| Title | : | The Ivory and the Horn (Newford, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812534085 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812534085 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 338 |
| Publication | : | First published April 1, 1995 |
Charles de Lint began his chronicles of the extraordinary city of Newford in "Memory & Dream" and the short-story collection "Dreams Underfoot." In "The Ivory and the Horn, " this uncommonly gifted craftsman weaves a new tapestry of stark realism and fond hope, mean streets and boulevards of dreams, where you will rediscover the power of love and longing, of wishes and desires, and of the magic that hovers at the edge of everyday life.
The Ivory and the Horn (Newford, #3) Reviews
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I was first introduced to deLint's world of urban fantasy with his book, Dingo, and it was love at first word. He has the ability to look beyond the day to day struggles and show the magic of the world around us, a dream world where all is possible and the inhabitants take on a life of their own, blending mythology, the spirit world, fantasy and reality together and inviting his readers to join him.
I must confess though that I truly lack an appreciation of short stories. I've always preferred a full length novel that has the time to develop the characters as well as building a well executed plot line, things not available in short stories. That being said, I also have so great an appreciation for the tales told by Charles deLint that I thought I'd give it a shot. In true deLint style he presented 15 short stories that introduced us to fairies, wood spirits, desert spirits and other magical beings we've seen in folklore from around the world. Each story was well crafted, some of which I loved, others less so, but when taken as a whole seemed to lack a cohesive flow leaving the tales to blend together in what I felt was a bit muddled fashion.
Not being a veteran short story reader I fear that I approached and read the book in the wrong way. I read it as though it was a regular length novel without leaving enough time between stories, time to digest what I had read and to savor each tale on its own merits. I wish I had used a different method and read one short story per night so that I could have appreciated the book more, the way it deserved. I started out loving it but for the reasons given lost much of my enthusiasm. Still, deLint remains one of my favourite authors and I'm eagerly anticipating reading some of his other works that rest on my nightstand.
Rating: 3.5
Originally published on
www.chapterofdreams.com -
Another collection of Newford short stories, and they are as powerful as ever. More of the backstory on some characters we know and like, and the introduction of all sorts of characters we haven't met before, and may never again. De Lint recently announced that he's done with Newford -- I can only hope he changes his mind! These are wonderful stories, and very inspiring.
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This is the second book of Newford short stories from de Lint. They're good, but not quite as consistently so as
Dreams Underfoot, alas. But I'll still leave my original rating. :) -
Another Newford short story collection....this is my third travel to Newford, and I had a great time!
I always seem to find it hard to think of how to describe deLint. The writing is excellent, and conjures a strong sense of place. After a bit, you feel like you would know how to navigate Newford should you ever land there in a timeslip or in a dream. But there are a few other quirks that make it a bit annoying as well. Almost all the central character women in Newford are thin, waiflike creatures with curly hair and a horrific past that lends them the wisdom and sensitivity to deal with the magic that imbibes Newford. Almost everyone is sometype of artist or musician or writer. They all make it very clear how very opposed to child abuse they are. Now, I am glad theyre against child abuse, but sometimes it seems the stories are beating the reader over the head to make sure we know that.
I saw some familiar faces; Jilly, her friends Sophie and Wendy, Geordie the Fiddler, Angel of Grasso, Maisie and her little family...and a few new people; Chris the social worker, and Jaimie the vigilante seem like they will stick around.
The theme that ran through these stories seemed to be about dreams, and how much a part of reality they can be. But in de Lint's hands, that statement becomes a magical thing itself.
Sometimes, the magical realism of Newford is the perfect escapism -
5 stars.
Charles de Lint is, without doubt, my favourite urban fantasy author. Whether his writing would even be considered urban fantasy by most is possibly debatable. There are no vampires, no weres and no love triangles - instead, he writes about the fey and the magic of lost, forgotten places as well as dreams and the power of creativity, in art and music.
This anthology of fifteen short stories is set in his fictional town of Newford and features some of his familiar characters such as Geordie the fiddler and artist Jilly Coppercorn, but doesn't require any knowledge of his previous works.
I enjoyed it, but I was already a fan of de Lint's writing; his prose is smooth, and carries the reader along effortlessly as well as making the impossibilities he writes about sound natural and realistic. Although his stories are clad in the trappings of urban fantasy, he can sometimes deal with heavier topics such as child abuse and suicide, so if you are sensitive about such things, you should perhaps think twice about reading these tales.
