The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint
138 pages
Published 1990
Read January 27
Rating: ★★ out of 5
As I've mentioned in a previous de Lint review, I've been looking forward to his novels -- the Newford Series in particular -- for well-night a decade, ever since I first spied Widdershins and its delightful cover art on the new-book display at Borders. De Lint's short stories, when I've encountered them in anthologies, have been the urban fantasy equivalent of junk food, pleasant and comforting but lacking in surprise or nuance, a competent product slung ably well. Someone I know describes the Newford novels in similar terms, saying they're his go-to junk reading -- which is scarcely an encouraging statement about a series that, per Wikipedia, comprises approximately twenty-three volumes at last count. That's a lot of junk to read. And this first volume, which I've finally gotten around to after ten years, sadly seems to confirm that assertion.
The first problem is, it's a young adult book, and whether it's the era in which it was written, or de Lint's own inexperience at this stage in his career, it isn't a particularly deft young adult book. In places it comes across as hopelessly patronizing: The troubled girl wears Metallica t-shirts! The nerdy girl idolizes Bill Murray and Chevy Chase! The name-checking feels inorganic and insincere, as far from the skillfully spun teen voice of Rainbow Rowell (or Holly Black, on her better days) as possible. The magical elements are most definitely symptoms of their time, with a Magical Black Woman (a transient street person by choice!) reading Metallica girl's tarot and a Magical Native American whisking them off to manitou-land in a cloud of pipe smoke. De Lint's prose lacks the more natural rhythms I remember from his later short stories, sounding here more like nails pounded in to hold the shaky scaffolding together. And there's a rather forced "Don't do drugs, kids!" message tossed in there, because it's 1990. It all made me wish Emma Bull had written more Twin Cities fantasy.
This wasn't, like, repellently bad or anything, but it is a shoddy beginning to a series I'm already beginning to question my devotion to. I mean... I do want to persevere to the likes of Someplace to Be Flying, The Onion Girl, and yes, even Widdershins -- but I might exercise some judicious skipping to get there.
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