(Photo Credit: JVegas)

The buddy read of The Very Best of Charles de Lint continues with a double dosing of fun, 6 questions covering 6 stories. These have been some of my very favorite stories from the bunch as they feature much beloved characters of the Newford universe: Jilly, Sophie and the Crow Girls. The hope as always is that you find something in the questions and answers that inspires you to pick up the book and/or sparks a topic of conversation that you might like to join in right here and how.

As always, be sure to check out Kailana’s site here for her answers to these same questions.

The stories read these past two weeks were:

“Mr. Truepenny’s Book Emporium and Gallery”
“In the House of My Enemy”
“The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep”
“Birds”
“Held Safe by Moonlight and Vines”

1. If you could visit a place like the store in “Mr. Truepenny’s Book Emporium and Gallery”, which books/authors would you hope to find and read?

Quick insight: this story features a dream-created bookshop in which the protagonist can sit and read (and retain) books from famous authors that only exist in this dreamworld.

The first book I would look for in Mr. Truepenny’s would be Neil Gaiman’s sequel to Neverwhere, in which Richard, Door and the Marquis de Carabas would go in search of Lady Door’s missing sister alluded to in Neverwhere. Next would be an anthology entitled something cheesy like Stardust Dreams in which various talented fantasy authors (Peter S. Beagle, Charles de Lint, Terri Windling, a resurrected Angela Carter, and of course Neil himself, to name a few) would write stories set in the universe of Gaiman’s novel Stardust. Gaiman’s stories would be adventures that feature Tristran and Yvaine after they were married when they left the kingdom in secret to travel around the realm (as mentioned in the novel). Third would be a J.R.R. Tolkien penned volume of Aragorn’s adventures and romance with Arwen, covering everything from a brief introduction to his parents and race to his childhood to his involvement of the events leading up to the story in LOTR, while he was Strider, and then touching on events after his coronation. And then I’d like to read a new romantic comedy of errors or two from Oscar Wilde and a new set of horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

2. “In the House of My Enemy” is a pretty heavy, though well-told story. No question that I can come up with feels adequate in the face of the tale other than to simply ask what your reaction to this story was.

This story features two of my favorite characters, Jilly and Sophie, but like some (not all) of Charles de Lint’s stories, it speaks to the healing and the devastation of the abuse people often suffer in the real world at the hands of those who should care for them. These are not the kind of stories I generally purposefully seek out to read, but an author with the talent and grace of Charles de Lint pulls them off so very well. I enjoyed the way this story tells some of Jilly Coppercorn’s origin and mentions other recurring characters like the Angelina Marceau–Grasso Street Angel– and officer Lou. I’ve said often in reviews of books and story collections that Charles de Lint is an author whose stories really and truly have that extra little something because they don’t shy away from the ugly part of life but they introduce magic in such a way that it can bring healing and peace. And for a person like me who works in an agency that deals daily with broken people, it is inspiring to read stories about people being fixed and rising like a Phoenix from the ashes. De Lint’s stories are more realistic than the average fairy tales, because while some find a degree of happily ever after, others do not.

3. This is kind of the “Inception” question. As you read “The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep”, do you fall on the side of it being real or being just Sophie working out some of her issues, or do you not really find yourself choosing a side, so to speak?

