Tuesday, 16 June 2015 03:05 pm
Book Review: American Gods
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deckardcanineMy 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.
The usual focal character is a man called Shadow, who rarely uses his real name. In the first chapter, he is finishing a three-year prison sentence for a violent crime. In spite of this, he's not my idea of an antihero. Gaiman says many readers have complained that Shadow was too unlikable or at least unrelatable, but I think that may have changed with the preferred text. Nowadays his most outstanding features are his size and his penchant for coin tricks.
Shadow is not happy when he gets out, because his wife and would-be employer just died...together. But a mysteriously informed man who, apparently on a whim, calls himself Mr. Wednesday promptly offers him a new job as a bodyguard/gofer on an unspecified mission. Shadow doesn't exactly like Wednesday, and neither, it turns out, do most people who met him before, but he pays well enough that Shadow decides not to ask too many questions.
Gradually, Shadow discovers how supernatural the world is. Every god, fairy, demon, etc. whom humans ever believed in has become real by the power of that belief. Real enough to walk the earth in human form, yet prone to involuntary transformation as superstition evolves. Even mortal humans, like Johnny Appleseed, can continue to exist once they pass into legend. If you remember enough mythology, you can see thru disguises before Shadow does, including Wednesday's.
For whatever reason, as we repeatedly learn, America is a bad place for gods. Many live here, but few receive anything like the worship they used to receive. New "gods" have emerged, but their glory days are relatively fleeting; some, like "the technical boy," don't even have proper names. (One weakness of the book is that we hear about very few new gods.) Wednesday strives to recruit as many old gods as possible to gear up for war against the new. Gods actually succumb to violence about as easily as we do, and they can also die from getting completely forgotten, but "death" has varying degrees....
Shadow's role in the whole affair isn't very clear until near the end. Apart from some proactive moments, he spends a lot of time just hanging around, whether in the presence of gods or among small-town Americans who have no idea what he's seen. He can't say for sure that he's on the right side. It bothers him that he'll never know, let alone make sense of, all the rules to the game.
Neither will we. You know how some religions warn that to try to know the divine completely is to court insanity? Good advice in this case. Whenever some new bit of contrary nonsense popped up, I learned to say "Oh" and move along.
Wednesday is the character we probably get to know second-best. He never tires of swindling people out of their money (one of his cons inspired a real-life grand theft, thankfully caught) or seducing blondes. He sometimes compliments Shadow's services but is more often rude, and he smiles unnaturally. That said, I can understand why Shadow grows a sort of attachment to him. What must it be like to have been worshiped and then rejected by the descendants of those who brought you into existence? To have your buddy the thunder god, in a similar situation, commit a mundane suicide? Wouldn't you start getting desperate to change things up? (I'm taking Wednesday at his word here, dangerous as that is.)
Some unimportant details take the shape of side plots about characters who never figure in Shadow's life. I guess Gaiman wanted to cover some further implications of his premises and couldn't think of a more cohesive method. In both side plots and the main plot, several humans have graphic sex scenes with nonhumans. Let's just say I don't envy the humans.
By the end, I was finally predicting some of the twists. That did nothing to curtail my enjoyment; if anything, I felt vindicated and relieved to avoid a surprise.
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.
The usual focal character is a man called Shadow, who rarely uses his real name. In the first chapter, he is finishing a three-year prison sentence for a violent crime. In spite of this, he's not my idea of an antihero. Gaiman says many readers have complained that Shadow was too unlikable or at least unrelatable, but I think that may have changed with the preferred text. Nowadays his most outstanding features are his size and his penchant for coin tricks.
Shadow is not happy when he gets out, because his wife and would-be employer just died...together. But a mysteriously informed man who, apparently on a whim, calls himself Mr. Wednesday promptly offers him a new job as a bodyguard/gofer on an unspecified mission. Shadow doesn't exactly like Wednesday, and neither, it turns out, do most people who met him before, but he pays well enough that Shadow decides not to ask too many questions.
Gradually, Shadow discovers how supernatural the world is. Every god, fairy, demon, etc. whom humans ever believed in has become real by the power of that belief. Real enough to walk the earth in human form, yet prone to involuntary transformation as superstition evolves. Even mortal humans, like Johnny Appleseed, can continue to exist once they pass into legend. If you remember enough mythology, you can see thru disguises before Shadow does, including Wednesday's.
For whatever reason, as we repeatedly learn, America is a bad place for gods. Many live here, but few receive anything like the worship they used to receive. New "gods" have emerged, but their glory days are relatively fleeting; some, like "the technical boy," don't even have proper names. (One weakness of the book is that we hear about very few new gods.) Wednesday strives to recruit as many old gods as possible to gear up for war against the new. Gods actually succumb to violence about as easily as we do, and they can also die from getting completely forgotten, but "death" has varying degrees....
Shadow's role in the whole affair isn't very clear until near the end. Apart from some proactive moments, he spends a lot of time just hanging around, whether in the presence of gods or among small-town Americans who have no idea what he's seen. He can't say for sure that he's on the right side. It bothers him that he'll never know, let alone make sense of, all the rules to the game.
Neither will we. You know how some religions warn that to try to know the divine completely is to court insanity? Good advice in this case. Whenever some new bit of contrary nonsense popped up, I learned to say "Oh" and move along.
Wednesday is the character we probably get to know second-best. He never tires of swindling people out of their money (one of his cons inspired a real-life grand theft, thankfully caught) or seducing blondes. He sometimes compliments Shadow's services but is more often rude, and he smiles unnaturally. That said, I can understand why Shadow grows a sort of attachment to him. What must it be like to have been worshiped and then rejected by the descendants of those who brought you into existence? To have your buddy the thunder god, in a similar situation, commit a mundane suicide? Wouldn't you start getting desperate to change things up? (I'm taking Wednesday at his word here, dangerous as that is.)
Some unimportant details take the shape of side plots about characters who never figure in Shadow's life. I guess Gaiman wanted to cover some further implications of his premises and couldn't think of a more cohesive method. In both side plots and the main plot, several humans have graphic sex scenes with nonhumans. Let's just say I don't envy the humans.
By the end, I was finally predicting some of the twists. That did nothing to curtail my enjoyment; if anything, I felt vindicated and relieved to avoid a surprise.
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.
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Please don't tell the Patrol.
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Well, yes, that is the essence of his Vigil for Wednesday, isn't it?
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