Eu estou curtindo esse arco, embora tenha muita referência - como todo o resto. Muito difícil dar conta de toda a simbologia. Deu vontade de ler Cidades Invisíveis de novo (Italo Calvino), já que a figura de Marco Polo aparece nesse volume. Se a coisa for convergente mesmo, a terceira parte também terá um caminhante em busca de alguma coisa. Vamos a ela, então!
"And all the time we spent in this place would fade and vanish, like a dawn dream on waking that colors the day but cannot be touched or remembered.
Marco Polo gets lost in the desert. Today I learned that there is a part of a desert in Turkey called Taklamakan, which is Turkik for "If you go in, you won't come out again." Coincidentally the "soft places" described in this chapter all have stories associated with them about people disappearing while there. The Australian Outback near Uluru (that place has power), Islands in the Pacific (where Amelia Earhart's plane supposedly vanished), Deserts, a hill in Ireland (gateway to the realm of Faerie). The only one I have not figured out is why there aren't any legends about a disappearing mountain in Arizona, unless it has something to do with a little known Native American legend.
Im Gegensatz zu den Abstechern zu Augustus, Robespierre und Co ist der Besuch bei Marco Polo leider eher zäh und ermüdend. Am Ende ist wenig mehr passiert als dass dem Sandman-Universum "soft places" hinzugefügt wurden, an denen die Trennung zwischen Traumwelt und Realität unklar wird.
In the Audible Original audio experience, Fables and Reflections actually comes before A Game of You (and also intertwined with Distant Mirrors). To be honest, this is a 3.5 for me. With such a harsh detour from the (main) characters and plot lines, I cannot recall a single thing that happened in this episode. Very dry but still happy to be in the universe overall. Happy to be done with this segment!
A story of Marco Polo as a boy becoming lost in the desert; he enters one of the Soft Places, a place where the boundary between reality and the Dreaming is not so clear as it is in most places.