Customer Reviews

Moonlight and Vines: A Newford Collection

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

With "Moonlight and Vines" Mr. De Lint returns his readers to the familiar streets of Newford, reacquainting us with characters well known and loved and a few new ones. While his first collection, "Dreams Underfoot," had the sprightly, fey spirit of Jilly Coppercorn tripping through it; and the second "The Ivory and the Horn," the low murmur of a Native American drumming; this third collection, has taken a darker, more Gothic turn. Cemeteries and nighttime figure largely, poetically in the settings, whether an actual place or mood met within the characters, is up to the reader to decide.

One of Mr. De Lint's talents has ever been displaying the hidden corners of an individual's soul, touching upon a common chord of sadness or despair, then clearing a path through it. He promotes what some might consider an old-fashioned concept: there is always hope and a way to get beyond one's own pain. That he is able to do this, without sounding like a wide-eyed Pollyanna, is a true gift. Reminded of the interconnectedness of everything, his characters and the reader emerge from the pages with the feeling that through their actions and compassion, they can change the world.

The value of dreaming, highlighted in "If I Close My Eyes Forever," gives a nod and a smile to Neil Gaiman's equally rich world of the Endless. "The Invisibles" teaches an artist that not only street people can lose their shape and identity. Anyone who has ever lost someone through distance or death, cannot fail to be deeply touched by "Wild Horses." I would go on about each of the stories, at length, but that would surely spoil the pleasure of discovery which accompanies reading them.

Were he to entirely remove the fantasy element from his work, Mr. De Lint would still have beautiful, complete stories and characters. That he does include magic, real magic of the world seen and unseen, is a constant joy and delight. There are very few authors who can actually move me to tears or laughter in public places, Mr. De Lint is numbered among them. I was introduced to his work the way one always finds the best books. A friend handed me a copy of "Dreams Underfoot" and said: "You MUST read this." In the years since, I've done the same to many others. With "Moonlight and Vines," I will continue to do so.

Charles de Lint has an amazing way of writing; I can only compare his style to Guy Gavriel Key, which makes me think that there is something truly magical in the waters up in Canada. When de Lint writes, you feel a strong tug at your deepest core; you know he is writing about a truth, even if you have yourself never seen balloon people -- they are true on a level beyond something seen on the news.

Many writers currently seem determined to make faeries and other magical creatures very nice, very sweet, and altogether sappy. In these short stories we find nice creatures. We also find not quite so nice ones. We also find quite horrid ones, ones that would make our nightmares sit up and take notice. We find here the wellspring for artistic inspiration and the black void that leads to drug overdoses, the spirit of freedom and the freedom that goes too far and leads to madness. Here is hope, despair, and every other emotion, sometimes whispering, sometimes crying defiantly, but always with a sense that there is a truth here, no matter how much it may seem like a "mere fairy tale".

This is an important point -- de Lint is writing about reality, about real lives, about real feelings, about real emotions. There is a touch of magic to this, from the woman who doesn't want to admit that she sees things others do not, to the man who falls too in love with a photograph. What de Lint is writing about is what makes us ourselves, whether that is very good or very not good; he writes about fears, lusts, emotional expression, distrust, scams, and dozens of other human activities with a passion and an honesty that few can match or manage. In the end these works may be seen as parables, as internal explanations, or almost anything else, but ultimately they are beautiful works, very poignant, and full of sadnss, beauty, joy, and fear. They are raw expressions of all that happens in our world, coloured slightly by a dusting of the fey and the careful tread of a coyote in his moccasins.

Read, love, cry, and feel.

