American Gods: A Novel
by Neil Gaiman
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.04 You Save: $10.95 (68%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.23 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of American Gods: A Novel
Book Review: Witty and Deep
Summary: 5 Stars
In American Gods, traditions linger and refuse to fade, gods are spawned by the handed-down thoughts of immigrants, and belief and reality are one and the same thing. This is a novel about the soul of America, and the heart of the modern world, with maybe just a tad of how our past shaped us, all told through a cast of characters that's as offbeat and well developed as it is numerous.
Gaiman's themes here are weighty, and they could drag off and drown your average narrative with their importance. Gaiman doesn't even try to fight this; he lets the book be tossed to and fro, gyrating wildly and leaping off into tangents in order to explore part after part of his post-mythology mythos. As such, though the story is interesting on its own, and the character's usually well drawn, this is more a novel about America and its synthesis than it is about anything else.
The gods were brought here by the immigrants (the Irish leprechaun upon ships during the days of famine; the pixies and their ilk from English prisoners; Odin from exploratory and bloodthirsty Viking longboats; the Egyptian pantheon of Anubis, Thoth, Horus, Bast settling in New Egypt; Anansi from - well, you get the idea) but things have changed, and, in the process of acclimatization, the believers became American, and the gods were cut loose. Now, as time moves on, their belief and traditions are fading fast towards zero, and the old deities are desperate to not simply drop out of existence.
Now, in this new world, the actual facets of the gods' being are no longer important, the funeral director gods of death are as on the verge as a New York City djinn, and all that still matters is where they came from and whether they still exist at all:
"'I have a brother. They say, you put us together, we are like one person, you know? When we are young, his hair, it is very blonde, very light, his eyes are blue, and people say, he is the good one. And my hair is very dark, darker than yours even, and people say I am the rogue, you know? I am the bad one. And now time passes, and my hair is gray. His hair, too, I think is gray. And you look at us, you would not know what was light and who was dark.'" (p. 79)
Simplification is not the only change brought on by the passage of years. The majority of Gods in the book fall into one of two pathways. The first try - in vain? - to recreate the glory days, always striving to remember. The world, however, has moved on, and their attempts frequently become depressingly comical, as they try to assert their dominance over a world that has forgotten them, such as Eoster, trying to claim that she's still beloved due to the name of the holiday. In many cases, being the American incarnation of these gods, they don't even have a period of power to look back upon, such as Czernobog who cannot even contemplate his days as a dark god anymore and is able to do nothing else but dream about his years in a slaughterhouse.
The other potential path is a darker one still, and it is one that we are introduced to at the end of the very first chapter: the perversion of everything that the god once held holy. The Queen of Sheba has become a prostitute. Even that, however, is not far enough. In a twisted incarnation of her need for belief, she forcers her forces her lovers to worship her and sexually devours them for sustenance. Her words hold true for her and for the array of similarly striving gods we glimpse in the narrative: "There is nothing holy in [my] profession. Not anymore." (p. 373)
But is the decline of the gods really such a bad thing? In one part of the story, we see a funeral home run by the Egyptian gods of death. They provide a more personal touch, a send off by something with more of a soul than the mechanical filling of orders provided by a big funeral company. In another subplot, we get to see a community still run and safeguarded by a supernatural being. The community's exterior is enticing and gleaming, which hides the sacrifice needed to maintain it.
Is such a thing worth it for a more ordered world? Has our modern world of machines and computers destroyed wonder and human contact? It's impossible to truly a question like that, and Gaiman doesn't. American Gods is not a narrative of answers, but rather a tapestry of questions. You will never get a definitive answer of how the gods interact with mortals; you will never know whether the old gods were right to fight for their survival; you will never know whether the gods will one day be gone completely. But you don't need to know. In American Gods, Gaiman asks the questions, and I think that every reader will have their own answers.
The sprawling nature of the themes, and the narration's tendency to leap after them wherever they may go, leads to an incredibly meandering text. Our main character Shadow, who is roped into the conflict as the assistant to Mr. Wednesday only hours after leaving prison. While it seems, at first, that the two are working towards a definite goal, Shadow is soon sent off to location after location without any discernible rhyme or reason.
Further complicating matters - if you're a fan of anything even approaching linier plots - are the interludes, taken from the modern incarnation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. These stories feature brand new characters, often separated from the main narrative by spans of decades, living their lives and either interacting with or contributing to the nature of the various scattered American deities.
