Manda's Bookshelf: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
I’ve never been a member of a book club, although I adore literature, and I’d rather curl up with a good book than just about anything else. So when an interesting idea came up via Twitter about a crowdsourcing and creating a world-wide book club I was curious. A book club I could do right from my home? Count me in.
Several books were nominated. From the very beginning American Gods was in the lead, and people were very excited about it. Of course, it won. I bought the book and started reading.
Based on the rather rabid level of love for the book the Twitter conversation sparked, I have to say I expected much more from the story than what I actually got.
The plot and themes are simple enough. Old gods, brought to America in the minds of their followers who have immigrated to the continent over the centuries, are now at war with the new gods that rule humans every day lives - technology, media, etc. In the middle of this is a man named Shadow, fresh from prison, who begins work for Mr. Wednesday - one of the old gods.
Bear in mind the term “god” here is less about divine right or inspiration; a “god” as far as the book’s universe is concerned is really anything humans follow and sacrifice their time to. In which case, I apparently worship at the alter of Criminal Minds. The term “god” is used so loosely here that there’s a vaguely named female god Media who seems to represent all of television and cinema, as well as a nameless, overweight, rather annoying young man who is obviously the Internet. The old gods aren’t much better - banal, deadly, and generally selfish bastards.
Shadow, having pledged himself to Mr. Wednesday, pretty much because he had nothing better to do, follows his boss doing random errands, helping to sway the old gods to unite in the upcoming “war” against the new gods. Oh, and in the middle of this he’s regularly visited by his dead wife, who’s not quite dead (cue Monty Python), but decaying none the less. I won’t give away plot points, but Shadow, alone, and with Mr. Wednesday, traipse across the country recruiting the gods. Things rarely go as planned. Interesting characters are met, interesting places visited. In the end, things work out... pretty much as you expect.
First, let me say, if I didn’t know this was a book written by a man, I’d know this is a book written by a man. The tone, the choice of language and dialogue, have an overwhelmingly masculine feel. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a preference for female authors over male, some of my favorite novels have been written by male authors, but it can distract from the story when I can tell more about the author in his choice of words than I can about his characters.
As for those characters, especially the main character Shadow, most I remained ambivalent toward. Shadow never really does anything, which is repeatedly pointed out in the book, as if that somehow excuses it. This isn’t Hamlet, caught up between two terrifying paths so that he’s incapable of making a decision - this is a middle-aged guy who doesn’t do anything. Until, finally, he does. I wish the Shadow present for the last fifty pages of the book had been around longer. And yes, I understand that’s the whole point of the “journey” and the character development, but we could’ve gotten there faster is all I’m saying. Mr. Wednesday never caught my attention either, likely because I find lascivious, grifter-like old men annoying, not charming. So when lo-and-behold, there’s a plot twist that flips the entire “war” between the gods around, it wasn’t so much a surprise as a long-expected “well, I saw that coming a mile away” moment.
The most interesting parts of the book, sadly, were in the secondary characters and the interludes where Gaiman detours from the main tale to let you glimpse how one of the old god’s came to America. Some of these interludes would have made interesting novels all on their own, and my biggest criticism there is that they weren’t, and couldn't, be fleshed out enough. Likewise with the secondary characters. One of the women Shadow meets in his travels is Sam Black Crow, who is given some of the best scenes and one of the best monologue’s I’ve ever read in a book:
(Shadow) "It's not easy to believe."
"I," she told him, "can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe."
"Really?"
"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath.
Shadow almost took his hands off the wheel to applaud. Instead he said, "Okay. So if I tell you what I've learned you won't think that I'm a nut."
"Maybe," she said. "Try me."
At least with Sam, we get a general resolution for her character. The others are too neatly wrapped up, as with the final plot thread regarding a “god” and children who go missing every winter.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some things about this book I really did enjoy. The entire concept of new vs. old gods, and how as Americans we really are a fickle bunch, struck a chord. Especially considering the reason I started reading the book was because of the internet, which I willingly admit I spend too much time exploring (LOLCats I'm looking at you!). Over and over again it’s repeated that America isn’t good soil for the old gods to sink into, and with that I agree. America is a melting pot - racial diversity, ethnic diversity, religious diversity. No one god could ever speak for all the people here, no matter what Fox News says about this being a Christian nation. Gaiman does a great job of showing how each region, each religion has a piece of America, but is never really American.
Another thing I enjoyed was the sheer level of research and work I know must’ve gone into learning about these myths and religions. I may criticize Gaiman for stylistic gaps (yes, I know, less is more, but would some descriptive detail kill him?) but there’s no criticizing the effort he put into the background. Sadly, I think most of that background stayed in the world Gaiman created in his imagination and not enough of it made it onto paper.
There were also just some truly fabulous lines:
“There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”
~ Mr. Wednesday to Shadow
“What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not fooling a soul.”
~ Hinzelmann
“None of this can actually be happening. If it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as metaphor. Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition.
Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.”
Judging by the Twitter-verse response to the book, most people will likely find my comments completely off the mark. I get that. And I’ve heard great things about other Gaiman novels that make me want to pick those up to read (Stardust and Neverwhere have been heartily recommended). There was just something about this book I never quite connected with. A good story, yes, but nothing that made me want to run out and buy everything for Gaiman I could put my hands on - which is my usual standard for buying books, especially in the sci-fi/fantasy realm.
Thoughts? Anyone else read this? Or have you read other Gaiman books? Please feel free to disagree if you've read the book. I don't get to discuss lit nearly as much as I used to and I fear I'm in withdrawals lol.
It occurred to me I needed a rating system, and as I am "MuppetManda" what better way to judge the quality of a book then by the number of Kermits it earns!
American Gods gets a solid, but not spectacular 3 Kermits.
I usually try and alternate fiction and non-fiction when I read (but don't hold me to that lol). Next up is Elie Wiesel's Night.
And to end with an exchange from the unstoppable Muppet hecklers, Waldorf and Statler:
"This show is awful!"
"- Terrible!"
"- Disgusting!"
"- See you next week?"
"- Of course."