The short stories in Charles de Lint's `Moonlight & Vine aren't really fantasies per se - rather they are tales of wounded people - mostly women, who are lonely, despairing, lacking self worth or confidence, unable to maintain healthy relationships, sexually confused, and carrying around old hurts from abusive fathers, departed lovers, and totally dysfunctional families. These people don't take their problems to therapist. Instead, they work them out through encounters with ghosts, vampires, guardian angels, and various spirits and creatures from the spirit world of faerie.
I first encountered Charles de Lint twenty-one years ago when I read his excellent novel `Moonheart'. His unique style of urban fantasy and mixture of old and new world mythologies intrigued me and drew me into his work. Over time, however, his writing concentrated less on the elements that drew me to him, and more on the themes of wounded people working out their recovery through his fantastic world of faerie. While I'm sure there must be a market for this type of writing, it holds no appeal for me. I stopped reading him for a long time, but this past month I decided to give him another try to see if perhaps he had returned to his old magic. Unfortunately, the answer was no. In `Moonlight & Vines' he has given over almost entirely to writing about the walking wounded - emotionally crippled characters. The fantasy elements that are present are so peripheral to these stories that it could almost be removed entirely without significantly changing them.
I believe that De Lint has discovered a niche market with these psychological tales of women wounded from sexual and physical abuse working out their healing and that he now caters to it almost exclusively. In `Moonlight & Vine" he includes a strong current of lesbianism - usually women discovering that they can make connections with other women rather than with men who have always abused them; this appears to play to the same audience. He writes well enough, and if you are drawn to the subject matter, you should enjoy his work. If, however, like me, you find the whole thing rather dreary, you will want to avoid `Moonlight & Vines'. De Lint has come a long way from his outstanding novel `Moonheart', and the magic that vibrated through it is only a distant echo, almost lost within the psychodrama of this collection of tales.

Theo Logos

Fantasy that takes place on another world, with a bunch of characters' names that look like someone stepped on the typewriter keys, is not my thing. (I do make the exception for Tolkien, since his world is based on legends from ours). And most urban fantasy is very dark and depressing, as if magic can't exist on our plane without becoming warped and twisted. I have been a de Lint fan for many years, since reading Moonheart -- his brand of urban fantasy appeals to me, since I love the idea of 'other' impacting on our world. His creation of Newford is typical of any big city anywhere in the world -- there is good and bad about it, light and dark, much like magic itself. I have read all the Newford stories, and this collection is by far the best of them all. I have read a couple reviews that complain de Lint's writing here is too 'happy', that it lacks an edge. I disagree -- the stories don't all end happily. What he has done with them, however, is have them end hopefully. Things may not be perfect for the characters by the end of the story, but whatever problems they still have, they are now equipped to deal with them. I don't need 'happily ever after', but I do like 'this too shall pass'. And I so want to visit the Wordwood .... Buy, beg, or borrow a copy of this, and prepare for one of the most mystical and amazing reads of your life.

This is the first book of Charles de Lint I have read and I was fascinated by his vision and perception of "reality". I am currently on my second reading of the book and there is so much in between the lines, so much true emotions, pain, love, fear, happiness, sadness, etc. I was sorry for the reader who commented this book was full of violence because he missed the mark. This book should not be used as an escape "from" our problems but "to" a different perception and ways of seeing things. Pain is all around us(have you watched the news lately?)but there is also redemption, and hope and that is what Mr. de Lint is helping us see through the characters in this magical book. I highly recommend it to every reader to read it more than once.

The young girl in "Pain Management" by Andrew Vachss is very involved with books by Charles de Lint. Vachss is a wonderful writer in many ways - one of which is that his characters listen to REAL music and REAL books. I followed Vachss's lead and bought (and fell in love with) Judy Henske, so I continued on, and bought a few de Lint books.

I don't have the words to tell you how wonderful "Moonlight and Vines" is. That would be like my telling you that a baby's first steps are "wonderful."

This is a collection of short stories whose characters continue to weave a delicate connection of lace from story to story. The city is the same throughout. It's a hard city filled with gentle souls. From "I envy the music that lovers hear," the first line of the first story, I was HOOKED.