Somehow, Gaiman pulls all of this off. The trick is, I think, his intuitive grasp of character. He only need mention a name and spout a few lines of dialogue and, poof, a fully grown man appears on the stage. Each interlude feels complete enough to form its own text, and each adds to the main narrative in immeasurable ways.
And yet, this grasp of character is not applied to one character. Shadow, whose eyes we spend the vast majority of the book looking out of, is told:
'You're not dead'" she said. 'But I'm not sure that you're alive, either. Not really.'
[...]
'I love you,' she said dispassionately. 'You're my puppy. But [...] You're like this big, solid, man-shaped hole in the world.' She frowned. 'Even when we were together. I love being with you. You adored me, and you would do anything for me. But sometimes I'd go into a room and I wouldn't think there was anybody in there. And I'd turn the lights on, or I'd turn the lights off, and I'd realize that you were in there, sitting on your own, not reading, not watching TV, not doing anything.'" (p. 370-371)
After his release from prison, and the death of his wife, Shadow retreats into himself, and it is rare for the reader to get a glimpse inside. This leads to a good portion of the book feeling aimless, as we're cast about in Shadow's wake, without him even knowing - or caring - where he's going. The reader that is willing to follow will eventually come to realize that Shadow's recalcitrance is not shallowness, but, in order to get to that point, you need to be willing to follow Gaiman on all of his digressions.
On the subject of the book's prose, Gaiman says in the included interview: "I wanted to write American Gods in what I thought of as an American style - clean, simple, uncluttered - and push the narrator further into the background than I had in previous books. But the narrator crept out in the "coming to America" chapters, where I got to play with a wider set of voices." (p. 596)
It's true that the writing is more subdued than it is in Neverwhere or Anansi Boys, the plot less self aware. But this is still a Gaiman novel, and it's still filled with the delicious idiosyncrasies of language that characterize all of the man's writing. There are sections here that are jaw dropping in their grandeur, and there are sections that are laugh out loud funny, and both build with the other to create a wry and majestic experience, filled with larger than life characters who are anything but above sarcasm.
American Gods looks like a simple read on the surface. Underneath, you soon come to realize the depth that is packed into every scene and every single glance. This is a book that is impossible to really predict, so come to it and get ready to be swept along. While occasionally directionless, American Gods is simply something that needs to be experienced. This is not the most entertaining book that I've read of Gaiman, but it is undoubtedly the best.
Book Review: A trip through the soul of America
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember waiting a long time for this book. Neil documented the process of writing it on his blog, so every few days I would get a little glimpse at what he was doing - and it drove me nuts. Living in Japan, I can never be sure when my favorite entertainment will make it over here. Movies and books can take months to get from the US to Japan, and while I'm waiting not-so-patiently, all my friends at home have just devoured it and are in the process of raving about how awesome it is. Oh, sure, the hyper-sellers like Harry Potter might have a worldwide release, but Neil wasn't exactly a mainstream superstar when this was written.
So yes, one of my main memories associated with this book is frustration. Fortunately, when I picked up the book during a trip home back in 2001, my frustration was erased and replaced with profound satisfaction.
American Gods was one of Gaiman's first full-length novels, though I may be wrong about that. It was not, of course, his debut - he had made his name a household world in fantasy-reading households by penning the epic comic book series Sandman, in which he proved that he was able to marry huge metaphysical themes to personal narrative. He could make the dissolution of worlds pale beside a broken heart and make you believe that even the simplest of life had vast meaning.
In other words, this man has some serious writing chops.
As the title implies, in this book Gaiman takes on the gods, and asks a very interesting - and important - question: what happened to the gods that came to America? I'm talking about the Old Gods, the gods that had been living in the hearts and minds of people for thousands of years. Leprechauns and dryads, three-in-one forces of fate and representations of the seasons. Easter and Odin, Bast and Anubis, gods of once-great nations and unknown villages. As their people came to America over the millennia, they brought their gods with them.
But as the people stayed in America, they changed. They grew. And the gods discovered that America is not a good place for them.
Now the old gods are small and unworshipped, save by a few tiny, dwindling pockets of their old culture. What's more, new gods are rising, gods of media and internet, highway and television and government. And, as has been said in countless westerns and cowboy movies, there isn't room for all of them. There will be a reckoning, and a man named Shadow is in the middle of it.
Shadow is a convict, nearly at the end of his time in prison. He wants nothing more than to get out of prison and rejoin his wife. He gets one of those wishes when he is released early. Unfortunately, he is released early to attend his wife's funeral.
