: American Gods
Author: Neil Gaiman
Wow. This is an amazing book, one of the most remarkable I’ve ever read. Gaiman is a genius, unquestionably. The variety of topics and ideas compressed into this novel is astonishing. I barely know where to begin plotwise, but I suppose the simplest way is to describe the novel’s intriguing premise. Basically, we live in a world where the “gods” (with a lowercase g) of myth and legend still exist, and they exist via the belief of people. These gods are flawed and human-like and mortal, but do have special powers. Most of these gods are weak today because few people believe in them any more, and there are new gods, modern gods, such as Media, a powerful woman-like creature that is the television worshipped by millions. The story is set in modern day America, where we follow the adventures of an easy-going guy named Shadow who’s just been released from prison and gets caught up in scams and cons by a god named Wednesday (Odin). Lots of things happen and the individual scenes are brilliant and incredible, but it takes long while before you can really see any plot or story forming: just stick with it as eventually everything will connect and make sense. The novel culminates in a huge battle between the old gods and the new gods, with Shadow right in the middle. It’s an amazing story, and Gaiman touches on all kinds of aspects of American and modern life, history, religion, belief, and reality, but ultimately I was slightly disappointed at the conclusions because the book doesn’t provide any answers or illumination, it merely stirs the pot and concludes life is a messy stew and then we die. There’s no moral or explanation or belief system advocated; I would have preferred that, even if it was a belief I disagreed with. Instead, it merely seems Gaiman was just finding all this humorous and interesting, with no practical connection to real life. So when I finished the novel I was like, “That’s it? There’s no purpose or explanation to anything?” Gaiman has intriguing ideas, but in the ends just throws out the ideas with nothing to hang them on. Perhaps he didn’t want to step on the beliefs of others, but as it is, I was left wondering what the point of the novel was. I guess you could just say it was mere entertainment, but it feels so much deeper than that and I wanted it to be deeper than that. But ultimately it seems that’s all that Neil’s given us, a good yarn, a tall tale and nothing more.
Topic: [/book] |