When I have time, I read a book a day. Please, look at the other books I've reviewed. I've read enough books to be able to base an opinion on what is good and what is bad. This, my friends, is the best book I have read in a long time. Best. Superlative. In our current scary times, it's wonderful to be able to escape to a place where everything sure isn't perfect, but where there are good people.

_Moonlight and Vines_ is a well-written collection of stories, set in a modern city, intended to give the reader a sense of wonder, and make us believe that there is magic afoot, even in our most run-down urban slums.

Charles de Lint is wonderful at treading that line between fantasy and realism, where we wonder right along with the characters, "what is real?" That is his biggest talent; his biggest flaw is trying too hard to insert a moral into each of these stories. They all seem to be making a point. Sometimes this is annoying; sometimes the story is so good I don't mind at all. Still, I would have given the book three stars, since the moralizing tends to place an artificial distance between the reader and the story.

Then I read "Birds". My favorite story in the anthology, it deals with two young women's search for peace of mind, and the rituals they use to find it. De Lint has captured the very essence of magic and of personal ritual. I'm a pagan/witchy type, and I've read so many formulaic lists of "spell ingredients" I could puke; de Lint's description of the women's search for certain objects of personal value is right on the money. I want to copy the whole darn story into my BOS.

I have read two of DeLint's collections: Dreams Underfoot and Moonlight and Vines. I absolutely loved Dreams Underfoot, and couldn't wait to read more--but this book disappointed me. The stories are too repetitious, and most of them don't stand up to DeLint's usual standard of quality (or what I assume his standard is; I've only read two of his books, after all). However, there are a few real gems in here, my favorite being the one about Pandora's Box (I'd give you the name, but I can't find my copy). I recommend this book only for serious fans of DeLint. Everyone else should read Dreams Underfoot first (and ignore the stupis cover design).

I'm about 2/3rds of the way through this collection of stories and after most of the tales I think to myself, "That one was my favorite". Thank goodness they are short stories or I'd never be able to put this book down.

This is my first book by de Lint, and my first exposure to "urban fantasy". I am delighted. It is almost Twilight Zonish- you feel that some of these things really could happen, and that they could even happen to you. As I've grown older I was moving away from the fantasy genre, but this has reawakened my love of magical possibilites. These are real characters, partially in a world I'm familiar with, touching on worlds I wish existed.

I've already bought other copies for two of my friends. I highly recommend picking this one up.

The first time I read this book I was a bit disappointed. I loved the first story (Saskia) and liked the others to varying degrees, but I really didn't think many compared to my favorites (Timeskip from Dreams Underfoot, the one about Sophie's mom in Ivory and the Horn). I've read it several times since, and I really must say that I feel much differently. There is one story I still don't like much, but the others have -- grown on me? Not exactly. It's more like I'm able to appreciate them more after a second or third or fourth reading. I think in colors sometimes, and while Ivory and the Horn was mostly shades of purples and blues, this ranges from shades of green and grey to blood-red and black and taupe and other browns. (I don't know if that's at all helpful, but maybe if you think like I do, it is.)

With some of the stories, if you know where they came from, they make more sense. There is one that came from a horror collection -- two, maybe -- and one is from a collection about castles (that would be the title story) . . .

I suppose if you're looking for the same characters (Jilly, Sophie, Geordie, etc.) you'll get some of them, but Christy has really been expanded, and many new people vaguely associated with the regulars are similarly changed. This new crop is at least on the level of his usual characters. There is a bit more of a concentration on the fringe element than usual, though.

No, as other people have said, this isn't the place to start. To understand the characters, you have to read Dreams Underfoot and The Ivory and the Horn -- and to a point, Memory and Dream, Trader, Someplace to be Flying, and The Dreaming Place. One really must discover the characters as he did.

But it isn't an unworthwhile book. Quite the opposite, really. From the first sentence of Saskia ("I envy the music lovers hear") to the end of the author's note (wherein he tells you his webpage -- find it if you're at all interested!) it is quite thoroughly de Lint. I can't wait for the next book (June 2000, I think) to come out.