With that caveat, I recommend de Lint's works wholeheartedly. Either one of his anthologies (this one or
Dreams Underfoot) or
Trader or
Memory and Dream would be a good place to start. -
I enjoy de Lint's writing to an extent, though as with all fiction, I am not as sold on the short form stuff. The quality tends to be variable, the writing less polished, the stories often a bit stunted. There are some gems in the collection, but a lot of quite pedestrian stuff too. Some problems specifically with de Lint.
Too much child abuse - this is clearly a big issue for de Lint, but more than 50% of his characters appear to have suffered abuse in childhood. This is an important issue, but the effect is blunted when overused. Also, it pushes the situation that little bit closer to melodrama.
Always bloody artists - by the end of both this and dreams underfoot, I was ready to cut all artists and musicians out of my life. Enough already. Even the journalists were only journalists because they sold out. You don't have to be an artist to be a good person Charles.
Subtlety - It's kinda ironic, throughout the stories there's an awful lot of reference to understatement, allegory and artistry. The irony being that it kinda comes across like someone saying "you know what? I'm the best at understatement. That's me, the best". Now, these sorts of comments work in other authors when done as a self referential post modern meta fictional commentary, but they aren't, or at the very least they are too vanilla and uninteresting to count as that, a bit basic, but it's too obvious to just drop into the background as a bit of flavour.
Still, there are some great little stories in here, and I don't regret reading it, if only because it pads out the flavour of the wider world. I'm looking forward though to getting my teeth into the next long form story though as it promises so much more. -
I'm re-reading de Lint's Newford collections after many years, and just picked up a used copy of this one. The sense of wonder, the seamless blending of multiple mythologies and the touching and occasional brutal emotional world of the stories is just as I recalled. The thing that I didn't fully get when I last read them, more than a decade ago, was how de Lint's ideas of consensual reality - that the world we experience is as we see it because most of us agree it is - applies not only to the magical beings that live in his stories, but to the all-too-real street people, mentally ill, and abuse victims whom he often describes. I sort-of realized it when I read these stories previously, but for some reason this time through it really hit home how there ARE other worlds, right in front of our faces, and we all agree not to see them.
In this collection, as with others by him, there are no bad stories, but the ones that pack the greatest emotional impact for me are the ones where the supernatural elements are understated. The stories chronicle the realistic emotional journeys of everyday people, but then a bit of magic touches them in some small form that makes their story resonate in a whole new way (for example, after all this time, I can't get through "Pal o' Mine" without tearing up, and it's such a little thing that could have been imagined... just read it for yourself).
De Lint is a favorite of mine, for good reason. -
Most of these stories are home runs. The magic is illuminating and poignant, and makes you realize that there is magic in one’s own life, as well.
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Ivory and Horn is the second collection of short stories in de Lint’s Newford books. While some of them (especially the first three) still feel a bit basic, I feel like he’s finding the series’ voice and the city of Newford is starting to seem like a real place. Most of these tales are (for lack of a better term) “urban fantasy light”, where the ghosts, spirits and faerie creatures might or might not be “real” – often occurring in dreams or in situations where the protagonist’s perceptions are in question. Many of the characters here appear in the previous short story collection, Dreams Underfoot, or in the novel Memory and Dream. He also introduces more Native American characters, including Coyote (in “Where Desert Sprits Crowd the Night” and “Coyote Stories”), who I remember liking in later books. One thing that I have been noticing in the Newford books this time around is the number of characters who were abused as children (I remember there were some, but it now seems like this is a common theme in a lot of these stories), which made me think of Andrew Vacchs (the “Burke” novels, "Born Bad", "Shella", etc.) but with more redemption and less vengeance (and, of course, fantasy elements), but it appears that de Lint actually knows him, and mentions Vacchs in the story “Dead Man’s Shoes” not as an author but in his capacity as a juvenile justice attorney. “Dead Man’s Shoes” and the following story “Bird Bones and Wood Ash” definitely have more retributive feel than many of de Lint’s other stories. Overall a solid 3 stars.
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So good!
World: The world building is amazing, the world that De Lint creates is fully formed, familiar yet magical. It' the feeling you get when you read really good Neil Gaiman. De Lint's world is about the spaces and cracks in the pavement, the people we turn and don't at in our society and it's there where all the magic and wonder is and it's a wonderful world indeed. The tone is simply amazing and the characters...just read it.
Story: There are a lot of stories in this collection and each of them feels different but also weaves together in a beautiful tapestry that is Newford. Highlights for me are Waifs and Strays, Mr. Truepenny, The Forest is Crying and Dream Harder Dream True. They are all wonderfully paced and so full of melancholy and wonder that...I can't explain it. I just love De Lint's books I feel transported.
