Moonlight and Vines ~Charles de Lint

–published 1999
–384 pages, Orb Books
–Winner of the World Fantasy Award, 2000
–4/5 stars

for all those
who seek light
in the darkness

for all those
who shine light
into the darkness

Thus opens this World Fantasy Award winning book of short stories set in and around Charles de Lint’s fictional North American city, Newford. Charles de Lint is an author whose discovery I can attribute (both in my personal life and literally) to Terri Windling and the wonderful things she has done through places like Endicott Studio. If you are unfamiliar with Charles de Lint you can read more about my thoughts on the man in my review of Widdershins, my first glorious foray into the world he has created. You can also visit his website here.

I began this collection with a bit of trepidation, wondering just how familiar with Newford and de Lint’s characters I would have to be to enjoy these stories. As I read the opening tale, Saskia, I seemed to feel that I got more out of the story because I knew some of the characters from their presence in Widdershins. However, the more I got into the collection the more I realized that each and every story is a sort of magical vignette, not as important because of the character(s) present in the story but for what was happening to them. And the things that occur in these stories are things that not only shine a light on the human condition but allow us to see what effect hope, belief, and magic can have on the lives of those who choose to either embrace or deny that there might just be more out there than meets the eye.

From Charled de Lint’s website bio:

De Lint says he hopes his stories will encourage people to “pay attention to how many special things there are in the real world.” He regards his greatest artistic achievement as “the moment when a reader tells me that something I’ve written has inspired them to go out and create something of their own. Or that the story has helped them through a difficult time or prompted them to help others.”

Charles de Lint is a talented writer. Pick up one of his books and see for yourself. With relative ease one gets comfortable and familiar with the characters and soon is lost. One of the many reasons why I feel de Lint’s work is so easy to connect with is that there is an underlying thread of healing in his works. Sometimes subtly, sometimes less so, Charles de Lint addresses the hurtful things that we humans do to each other but does so in a way that offers hope and healing to the hurting soul. It is quite amazing to read a story that has a message and yet presents it in a way that it doesn’t overwhelm the story. I believe you can read Charles de Lint’s work and walk away being completely and utterly enchanted by the story without really thinking about or noticing the message and yet it seeps into your subconscious and is there for the taking if you want or need it. He is a very unique writer. I read:

“But she still had a deficit, a kind of hollow in her heart from which bits and pieces of her spirit trickled away, like coins will from a hole in your pocket. Nothing she couldn’t live without, but she missed them all the same.”

and I am in awe of his mastery of language. An additional treat in reading Charles de Lint is his inclusion of art and music and writing into the lives of the characters he introduces to us. For those of us who love these various creative outlets, reading Charles de Lint is like having your cake and eating it too.

There is no need for me to go story by story through this collection and rate them. Suffice it to say that this is a beautiful collection of stories. There is a familiarity and connection between each tale that gives them a sameness and yet each is a unique glimpse into a life that tells an interesting, sometimes moving, story.

To best describe this collection and my reactions to it I think about Mona’s words in the story My Life as a Bird:

…I’ve touched a piece of real magic. Now, no matter how grey and bland and pointless the world might seem sometimes, I just have to remember that there really is more to everything than what we can see. Everything has a spirit that’s so much bigger and brighter than you think it could hold.

Me, too.

That really sums up this collection. Each story indeed is much bigger and brighter than it appears. And this not only sums up my feelings on the book but also my feelings about Charles de Lint. Not only that, it encapsulates the essence of why I host the Once Upon a Time Challenge and my thoughts about the wonders of life and the wonders of story and art and where they can take us:

“I think I’ll stop listening to that voice whispering, ‘as if’, and hold onto what I experience, no matter how far it strays from what’s supposed to be.

I’m going to live here, in the Fields We Know, fully, but I’m not going to let myself forget how to visit the fields beyond these fields. I’ll go there with words on the page, but without them, too. Because it’s long past time to stop letting pen and ink be the experience, instead of merely recording it.”