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Tuesday, 16 June 2015 03:05 pm
Book Review: American Gods
My previous experience with Neil Gaiman consisted of one chapter of this book (assigned in an informal college course) plus two pretty family-friendly silver-screen adaptations I rather liked: Stardust and Coraline. I also knew that he claimed to have been "bitten by a radioactive awesome," which fits the image that fans have of him.
Well, while I see a little of the same elements from those movies, they didn't really prepare me for this experience. In terms of language, sexual content, and comprehensibility, it is one of the most adult stories I've ever read. Some classify it as horror rather than fantasy, but I think that has less to do with horrible things happening and more to do with bizarreness, which can intensify fear. And much in contrast to the book in my previous review, it has no shortage of unimportant details (e.g., what song happens to play on the radio), which also intensifies fear by both making the scene realer and keeping us alert for subtle hints. This being the author's preferred text, it runs longer than most versions and thus contains more detail.
( Cut for length )
All in all, it feels a bit like a text-only version of Watchmen -- which I think I'd like better than the graphic novel, if only because my brain can downplay the unpleasant parts more easily that way. Hey, both Gaiman and Alan Moore are gritty British comic book writers who opted for American settings and took other people's characters in an inspired direction. (Gaiman, at least, did a lot of hands-on geographical research.) Sometimes, especially in Shadow's quite meaningful dreams, it reads like a description of a Salvador Dali painting. I love Dali, but a mere description of his work would kinda freak me out.
To put it another way, I reacted to AG almost the way Shadow reacted to mead: appreciating the initial vivid tang, but finding a peculiar aftertaste that made completion something of a chore. Note I said "almost." It's more pleasant than that; I just have trouble figuring out why.
I have now started Garry Kilworth's Hunter's Moon: A Story of Foxes. Another British author, but undoubtedly cuter and shorter on swear words. Of course, if it's anything like Watership Down or Tailchaser's Song, it still gets troubling.
Well, while I see a little of the same elements from those movies, they didn't really prepare me for this experience. In terms of language, sexual content, and comprehensibility, it is one of the most adult stories I've ever read. Some classify it as horror rather than fantasy, but I think that has less to do with horrible things happening and more to do with bizarreness, which can intensify fear. And much in contrast to the book in my previous review, it has no shortage of unimportant details (e.g., what song happens to play on the radio), which also intensifies fear by both making the scene realer and keeping us alert for subtle hints. This being the author's preferred text, it runs longer than most versions and thus contains more detail.
( Cut for length )
All in all, it feels a bit like a text-only version of Watchmen -- which I think I'd like better than the graphic novel, if only because my brain can downplay the unpleasant parts more easily that way. Hey, both Gaiman and Alan Moore are gritty British comic book writers who opted for American settings and took other people's characters in an inspired direction. (Gaiman, at least, did a lot of hands-on geographical research.) Sometimes, especially in Shadow's quite meaningful dreams, it reads like a description of a Salvador Dali painting. I love Dali, but a mere description of his work would kinda freak me out.
To put it another way, I reacted to AG almost the way Shadow reacted to mead: appreciating the initial vivid tang, but finding a peculiar aftertaste that made completion something of a chore. Note I said "almost." It's more pleasant than that; I just have trouble figuring out why.
I have now started Garry Kilworth's Hunter's Moon: A Story of Foxes. Another British author, but undoubtedly cuter and shorter on swear words. Of course, if it's anything like Watership Down or Tailchaser's Song, it still gets troubling.