Without friends or family, Shadow is aimless and alone. It is in this condition that he meets the enigmatic Wednesday, a man who seems to know Shadow and his situation, far better than any stranger should. He offers Shadow a job - to assist Wednesday when he needs it, protect him if he has to, and sit a vigil for him if he dies. With nothing to lose, Shadow accepts the deal. In so doing, he finds himself facing a war of gods that he never knew existed.
It's a great story, on many levels. In one sense, it's a love letter to America. Shadow's journey takes him through small towns that have yet to be subsumed into the ever-devouring maw of the modern American monoculture - from roadside attractions to tiny motels to strange lakeside communities, the unacknowledged weirdness of America is put on display here for all to see. As is its history, in the form of flashbacks to the journeys that people made from their homelands to this land, voluntary or not. The book reminds us that there is a complexity to not only American history, but also to American culture, which gets lost in the ubiquity of McDonald's and Starbucks.
The metaphysical angle of this book is also something to give you pause. It asks the questions about what gods are, how they're born and how they die. Most importantly - how they flourish or wither, and why. It is said over and over again that America is a bad place for gods, although it's not clearly explained why. Perhaps something to do with its geography - a vast, variable landscape that's too big for small tribal gods to get a hold of. Perhaps it's the people, brought from all over the world, who can't help but wonder what other cultures can offer them. Perhaps it's just the nature of its people - always moving, independently-minded. The old gods, who were gods of small nations and regions, simply didn't have the power or flexibility to stay on.
Which really makes us wonder, how did capital-g God manage to get a foothold? As one of the characters notes, Jesus has done really well over here. Perhaps because the God of Abraham can be all things to all people - a god of vengeance and justice, a god of mercy and love, a creator, a destroyer, a personal friend or a distant observer. There is something to be said for non-specialization, I suppose....
This book is a journey, and it's a long and complicated one at that. But it's enjoyable and personal. Gaiman writes with great empathy, so that the reader may even understand the gods themselves, as reduced and attenuated as they may have become. Though Shadow is not exactly the protagonist of the story - he spends most of the book doing what he is told to do, only taking initiative on his own towards the end, he is observant. Through his eyes, we learn more about America. Its triumphs, its flaws and its potential all become a little bit clearer, and upon finishing the book, those of us from that strange, turbulent land can perhaps appreciate it a bit more.
Book Review: A fascinating and complex new world, but overall the novel lacks depth. Good, but not great; recommended
Summary: 4 Stars
Shadow is a convict, surviving the final weeks of his sentence and looking forward to a return to his life and to his marriage, when he is told of his wife's death and is released early to attend her funeral. On the flight home, he meets a man named Mr. Wednesday that seems to know more about Shadow than he has any right to do. He offers Shadow a job: to protect Wednesday and work as his right hand man in the big storm that is brewing. When he accept the offer, Shadow is swept into a slice of American life that he never knew existed: a battle between the old gods, brought to America by early immigrants and now dying of neglect, and the new gods of TV, strip malls, and modern America that have been born on American soil and are steadily gaining power. In the course of the novel, the characters journey from cities to roadside attractions to small town to Indian reserves, and Gaiman explores the power in both folk life in America. The novel is as enduringly off-kilter as the roadside attractions Shadow visits, with Gaiman's edge of magic and darkness that give it gravity and purpose. The resolution to the battle between the American gods is too brief, and I don't find the premise quite as interesting as some of his other novels, but the book is an engrossing read, well written, and complex, carrying through a number of characters and concepts, as I expect from this author. I do recommend it.
Ever since by surprisingly good experience with Neverwhere, I've been itching to read the rest of Gaiman's novels. American Gods was the first novel in that quest. Despite the fact that Gaiman writes in no particular genre, his work is always distinctly and recognizably his own. They investigate the supernatural within the normal, often in the form of a magical social structure that runs underneath to its mundane equivalent. In this vein, American Gods explores the supernatural world of the gods that populate American soil, arising from human inhabitants, including natives, immigrants, and citizens, but exist largely underneath daily life: in shadows, hidden out of the way, and/or wearing masks to allow them to exist undetected. Because the characters are by their nature explorations into the depths, the novel has an innate level of complexity. However, because the complexity is innate, the author isn't pushed to make the text deeper or to investigate more. As a result, the ideas are brilliant and reading the book is like discovering a new, hidden culture that exists below and adds depth to one's own, but the content of the novel lacks independent complexity, both in concept and in character. The text is interesting, unique, and original, but it lacks the total depth that I look for in what I would deem "literature". In other words: it's a good book, not a great one. (I also didn't enjoy the hidden world in American Gods as much as the hidden worlds of London Below and Fairie from Gaiman's other books, but I consider my own dislike for Americana a matter of personal taste.)