Characters: Jilly is in it!!! A cast of real and flawed characters that makes for wonderful stories and drama. Great dialog, small silences, beautiful inner landscapes. Perfect.
I am biased so just read it.
Onward to the next book! -
I just don’t like short stories that much, and I never knew which character was narrating the story until halfway through, so it was hard to empathize. The writing is beautiful and haunting, but I wasn’t drawn into the stories.
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Charles de Lint is one of my guilty pleasures - he can be pretty cliched in his descriptions and his characters can get a little preachy. I generally don't mind the preachy tendencies because I tend to agree and there are usually other qualities in his writing that make up for it.
I read this story collection over a number of months when I just needed something quick and different for my nightly reading. By the end of it I was wondering why I read de Lint in the first place. This is a very weak book, and because of that the stories all kind of blended together for me in a non-descript mass. The things that sort of irk me about his writing were only magnified. Many of the stories in this book are also structured in a manner in which there are voices interjected in between the plot and it's not quite clear if it's someone different or if it's an internal monologue by one of the characters already introduced. I don't think this is a bad thing - it can be great for suspense and keeping one involved in the story to puzzle it out - but I found I just wasn't invested enough in the stories to do anything but skim past.
This is most definitely no Dreams Underfoot - his first Newford book and a collection that I can still reminisce about, loving all the haunting, creepy twists and turns he took with each story, successfully keeping me in suspense until the end. I believe this book had a different theme centering on artists, and perhaps that's why the stories feel like they have such a different mood to me. But while Dreams Underfoot presented a many layered world full of all sorts of creepy and odd wonders, this book made Newford seem quite one dimensional and lackluster.
Out of any of them I thought the last story was the best and presented a pretty fascinating, unresolved question to ponder in the end. -
Re-reading Newford kind of feels like visiting with an old friend. Except I'm not sure if I've read this one more than once before. Mostly because I don't remember the details, at least not of most of the stories. Some of the stories I probably read in other collections. Instead I just remember the interweaving. And of course the hints of stories still to come, which I get to re-read as well. These are some dark stories - death and abuse and illness and murder and suicide. But it's really not the only thing in them. There's always beauty and a certain flavor, a certain poignancy. This one contains the usual players - though some of them remain just off-screen throughout. There's some unevenness. And the longest story feels long. And maybe the power of the stories loses some towards the end.
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I was quickly drawn into this book when I found that the first two stories followed on from stories in "Dreams Underfoot", which I read a while ago. There's always something magical just around the corner in Newford, and characters you've met before keep reappearing. I think that if you read too many of Charles de Lint's stories too close together you could find them slightly cloying, and the amount of repetition can be a little annoying, but if you spread them out they are wonderful reads for anyone who wishes that they had a little more magic in their life.
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I had this series somewhere on a to-read list, reason for recommendation long forgotten. When this book came into my hands I thought it would be a good chance to check out the writing before I commit to a series. That turned out to be a great idea. The short stories in this book stand alone, but are tied together by some common elements that I think must continue in the series. The language and world-building were interesting. I guess I'll have to bump the rest of the books up my list a bit.
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de Lint is always a reliable good read. This novel takes place in his urban fantasy setting of Newford, a huge city where the edges shimmer and the touch of the fae is always in the air. The second of the Newford books, this is a set of short stories that cycles around a handful of characters that pop in and out of each other's tales. It reminded me a lot of the Bordertown novels, though that is a shared universe and Newford is de Lint's alone (so far!). I shall definitely read more.
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This fine collection of short stories is part of de Lint's Newford series. The characters are a mix of familiar and new, with explorations of the mythos of this world. The stories vary widely in length and give the reader glimpses of Newford that will, I hope, be explored in depth in later books in the series.
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If I had to pick one favorite author, it would be Charles de Lint. His books have kept me company and kept me sane through some of my darkest days. I come back to them, and back to them. Although I have been gone from them for a few decades (house fire, library wiped out), I am coming home again, and LOVING IT!
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Ivory and the Horn continues DeLint's Newford chronicles.
Short stories filled with mythic characters and cityscapes that are at once modern but remind us of the ancient forgotten wonder of the inner landscape -
The Newford collections seem to have different themes, #6 is a bit heavy on the tragedy but it combines the faerie and urban reality very well. The stories feel very individual and fresh.
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Rereading these books, I can see how I fell in love with them a decade and a half ago. The writing is beautiful and heartbreaking. Most of the stories don't even have a clear antagonist, just little bits of growth or change and little bits of contact with entities that aren't quite of the rational world. But there are monsters lurking here, but most of them are human.
