Moonlight and Vines

Rating:
Summary: I read a LOT and this is the best book I've read in years.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: I read a LOT and this is the best book I've read in years.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Newest Newford Collection is a "must read"
Review: This collection is a wonderful addition to the Newford Mythology. There is a wide variety of story-telling to be had, here. The best quality may be the display of magicks and magics in the mundane world; how we can be of the mundane DNA chain, and still create a touch of real magic in this world.

Rating:
Summary: Not nearly as good as De Lint's usual
Review: This collection of short stories just doesn't compare to what Mr. De Lint is capable of. There are a handful of decent stories here, but no gems, and quite a bit of forgettable fare. Unless you're a truly serious fan of his, don't buy this. To know what he can do, check out Trader or Someplace to be Flying for longer fiction, or Dreams Underfoot for better short stories. Just stay clear of this book as a starter.

Rating:
Summary: There is magic in this book, a must read
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: This is the most heart touching book those odd people out there.

Rating:
Summary: Too much abuse/too little magic
Review: What happened between DREAMS UNDERFOOT and MOONLIGHT AND VINES?--the abuse that was so prevalent in IVORY AND HORN has taken over completely. It seems in Newford the only way to discover the magic now is to come from such a crippled and abused background that you can't function in this world anymore. All the stories devolve into subject of the year abuse stories with hints that magic acts as only as a counselor. Add to that mix the titillation of lesbianism from half the stories and one has to wonder where this is going? The magic left Newford because it couldn't take the pain and neither could I.

Rating:
Summary: "Touch the magic, pass it on!"
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The search for magic continues
Review: _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.