Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

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Memory and Dream: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Dreams have magic in them. A few of us have the power to make that magic real. A masterwork by one of fantasy’s most gifted storytellers: a magnificent tale of love, courage, and the power of imagination to transform our lives.
This is the novel Charles de Lint’s many devoted readers have been waiting for, the compelling odyssey of a young woman whose visionary art frees ancient spirits into the modern world.
Isabelle Copley’s visionary art frees ancient spirits. As the young student of the cruel, brilliant artist Vincent Rushkin, she discovered she could paint images so vividly real they brought her wildest fantasies to life. But when the forces she unleashed brought tragedy to those she loved, she turned her back on her talent—and on her dreams.
Now, twenty years later, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied, and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams and bring the magic back to life.
Charles de Lint’s skillful blending of contemporary urban characters and settings with traditional folk magic has made him one of the most popular fantasy authors of his generation.
Memory and Dream is the most ambitious work of de Lint’s extraordinary career, an exciting tale of epic scope that explores the power our dreams have to transform the world-or make it a waking nightmare.
It is the story of Isabelle Copley, a young artist who once lived in the bohemian quarter of the northern city of Newford. As a student of Vincent Rushkin, a cruel but gifted painter, she discovered an awesome power—to craft images so real that they came to life. With her paintbrush she called into being the wild spirits of the wood, made her dreams come true with canvas and paint. But when the forces she unleashed brought unexpected tragedy to those she loved, she ran away from Newford, turning her back on her talent-and on her dreams.
Now, twenty years later, the power of Newford has reached out to draw her back. To fulfill a promise to a long-dead friend, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied, and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. She must accept her true feelings for her newfound lover John Sweetgrass, a handsome young Native American who is the image of her most intense imaginings. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams, and bring the magic back to life.
Charles de Lint - Novelist, poet, artist, and musician, Charles de Lint is one of the most influential fantasy writers of his generation. With such warmly received works as Spiritwalk, Moonheart, Into the Green, and Dreams Underfoot(also set in the town of Newford), he has earned high praise from readers and critics alike, Booklist has called him “one of the most original fantasy writers currently working.” And The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction writes: “De Lint shows us that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep, mythic literature of our time.” De Lint and his wife MaryAnn Harris, an artist, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where they are both Celtic musicians in the band Jump At the Sun. “For more than a decade, Charles de Lint has enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s leading fantasists.”— “A superb storyteller. De Lint has a flair for tales that blur the lines between the mundane world and magical reality, and nowhere is this more evident than in his fictional city of Newford.”— “De Lint can feel the beauty of the ancient lore he is evoking. He can well imagine what it would be like to conjure the Other World among ancient standing stones. His characters have a certain fallibility that makes them multidimensional and human, and his settings are gritty. This is no Disneylike Never-Never Land. Life and death in de Lint’s world are more than a matter of a few words or a magic crystal.” – “There is no better writer now than Charles de Lint at bringing out the magic in contemporary life ... The best of the post-Stephen King contemporary fantasists, the one with the clearest vision of the possibilities of magic in a modern setting.” — “In the fictional city of Newford, replete with the brutal realities of modern urban life, de Lint’s characters encounter magic in strange and unexpected places ... In de Lint’s capable hands, modern fantasy becomes something other than escapism. It becomes folk song, the stuff of urban myth.” —

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John nodded slowly. “The treeskin.”

“The what?”

“That’s what we call them—part tree, part manitou. Little mysteries made of bark and vine and bough.”

“So you know about him?”

“How could I ignore him? The poor little fellow’s been lost and scared ever since he arrived.

Someone had to look after him.”

“I never thought of that.”

John shrugged. “No one can think of everything.”

A flash of irritation went through Izzy. Though she doubted he’d done it on purpose, she didn’t like to be on the defensive. Not today.

“Why did you always play me along?” she asked.

She was surprised at how calm she felt. She’d barely slept the night before and all day long she’d been nervously rehearsing what she was going to say, how she was going to say it. But now that the moment had come, all her nervousness had fled. She felt only a melancholy resignation inside, a sense that something was ending, that she was bringing it to an end, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“Because your knowing changes everything,” John said.

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t meet as equals anymore. Every time you look at me now, you’re going to be reminded of how you brought me across from the before. You feel responsible for me. You think that I can’t be who or what I want to be without affirmation from you.”