But the wheel turns and I've learned but the text stays the same. I can respect that de Lint's focus on the marginalized of the fictional town of Newford long before it was the norm. I can appreciate how he cares about all of his characters. The best stories focus on Jilly Coppercorn and her artistic friends or the stories where he focuses on the act of creation. He also weaves in music and songs in a way that helps ground his stories to real life, despite the fictional/fanciful nature of Newford and its inhabitants. See my playlist of his named/implied songs and artists here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73K...
Nearly 30 years since publication is a lot of time under the bridge, though. And de Lint has characters who, frustratingly, can't see the forest for the trees. Why is there so much poverty? Why is there so much abuse, darkness, pain? None of de Lint's characters really know. At least one thinks that things were so much better at some past moment in time. His characters are constantly trying to change little things: a conversation, a bit of money, a struggling small nonprofit. But there are no union members, no activists, no socialists or leftists in de Lint's Newford. Maybe in de Lint's mind those people are not the kind who get blindsided by visits by ghosts, or talking animals, or by the trickster god Coyote. I don't know.
Are these stories suffering porn? There's an undercurrent of paternalism in de Lint's work that doesn't quite square with me in 2021. It's the same kind of undercurrent that I hear in 10,000 Maniacs songs that has made me less of a fan now than when I was a teen. Having read what comes afterwards, I can see the ways that de Lint fails to hit the mark while trying to create a diverse set of characters for his stories. It doesn't seem like he really groks racism. I have complicated feelings about de Lint's use of First Nations people and ideas in his work At least his treatment of a gay character in one story is more subtle and more sympathetic than in his previous works but I think that he similarly doesn't really grok queerness. There's space here for a story about a trans person with all these tales of transformation and feyness. But it's 1993 and de Lint's imagination has blinders on that I'm sure he didn't know were there. As I make my way through his works, I will see which blinders he manages to remove and which ones remain stubbornly in place. -
3.5 Stars
I ended my 2018 reading year with a short story collection by Charles de Lint. I enjoyed Dreams Underfoot and began my 2019 reading year with the second de Lint short story collection set in Newford.
The Ivory and the Horn is a fifteen tale collection that continues to explore the wonderful characters inhabiting the fictional city of Newford. Jilly, the free-spirited artist that knows everyone in town and believes in things outside the bounds of rationality. Maisie, a teenager determined to make a better life for herself despite living on the streets. Angel, the beautiful advocate for the lost, forgotten, and overlooked in the city. There are several other characters that makes Newford one of the most colorful, interesting fictional cities I have ever read.
This collection had three standout stories I enjoyed reading like the opening story, Waifs and Strays. That story featured the aforementioned Maisie and how she tried to gain a better perspective on her life on streets of Newford while trying to better her situation. The story, Forest is Crying, went in depth about a social worker who lost heart for his career after witnessing the death of a toddler. The story, The Pochade Box, about a box owned by the aforementioned artist Jilly and why she keeps it her life. Those stories revealed the connection between city life and the supernatural. Also, de Lint drew upon Native American and Canadian folklore to give parabolic lessons in each story.
The Ivory and the Horn is another solid collection of short stories by Charles de Lint. I will admit that I liked the stories more in Dreams Underfoot. However, I will recommend The Ivory and the Horn for newcomers to Charles de Lint and long time readers of the author. -
Loved this book, from story to story. It followed along perfectly with the books before it, starting where the other stories left off, perfectly adding to their stories, while also adding in some new ones!
Someone once told me that this series didn't connect at all, that they just had some characters with the same name. This is incorrect. After reading this series in order, this being the third in the series, I can say with finality that they do connect, are following along, and do build a story.
It's really amazing to read along as De'Lints writing improves, grows, and his stories go deeper and further along. The first two books intrigue you, the third book entices you to keep going.
Though, I have a leg up since I've read a couple books that are way further in the series and have seen how much De'Lints writing grows and really takes on a life of its own down the road. So, for me, it's an even greater journey into the world he's built in Newford. The characters he has lovingly populated Newford with, the detail he put into each one's individual personality, life, story, and character.
It is an amazing world he builds, and I encourage everyone who is interested in urban fantasy to dive in and enjoy the ride.
Side note for friends:
(Strangers, feel free to skip this part!)
It's taking me a long time to get through each of these De'Lint books due to the fact I'm reading them all with another person. We only read them when we are together, and take turns reading it out loud to one another. It's our own fun little thing we do, so it's worth the wait for us.. (Though, I'd be lying if I didn't say I've been tempted to cheat and read ahead because I want to know the rest of the story.. but I've been strong so far. (; ..)
