heads.