For all of that, the plot of this novel is pleasantly complex, working at both a personal, local, and cosmic level in a few interconnected narratives. The plot lines fit together almost seamlessly and the stoyline is generally linear, so the narration isn't as complex (or as difficult) as the first few chapters sometimes make it seem. The resolutions come a bit quickly, especially in the cosmic plot (the war between the new and old gods), and the hasty conclusion, as well as the nature of the conclusion, makes the plot up until that point fall flat--not completely, but to the point where it is noticeable. It isn't a huge issue and doesn't destroy that plotline. Nonetheless, it was my biggest disappointment in the book because on the whole the other aspects--from characterization to the other plotlines--are strong. The number of concurrent stories keeps the book running at a good pace and the reader consistently interested as well as making for a text that takes more into account and so achieves a greater depth.
The otherworldy aspects of the book are, as always in Gaiman, walk the line between fanciful and disturbing, and are all the more interesting as a result. The darker, more dangerous, sometimes sinister cast to the unnatural elements gives the book gravity and keeps it out of the realm of light, dismissible fantasy. Shadow as protagonist, however, sometimes detracts from the supernatural aspects: he accepts the strange occurrences too readily (a necessary aspect for the smooth progression of the plot, if somewhat unrealistic) and so, through his role as emissary between novel and reader, makes them seem too ordinary to the reader as well. On the whole, I recommend this book, both for Gaiman's unique otherworldy writing and for the unique and intelligent plot, but it didn't sweep me away in the way that some of the author's other work has. It's a good read, but not great literature, nor my favorite Gaiman novel.
Book Review: How Neil Gaiman Re-invents the Fantasy Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
The old gods walk through the pages of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods." They also drink, curse, fight, scowl, gamble, and struggle to make a living as prostitutes, grifters, morticians, and taxi drivers. Life is hard for immortals when the masses who once worshipped them have forgotten them - or worse have embraced newer, shinier gods (like TV and technology).
Gaiman's novel is like a Salvatore Dali painting - a wickedly warped distortion of America that crystallizes the essence of this strange, unique nation. It's a complicated blend of mythology, folktale, horror, mystery, and literature. Throw that into a blender and add one part road movie and you've got "American Gods."
Gaiman pokes jagged holes into the nature of American beliefs and the transitory nature of American convictions and culture. America is a patchwork of beliefs here - a giant, moldy quilt. But it's this mish-mash of beliefs that make the United States unique and a difficult place for ancient gods to make a living.
Gaiman takes readers on a journey through the heartland. The story features hard-luck Shadow, a sharply intelligent, but quiet-tongued loner. He's sprung from prison where he spent the last few years paying off his debt for a crime commissioned by his wife (which went horribly sideways when his partners betrayed him).
He's released a few days earlier so he can attended Laura's funeral. His wife has been killed in a car wreck with his best friend - while Laura was giving him oral sex before the crash. It's this betrayal of his true love that numbs Shadow into an emotionless shell through most of the book.
An old con-man named Mr. Wednesday latches on to Shadow and offers him a job as a bodyguard. His prospects grim and his future bleak, Shadow reluctantly takes the offer. Here's where the book transforms from finely crafted crime novel - to the fantastic. Mr. Wednesday, you see, is the American avatar of the Norse god Odin, the All-Father.
Mr. Wednesday represents the old gods who came to America with the early immigrants - people from Norway, Denmark, Russia, Ireland, North Africa, China, etc... These old gods have been cast aside by new gods for technology, TV, transportation (and, yes, even Jesus, although Christianity plays only a minor role in the book). Mr. Wednesday travels across the country recruiting gods to join him in a battle against the new gods. The metaphor of a storm approaching sets the tone for the story.
Much of the joy in reading "American Gods" comes from identifying the old gods Mr. Wednesday and Shadow encounter on their journey. There's Anubis, the Egyptian god of death and embalming; Czernobog, the Slavic god of death and evil; and Wisakedjak, a trickster god of the Algonquians. Readers get to discover a mystic underbelly to America that's fascinating to explore.
