In Search of the Modern Myth...
Since time immemorial, people have used myth to sustain themselves. It comforted us, and showed us how to live, but more importantly, that we were not alone. But we have lost that feeling. For too many, religious traditions anchored in a world thousands of years past have lost their relevance, and what remains in a world without meaning. Still, all is not lost. Joseph Campbell spoke for decades about the importance of mythology, and our need for it in modern life. What remains to be seen is whether someone can create a new myth: one that is appropriate to the modern age, but still connects us to the traditions and legacy of generations past.
Neil Gaiman's comics series The Sandman is just such a work: as multifaceted as myth itself. It shows us the world outside and the world inside -- and that they are one and the same. Its story, of the Endless, beings greater than all the gods, and of Morpheus, the Dream King, as he transforms into something even greater than the Endless: a person. Along the way, it shows us, as Campbell wrote, "how to live a human lifetime."
Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth is the first book-length scholarly study of Neil Gaiman's visionary work. Through an examination of dreams and myth, the hero's journey, death and change, the sociological dimension of myth, freedom and responsibility, and the role of the artist in fashioning myth, I explain how Gaiman's work can being meaning into a supposedly "meaningless" age. For our instinct for the sacred and for religious feeling is alive and well, even if we do not always choose to recognize it. For even when the established religions fail us, there is always hope. In many ways, The Sandman is about hope, that most precious of human qualities. Given the problem of the modern age, if we are to live, we need hope. And no matter what, there is always hope.
Praise for Stephen Rauch:
"Was sent, and read, a copy of Stephen Rauch's book Neil Gaiman's the Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of Modern Myth from Wildside Press. It was good, readable and intelligent, all three of which which came as a huge relief to me. You could probably teach a pretty good SANDMAN class using just that and Hy Bender's Sandman Companion."
-Neil Gaiman
"Every page of this book sings with Rauch's enthusiasm for the topic. The research is breathtaking in scope and depth, and Sandman is long overdue for serious academic discussion. Kudos to Rauch for leading the way."
-Katherine Keller, Sequential Tart
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