American Gods

Still catching up on all my posts. 

Got a little sidetracked when digesting all of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics for another piece of Gaiman's work, American Gods. Heard a lot about this novel long before embarking on it - a lot of positive things - and the book definitely stood up to the hype. First off, let me just say that even though this is the first book by Gaiman that I've read, I can tell we're going to get along just fine. Something about his dark, macabre tone, fascinating characters struggling in a truly original premises... oh, I just love it. If you're not familiar with this book in particular, let me just give you a little taste.

For a moment imagine that gods are real. And not just the one almighty Christian God, but thousands and thousands of gods. Gods for basically ever important element in people's lives. If you're a farmer, maybe you have a rain god and a crop god. As long as there's someone praying to the god, giving it attention, then the god exists and gains power. Alright, now in the present day there are basically two sets of these deities. New gods and the old gods. The old gods are all these figures from old folklore and the new gods are entities of television and the internet - things people care about nowadays. Also, gods exist in the world along side humans. Only the old ones live in poverty while the new basically pop in and out of the story like some secret service agency. Men in black shit. (Clearly they have the power and money.) Well, with that very clever setting, Gaiman introduces the story's protagonist, Shadow - a recently released convict who on his trip home discovers his wife has died in a car accident... while she was giving fellatio to Shadow's best friend. Tough break if there ever was one. Well Shadow gets picked up by a strange fellow (an old god) who essentially gets him involved in a series of events that will eventually lead to a giant war between the gods of new and old. 

It's one hell of an epic premise. The thing I like the most is Gaiman's representation of death. It's basically the idea that just because someone dies they're not actually dead. Life isn't just classified by a heart beat. His world is magical, strange, dangerous, and sometimes strangely sexy. It's definitely a great read.

One things that is a little strange and hard to grasp is that every now and then Gaiman introduces little vignettes between chapters. He splices up the main narrative with these short stories on the history of some of these old gods. No backstories on any of the old gods involved in the main narrative. Just figures from the past. At first I thought it was pretty confusing. You hear a story about some British woman turned fugitive who escapes to the still developing America and accidentally brings pixies and fairies with her as these gods had to follow her because they could only stay in existence with her faith. By the end of the novel, I was able to understand when I was reading a vignette compared to the main story. Still, it threw me off for a bit and doesn't really contribute to much. It just makes this world a little more expansive and colorful.

I see Webber has already got some Gaiman under his best. Anansi Boys is a bit down on my list of Gaiman books to read, but if you (Webber) haven't already check out this title, do so.