Since it was published in 2002, "American Gods" has picked up critical acclaim and won several major awards including the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards for best novel. Gaiman, a former comic book writer of the "Sandman" series, has become the toast of the literary world - a new breed of celebrity writer (with geek overtones - as he's prolific blogger and tech head).
Yet while "American Gods" is a beautifully scripted novel - and a compelling read (I'd be hard pressed not to recommend it), the novel does have its flaws. The build up to the epic battle among the gods is intense and yet the final battle happens off stage. Readers don't get to experience one blow of the fight. Gaiman is playing with our imaginations here, but it's still a disappointment.
There's also a lot left unsaid and Gaiman expects a lot from his readers in the way of mythological education (I'm lucky that as a teen I practically memorized the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book on deities). A bit more detail and information about the gods and their companions would have been helpful.
But ultimately "American Gods" is a fantastical journey. There's an intricately woven sub-plot about children murders in a small town in Wisconsin where Shadow hides during his off-time with Mr. Wednesday that's particularly satisfying.
"American Gods" delivers the goods -- and puts fantasy onto the shelf with high literature. Not bad for a comic book guy.
Read more "Literate Blather" at the Dark Party Review [...]
Book Review: Twilight of the gods
Summary: 5 Stars
American Gods is written by famed comics writer Neil Gaiman, best known for his work on the Sandman comics and his occassional collaborations with Terry Pratchet. However, I know him best as the translator for Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke, easily one of my favorite films of all time. So I was happy enough to start off on American Gods. However, I had other things I was reading and try as I might it was difficult for me to find the time. Worse yet, it kept on getting lost, which was a genuine problem because it was really my mom's book and was on loan. However, I eventually tracked it down and dragged it with me to school where, after finishing about half a dozen books, I finally picked up and read my way through it.
I wasn't disappointed.
American Gods follows the tale of ex-convict Shadow. Having just served three years in prison after he got in a robbery-related fistfight Shadow is eager to return home to his young wife and move on. However, just a month before his release Shadow receives the proverbial good news and bad news. Good news: he's going to get out of prison early. Bad news: it's because his wife just died and the warden figures it's only fair Shadow gets to go to her funeral. Depressed, Shadow takes his leave and heads for his home in Eagle Point, Indiana.
On the airplane he meets a mysterious stranger in a pale suit. The man offer his name as "Mr. Wednesday" and tells Shadow he has a job for him. Initially, Shadow turns down the offer, but as it becomes clear there's little left for him at home, he takes the mysterious man up on his offer. It wouldn't really be spoiling anything at this point (at least to those with a basic knowledge of linguistics) to reveal that it quickly turns out that his employer, Mr. Wednesday, is really the All-Father Odin from Norse mythology and that most of the eccentric characters that surround him are fellow gods or other supernatural beings. Weakened by lack of worship the gods have embarked on a quest to restore themselves and defeat the "new gods" of America who've usurped their position.
The story is highly involving and while it take a while to get going it becomes really engaging around one third of the way through the book, once we get past introductions. It's at this point that the conflict between old gods and new gods begins to heat up and we learn some of the nature behind the gods and their position in America. The story is accented also by little flashbacks revealing how the gods were literally imported to the Americas by such people as the Norse or indentured servants in Colonial America. These little bits, while a little irrelevant to the story as a whole, do much to add to the interesting atmosphere of Gaiman's fictional universe.
The characters of American Gods are by far one of the most interesting parts about the book. Shadow, the main character, is perhaps not the most interesting of them but he is still a strong protagonist and one who doesn't fill either the typical hero or the typical antihero slot. Instead, he's, likely deliberately, a noble sort of an everyman. Of the supporting characters arguably the strongest is Mr. Wednesday / Odin, who plays such a prominent in the story. Witty and good humored he's certainly the most elaborate, weaving elaborate plots even as he seduces nearly every young woman he comes across or engages in petty cons in order to raise some cash for the road.
The technical aspects of American Gods are stronger than in many novels. Often I'll read a novel whose story and characters are brilliant but whose prose drags on and I often find myself skipping over. American Gods is not one of those and Gaiman manages to hold my attention throughout most of the novel. In a large part this is because of the interesting way in which he writes the pieces of narrative from Shadow's perspective, with Shadow's thought processes almost merged with the text in spite of the fact that it's in a 3rd-person, past-tense format. The text leaps out with a very personal touch that comes off as sincere and utterly human.
Overall, American Gods is a classic well-deserving of its acclaim.