Highly recommend this series! <3 -
I'm not going to lie, as much as I love Charles de Lint, I loathe short stories. I've never been a big fan of them. I'm not sure why I dislike them so much, but they just aren't my cup of tea. That being said, aside from the automatic negative points every book of short stories gets from me (just for being short stories and not being novel length) I must admit that de Lint does write better short stories than anyone else, in my humble opinion. So I honestly liked this book as much as I could possibly like a book of short stories. If it hadn't been the third book in the Newford series which I'm trying to read, I wouldn't have ever read it. However, because de Lint's full-length novels often are prefaced by his short stories, I was afraid that if I didn't read them I might miss some important detail about a character or setting if I skipped them. So I read them and enjoyed them as much as I was capable of enjoying short stories. There were a few that stood out as better than others, unsurprisingly it was the longer ones. LOL :-D Luckily the next book in the series, Trader, is a full-length novel.
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3.5*
I struggled a little bit with getting into this book, but I think it's more my frame of mind than the book itself. I wanted to write a review for this one, because this series is SO powerful. This is not my favorite genre of fiction by any means, but Charles de Lint is a masterful story teller. Two of the three books I've read now in the Newford series are shorts collections (which I'm also not really a fan of) and it is absolutely incredible the way that man can draw a world. Each of these stories features characters from the town of Newford, and often the stories overlap and weave together in such a way that you start to believe that Newford is real, and de Lint is just reporting on these magical people as you would in a newspaper. I've read these books over the past 2-3 years and I know something is good when I remember these characters from 2 years ago and I feel like I know them.
Honestly I have to say that I am *loving* this series. To the point that I'm starting to think maybe I want to purchase the whole set to have and read many times. While this individual book maybe didn't knock my socks off, the experience as a whole has been....well, magical. -
Something I love with these Newford collections that I've read so far is that while y es, they're all individual stories, they really build upon each other over time as we get new facets explored of characters we've met before. Jilly Coppercorn (of course) shows up again (from
Dreams Underfoot), as well as her friends Sophie, Wendy, and Angel (who gets a story from her perspective for the first time), but we also got to follow up with Maisie and Tommy from "But for the Grace Go I" in the very good "Waifs and Strays" and "The Pochade Box." Sophie had a bit of a star turn in this collection with "Mr. Truepenny's Book Emporium and Gallery" and "Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night." My favorite story in this book was "Pal o' Mine," which never fails to make me sob at the end.
Charles de Lint is just so good at capturing dreams on the page, and I love that sometimes the plot of a story is just someone in a malaise or burning out from stress (very important in "A Tempest in Her Eyes" and "The Pochade Box"). -
Not really a fan of the short story collection. But, for more of Charles de Lint’s phenomenal writing, I’ll deal with them.
If you are familiar with any of his novels, then you know about the town Newford, and you know to expect anything to happen. Even in the short stories, the familiarities of the town and the possibility of events by those characters doesn’t disappoint at all!
A couple of the stories took me a bit longer to read, simply because of the content, but that says more about me than it does about De Lint. Never one to pull punches, or sugarcoat, he doesn’t do so here, and I would expect no less. For even though Newford is factitious, some of the subjects he deals with in society on a whole are not, and the unpleasantness of these happenings would and do roll out everyday, much in the ugly ways they do in real life.
Well worth the the read! -
Included in The Newford Stories
♦"Waifs & Strays" re-read Oct 11, 2000 Re-read 8/7/2015
♦"Mr. Truepenny's Book Emporium and Gallery" Re-read 7/31/2015
The Forest Is Crying
The Wishing Well
Dead Man's Shoes
Bird Bones and Wood Ash
A Tempest in Her Eyes
Saxophone Joe and the Woman in Black
♦"The Bone Woman" re-read 11/8/2001 Re-read 7/30/2015
♦"Pal o' Mine" from Christmas Forever (also reprinted in Season of Wonder and
) re-read 9/27/2015
Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night
Dream Harder, Dream True
The Pochade Box
"Coyote Stories" re-read 11/12/2001
The Forever Trees -
I really enjoyed all of these stories. I find myself fascinated with Newford. As writer, he writes some of the most realistic characters, especially females that I've came across in the fantasy genre. Meanwhile his ventures into the fae realm, as well as the dream world, and native american spiritualism are wildly creative. But ultimately these stories are about the human condition. And also about how art can peel away the surface enough to look within.
