Bone

You’d have to be blind to not appreciate the frolicking imagination of Jeff Smith’s modern epic. It had been a while and I got my hands on a set of copies and devoured the whole thing in less than a month. Bone is the kind of story structure that makes me yearn for stories like it. Much of Bone is calm, letting the beauty of the landscape of a valley enchant you, & then it will tell a joke so stupid that it will stick with you til the next time you read it decades later. Jeff Smith is a master, and this story has so much to say. I hope it’s celebrated for decades to come.

Dreaming

The metaphor of the dreaming as a life force that sort of surrounds us as a miasma, an earthly hum. The eternal now, vibrating in and around all of us. The mountain animal children speak about it in Roque Ja call it the hum. The Veni-Yan have dedicated themselves to understanding this hum, and have found ways of navigating the dreaming. And I think that dreaming is such a perfect magic system. Magic is not turning water into wine, not lead into gold, nor a fancy card trick. Magic is the recognition that we are made of symbols. Symbols of people, places, jobs, experiences, summers lazily reading in the sun. You would have a perfect understanding of the you that is you if you were to just lay your head down & dream. That is where the world inside your own mind can soar to new heights & explore new depths. Cultivate that dreaming mind, because you need it more than it needs you.

Rose

I must also mention Rose, the prequel book written by Smith & illustrated by Charles Vess, who I’m inclined to check out. The art and tone of this is without the Bone creatures, and much less silly. It’s grim, dark, brooding, hungry. The gore fits so well, & the story structure of a young hero going to kill a dragon is just so picturesque and unique at the same time that I can’t help but be obsessed. It’s a beautiful book, and it’s by far the most striking part about the Bone series to me. It gives us a window into this world outside of the perspective of a cartoon character. Rose is much less playful, although the playfulness of the dreaming has always been there & always will.