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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“Why did you never make yourself known? Why didn’t you join us?”

“I didn’t feel I belonged.”

“Paddyjack was always talking about meeting you in the woods but I thought it was just another one of those stories he likes to tell. You know, the way he makes something up because that’s the way he wishes it could really be.”

“I remember,” John said, smiling. But then his features grew serious once more. “I’d give my life for him. I’d give my life for any of you, but especially for Isabelle.”

“Even though you don’t feel you belong with any of us? Even though Isabelle sent you away?”

“None of that changes the way I feel,” John said. “Knowing you are safe makes my exile bearable.”

“But you never had to be an exile.”

“You don’t understand, Cosette. You’re more like Isabelle is. All of you are. You sing and dance and paint and tell stories. I have only one talent. I’m a hunter, a warrior. When Isabelle sent me away I realized there was no place for someone like me in your lives. But I could still watch over you. I could still protect you.”

“That’s what you’ve done all these years?”

“Partly. I’ve also tried to teach myself gentler arts.” A sad smile touched his lips. “I haven’t been particularly successful.”

“But neither have I,” Cosette said. “With my painting, I mean. We need the red crow to be any good.”

John shook his head. “A red crow will let you do what Isabelle and Rushkin can do—bring others across. You don’t need it for your art to prosper.”

“You can’t have looked very closely at my pictures then.”

“What you lack is patience, Cosette, not a red crow.”

Cosette ducked her head so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.

“But none of that matters now,” she said without looking up. “Not with the dark man’s return.”

“I won’t let him hurt you,” John assured her. “I said I would give up my life for you. I would also take a life.”

Cosette lifted her gaze until it met his.

“Me, too,” she said, surprising herself because she realized it was true. She didn’t feel any braver than she had before. If anything, she was more scared. But she knew she would do it. Isabelle and the others were the closest she had by way of a family. They were bound by deeper ties than blood and dreams. She would do anything to protect them.

“It really is true, isn’t it?” she added hopefully. “What Rosalind always says. We are real.”

John nodded. “The lack of a red crow only makes us different.”

“If we weren’t real, we wouldn’t care so much about each other, would we?”

John gave her a long thoughtful look. “I think that’s what makes us real,” he said finally.

He stood up and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans.

“How will we find the dark man?” Cosette asked.

“Isabelle will know where he is. He left a piece of himself in her when he went away. It’ll tell her where he is.”

They closed their eyes, waking their own connection to Isabelle. Cosette opened her eyes in alarm to find a similar worried expression in John’s. “She’s already found him,” Cosette said.

“Or he’s found her,” he said grimly.

Cosette’s newfound courage faltered. “We really have to kill him, don’t we?”

“We have to try,” John said. “Though I don’t know if it’s possible for us to actually kill him. He’s a maker and makers will always wield a certain power over our kind—even if he didn’t bring us across himself. Maybe only Isabelle can kill him.”

Cosette shook her head. “Isabelle could never hurt anyone.”

John gave her an odd look. Then, without waiting to see if Cosette would follow, he set off down the alleyway at a brisk pace, heading north toward the burnedout tenements and abandoned buildings that made up that part of Newford known as the Tombs. Cosette hesitated for only a moment before hurrying off to join him.

X

Across town from her numena, Isabelle was as frightened as Cosette, but for another reason. She had no idea where her captors were taking her, or what was going to happen to her. All she knew was that it would involve Rushkin, and seeing him again made her feel even more afraid.

Cowardice, she remembered Rushkin telling her once, was a crime like any other. “The difference is,” he explained, “is that it’s boring. You don’t so much commit cowardice as surrender to it. We live in a world that seems to celebrate cowardly behavior, Isabelle, except we call it compromise. We call it getting along. Not making waves. We don’t stand by our convictions anymore because we’re too busy trying to make sure that we don’t upset anybody. I don’t care if it’s with our art, or confronting injustice, nine out of ten times the average person will let the world run roughshod over them because they’re too intimidated to make a stand and stick to it.”

“But where do you expect people to find that kind of courage?” Isabelle had asked. “This is the world we live in. If we didn’t get along with each other all that would be left would be chaos.”

“Who wants to live in a world where you have to be a coward to get along?”

“The world isn’t so black and white,” Isabelle had said.

“No, but it could be if we stopped compromising our values. We have to confront evil, no matter where we find it, and then stand up to it.”

Isabelle had shaken her head. “The world isn’t like that. People aren’t like that. How are they supposed to become brave when the best most of us can ever seem to to manage is to avoid a confrontation?”

“By not surrendering,” Rushkin replied. “It’s that simple. If you believe in the truth of what you’re doing, why in god’s name would you want to compromise?”

“But—”

“We owe it to our art to face the truth without flinching. We owe it to ourselves. Every so-called advantage that evil has can also be used against it. The world isn’t fair, in and of itself. We have to make it fair.”

Rushkin had always remained true to his ideals, but at what cost, Isabelle had remembered thinking more than once when she saw the way he lived. Alone and friendless, with only his art.

Kathy had always remained true to her ideals, as well, though unlike Rushkin, she was willing to compromise when necessary. Still, there were some things that remained forever sacrosanct to her.

She’d fought injustice wherever it confronted her; she’d never compromised the vision that drove her to write; she’d created the Newford Children’s Foundation and worked on its front lines, dedicating herself to what she called the four C’s necessary for successful guerrilla social work: cash, contributing, counseling and consoling. You gave what you could. Money, if you didn’t have the time.

Kathy wouldn’t have found herself in her own present situation, Isabelle thought. They’d both taken a self-defense course, but here it was, the first time Isabelle had found herself confronted with actual violence since taking that course, and she’d surrendered. Kathy wouldn’t have. Kathy would have booted Bitterweed between the legs and made a break for it. She wouldn’t be sitting here, allowing herself to be driven to god knew where.

Isabelle sighed. But she wasn’t Kathy, was she?

The car pulled over to the curb in front of an abandoned tenement and Scara killed the engine. She turned in her seat and leaned her arms on the backrest, hunger glittering in her eyes.

“End of the line, sweetheart,” she said.

Isabelle shivered. I could still try to stand up for myself, she thought as Bitterweed pulled her from the car. I could still fight them. But what was the point?

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