The Sandman

I really loved The Sandman; it reminded me of Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler. The Sandman isn't quite as blatantly meta-fictional, but it certainly contains some of the same nuances as Calvino's novel. For example, the power of words and ability or iniability to express oneself through language are frequent topics in The Sandman, leading the reader to consider the story itself and its succes or failure to communicate. Language, not just as a tool, but as an art, is also a topic of consideration. First, the narrator explictly tells us that "the poet can do no more than capture the strangeness of reality, like the dim reflection in a dull mirror" (99). What does this tell us about the truth contained in the story? Doesn't this also lend greater significance to the many layers of the story (much like If on a winter's night a traveler) - characters, letter-writers, narrator, author, reader, the book as an artifact - a complexity mirrored in the story itself by the divided personalities, false humans, and blurred barriers between dream/reality.

There is a lot going on this story, and so much to discuss. Aside from the meta-fiction aspects, I'm also interested in what it is saying about objective truth and how we can arrive at it (intuition vs. logic).