“That’s not true. I mean, I know I brought you across, but ...” She sighed. “No. You’re right. That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“And the funny thing is, that’s the way it is for everyone. You can decide to call yourself Janet, but if everybody you ever meet insists on calling you Izzy, then you’re going to be Izzy whether you want the name or not. It’s that way for every facet of our lives—from the way we look to the careers we choose for ourselves. We all depend on other people to confirm who we are and what we’re doing here. The only difference with you and me is that with us this sense of confirmation is more specific. You think I exist because you painted me into existence. I know that I was somewhere else, in some before, and that you merely called me over.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying you didn’t make me. You just brought me here. The way you could go to Australia and bring a native of that country into this one. There’s no difference. None at all.”

“Except that Australia’s on the map.”

John nodded. “While in the before, there is only story.”

“You said that before, this thing about stories. First you said you came from nothing, then you said it was just a different kind of story from the one we’re in now.”

John looked away, over the snowy common of the Silenus Gardens.

“I don’t remember the before,” he said finally. “I came here and I had a name in my head. You painted me as a Kickaha, so I know the Kickaha. I know their history and their customs. You painted me in an urban setting, so I know this city. Everything else I learned as our story unfolded.”

“What about Rushkin? You tried to warn me against him when we first met.

John shook his head. “No. When we first met on the library steps I just wanted to make a connection with you. I didn’t know what he was until later. I didn’t warn you about him until we met in the lane behind his studio.”

“So what is he?”

“A monster.”

“That’s what he calls you.”

An anguished look crossed John’s features. “He feeds on us, Izzy. I don’t know how, but it has something to do with the way he destroys the paintings that call us over.”

“But he didn’t destroy them,” Izzy said. “The paintings he destroyed were the copies he made, not mine.”

John shrugged. “Whatever.”

“I know my own work, John. He didn’t destroy them.”

“You thought the painting fragment I showed you was your own work, too.”

“I know. But I was wrong. I just got confused because he’s so good. Naturally if he’s going to copy one of my paintings, it’d be perfect.”

“So how do you know which he burned?”

“Do you still have those dreams you told me about?”

Izzy shook her head. “Not for a few months. Now I keep dreaming about someone looking for me.”

“For you, or your paintings?”

“Me, I think,” Izzy said; then she shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“And have you done any paintings like the one of the treeskin at Rushkin’s studio where he could copy them?”

“No, but what does that prove?”

“It’s not just that we have a connection to you,” John told her. “You have a connection to us as well.

When we die, you are aware of it. You see it happen, if only in your dreams. You used to dream about Rushkin destroying your paintings. Now you’re dreaming about him looking for them.”

“How can that even be possible?” Izzy asked.

“After bringing us over from the before,” John said mildly, “you’re still arguing about what’s possible?”

“But why would Rushkin do it? I know he’s got problems, a bad temper, but he’s not evil.”

“Why is it that you can’t picture him as evil? Because he creates such beautiful works of art?”

Could that really be the reason? Izzy thought. And was it also the reason that she let him mistreat her in ways she wouldn’t take from any other person? Had her values become so twisted around that she simply couldn’t perceive of Rushkin as a monster because of his talent?

“Here’s another experiment you can try,” John said. “Since he can’t seem to find the paintings you’ve done at the professor’s greenhouse, the next time you want to call one of us over, do the painting at his studio where he won’t have any trouble finding it. Leave it there for him to ‘copy.’ Then wait for the dreams to start again.”

“What an awful thing to say! I couldn’t do something like that.”

“Why not? Is it any worse than turning a blind eye to what he does to us? We’re real, Izzy. You might call us over, but once we’re here, we’re real. I’ll grant you we’re different. We don’t need to eat and we can’t dream. We don’t age. Physically, we don’t change at all from how we’re brought across.

But we’re still real.”

“Stop it!” Izzy cried. She shook her head and turned away from him. “You’re mixing me all up until I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“You mean you don’t know what you want to believe. You’ve no problem believing that you’re like some little god who can bring whatever she wants to life with a few daubs of paint and a canvas, but not that these creations might have a life of their own beyond your influence. And heaven help anyone who suggests that perhaps you should take responsibility for what you’re doing. That perhaps your precious Rushkin presents a danger to us—a danger that you could avert simply by accepting the truth and keeping us away from him.”

It was going all wrong, Izzy realized. She’d only come here tonight to try to get John to open up to her. She hadn’t been expecting a confrontation. She’d wanted to get closer to him, but instead they were being driven apart. When she looked at him now, she saw a stranger sitting beside her on the bench.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked.

“I’m not trying to do anything except get you to face up to the responsibility of your actions.”

“You lied to me before when I asked you about the connection between my painting and yourself.

Why should I believe you now?”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you the whole—”

But Izzy didn’t let him finish.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” she said.

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