I am an eternal optimist and someone who wants to believe in magic, so I am always reading stories and watching films that have this kind of “you decide” vibe and grasping on to the “its real” side. I feel that way about Inception and Pan’s Labyrinth, to name a couple of films. A strength of de Lint’s universe is the way that he handles the magical/mythological/folklore elements in relation to the characters. I truly believe Sophie has enchanted origins and that her refusal to fully give in to that idea makes her an interesting companion to Jilly. I’m sure at some point I would become exasperated if Sophie didn’t grow beyond denial, but even in these two stories (“Mr. Truepenny and this one) we see her beginning to open her mind, if even just a bit. The fact that her connection with magic happens only in dreams makes her an interesting contrast to the characters in Newford that can step back and forth in their waking moments.
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Before we go on to the next set of questions, I want to insert a suggestion here for those looking for a good sample of the kind of stories Charles de Lint tells. If you look at the three stories mentioned above, there is an inexplicable ordering of them that I just don’t agree with. In my opinion the ordering of this collection should have these three in the following pattern: “The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep”, “In the House of My Enemy” and then “Mr. Truepenny’s Book Emporium and Gallery”. All three stories read in this order provide a really nice introduction to what the Newford stories are all about and they line up Sophie’s chronology and allow you to spend some light and serious time with de Lint characters. If I wanted to introduce a newbie to Charles de Lint’s work, I think I would start with these three stories.
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1. In the story ‘Crow Girls’, there is an exploration of the effect the girls have on everyone that they meet. How did they make you feel reading about them?

“People stop and stare at them wherever they go, borrowing a taste of them, drawn by they don’t know what…”

The Crow Girls are fantastic. Sometimes sane, sometimes a bit crazy, they embody two things that have always fascinated me, girls and birds, particularly crows. As I have been reading this collection I have been doing something I haven’t done before when reading Charles de Lint and envisioning who I would want to play various parts if the Newford universe was realized on film or television. This may be a fun thing to discuss in our wrap up post. I have yet to pin down the Crow Girls. Charles de Lint presents them as characters who not everyone sees, but perhaps in their flitting in and out of people’s lives they do have some effect on those who may need to see them. It is fun to read this story and see how de Lint captures what we know of a bird’s personality so well in these two girls. Another really fun yet touching story I would recommend to anyone.

2. The story ‘Birds’ has a young woman wanting to block out all of the painful memories from her past by hearing the sound of birds constantly (a very dulled down description of what the story is about). Do you ever wish when something bad happens you could use magic to block it all out, or do you think it is better to remember?

I truly consider myself to be blessed in that I was raised in a very loving home and from my very birth I have had this solid foundation to stand upon, which has also grown more solid with my faith and with time. Because of that I don’t really find myself seeking that particular kind of escape in magic. When I am in the midst of bad situations, and I’ve been in some really bad ones, some self-inflicted and others just the ebb and flow of life, I’m sure I would be very tempted to take an “out” if one was presented. And looking back there are decisions that I made that still give me a painful stab of regret at what could have happened had I chosen differently. But even with those I think they make me who I am and give me the kind of perspective I need to be a blessing to others, to be there for others in their time of grief or tragedy. I think it is better to remember, but certainly not better to dwell or live in the past. I read something recently where someone said something to the effect that it is okay to look at the past as long as you are looking at it in the rearview mirror but that you should never turn around. I think I agree with that.

3. If you had a ‘safe’ place when you were a child, what would that be? (Even if you cannot actually relate to the experiences in ‘Held Safe by Moonlight and Vines’)

I didn’t have to have a safe place, per se, when I was a child, but I did have a place in my home that I would occasionally visit that was a safe and potentially magical place, and that was underneath the stairs in our home. The stairs formed a sort of cubby hole that merged into a closet so that you could step into the closet and then bend down and creep back underneath. My parents stored things there. Unlike say, my own basement, this was always kept clean and it was a fun, cool, slightly dark place to hide and play. I didn’t do it often, but I can remember times reading in there or just sitting in there imagining and dreaming. I would also add that the woods around the area I grew up were my other safe place, particularly during early pre and early adolescence. I would take long walks there, have conversations with myself and with God, would daydream and plan and work over the joys and occasional agonies of those days. Although I love having my parents living here in the Kansas City area now, it feels a bit bittersweet that the areas of my childhood rambles are no longer where my family is.

As always, this has been fun. Thanks Kailana! And please, everyone, feel free to talk about any of these things in the comments yourselves. We would love to hear your thoughts.