Moonlight & Vines

by Charles de Lint

Book Overview

Return to Newford

Familiar to Charles de Lint's ever-growing audience as the setting of the novels Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and many others, Newford is the quintessential North American city, tough and streetwise on the surface and rich with hidden magic for those who can see.

In the World Fantasy Award-winning Moonlight and Vines, de Lint returns to this extraordinary...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765309173
• ISBN13: 9780765309174
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Magic in the real world

Fantasy that takes place on another world, with a bunch of characters' names that look like someone stepped on the typewriter keys, is not my thing. (I do make the exception for Tolkien, since his world is based on legends from ours). And most urban fantasy is very dark and depressing, as if magic can't exist on our plane without becoming warped and twisted. I have been a de Lint fan for many years, since reading Moonheart -- his brand of urban fantasy appeals to me, since I love the idea of 'other' impacting on our world. His creation of Newford is typical of any big city anywhere in the world -- there is good and bad about it, light and dark, much like magic itself. I have read all the Newford stories, and this collection is by far the best of them all. I have read a couple reviews that complain de Lint's writing here is too 'happy', that it lacks an edge. I disagree -- the stories don't all end happily. What he has done with them, however, is have them end hopefully. Things may not be perfect for the characters by the end of the story, but whatever problems they still have, they are now equipped to deal with them. I don't need 'happily ever after', but I do like 'this too shall pass'. And I so want to visit the Wordwood .... Buy, beg, or borrow a copy of this, and prepare for one of the most mystical and amazing reads of your life.

Magic is alive, and that is not always pretty

Charles de Lint has an amazing way of writing; I can only compare his style to Guy Gavriel Key, which makes me think that there is something truly magical in the waters up in Canada. When de Lint writes, you feel a strong tug at your deepest core; you know he is writing about a truth, even if you have yourself never seen balloon people -- they are true on a level beyond something seen on the news.Many writers currently seem determined to make faeries and other magical creatures very nice, very sweet, and altogether sappy. In these short stories we find nice creatures. We also find not quite so nice ones. We also find quite horrid ones, ones that would make our nightmares sit up and take notice. We find here the wellspring for artistic inspiration and the black void that leads to drug overdoses, the spirit of freedom and the freedom that goes too far and leads to madness. Here is hope, despair, and every other emotion, sometimes whispering, sometimes crying defiantly, but always with a sense that there is a truth here, no matter how much it may seem like a "mere fairy tale".This is an important point -- de Lint is writing about reality, about real lives, about real feelings, about real emotions. There is a touch of magic to this, from the woman who doesn't want to admit that she sees things others do not, to the man who falls too in love with a photograph. What de Lint is writing about is what makes us ourselves, whether that is very good or very not good; he writes about fears, lusts, emotional expression, distrust, scams, and dozens of other human activities with a passion and an honesty that few can match or manage. In the end these works may be seen as parables, as internal explanations, or almost anything else, but ultimately they are beautiful works, very poignant, and full of sadnss, beauty, joy, and fear. They are raw expressions of all that happens in our world, coloured slightly by a dusting of the fey and the careful tread of a coyote in his moccasins.Read, love, cry, and feel.

I read a LOT and this is the best book I've read in years.

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.

There is magic in this book, a must read

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.

"Touch the magic, pass it on!"

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.