American Gods

Esto va a ser una reseña un poco especial porque voy a intentar contar lo menos posible el argumento de este libro para así no destriparselo a nadie. ¿Por qué? Porque sinceramente este es un libro que se disfruta muchísimo más si vas a ciegas, sin ni siquiera leer la sinopsis del libro.

“La mejor forma de describir un cuento es contándolo, ¿entendéis? para describir una historia, a uno mismo, o a otros, uno tiene que contarla. Es un malabarismo y también un sueño. Cuanto más preciso sea un mapa, más se parecerá al territorio que representa. El mapa más preciso posible sería el del propio territorio, de este modo el mapa sería perfectamente preciso y perfectamente inutil. El cuento es el mapa que es el territorio. Tenedlo siempre presente”.

Me ha gustado muchísimo como la primera vez. La primera vez fue en el 2016 y lo descubrí por casualidad en una mini librería junto a otra de sus novelas “El océano al final del camino”, un cuento que aunque en un principio me costó pillarle el truco a Neil Gaiman una vez que lo hice se me abrió un mundo justo como me pasó con Sandman, Neverwhere o Good Omens.

Ahora vengo a reseñar esta obra maestra del señor Gaiman. ¿Saben cual es la sensación de llegar a una librería cualquiera y ver un libro que te hace ojitos pero no sabes por qué? Pues me pasó justo eso. No es que tuviera el título ni la portada más bonita del mundo. Tenía algo que yo decía que “tiene pinta de interesante”. Cogí su contraportada y adivinen. No decía absolutamente nada. Solo que había ganado un par de premios y críticas. Yo, viendo el panorama me dije, “igual no está tan mal” y con este título seguro que va y me gusta. Lo cogí y al poco tiempo lo empecé a leer.

He de admitir que no entendía nada de nada, tu ibas a ciegas igual que nuestro protagonista a lo largo de las páginas. Cuantas más preguntas te hacías menos respuestas recibías pero como dije había algo que te indicaba a seguir. Una vez que descubres el pastel tienes dos opciones: o lo amas o lo odias y yo claramente lo amé. Quien conoce como escribe Neil Gaiman sabrá que se caracteriza por unir la fantasía a la realidad y crear unas historias preciosas y esto es lo que hizo aquí. Sí, es cierto. Puede que hubiese momentos donde recayera un poco la acción pero estaba todo perfectamente encuadrado en la historia, cada detalle, cada personaje estaba colocado en un preciso instante por alguna razón. Además, dentro del libro no solo te explicaba una historia, la de Sombra y sus aventuras, sino que había también una serie de cuentos dentro de ellos que te hacía amar mucho más el libro.

Ahora mismo si tengo que ponerle alguna pega es que en parte se me hizo corto y es un libro autoconclusivo. A pesar de todo ello, no me arrepiento de poner 5 o 6 estrellas incluso 7 porque me encanta y sé que si lo vuelvo a leer dentro de un año lo voy a volver a amar como siempre.

2022 comments :

This is still one of my favorite books, and while I can’t tell you if its my third or fourth time reading it (plus an audiobook listen on a road trip with my husband a few years ago), I always notice small new things in there that delight me, little details Mr. Gaiman snuck in there to reward mythology nerds, music fans and people who have driven around a bit in the US of A.

I appreciate his perspective, as someone who was, like him, not born in America: he noticed things most Americans would not have given much thought to, because of how familiar they were, and made them matter. Since my first time reading it, I married an American, so my familiarity with the often baffling (from a Canadian perspective) country has grown expodentially, and it has affected my enjoyment of this book, as I can now contextualize so much more of it than I could have on previous reads. In fact, I think this is the most fun I’ve had reading “American Gods”!

I still believe this book to be an absolute masterpiece of whatever genre you think it fits into, but I will concede that it does help to be familiar with Norse mythology – and other myths and legends to fully grasp the essence of the characters and their purpose. But even if you are not, it deserves to be read.

--

Full disclosure: I love Neil Gaiman. I’m the weird kind of girl who gets crushes on writers instead of movie stars, and Neil is in a category all of his own in my eyes. I struggle to even find a genre to describe him, and I was happy to see I’m not the only one who struggles to label his work. Gaimanesque. There.

When I first bought a copy of “American Gods”, I think I spent an entire rainy spring weekend alone in my dingy apartment, leaving my pile of reading cushions and blankets only when I had to eat or pee. I just didn’t want to stop reading for even a minute.

This book is a sprawling epic with an intriguing premise: what if our belief and sacrifice was what kept gods alive? What if immigrants had brought a version of their gods with them to America through the strength of their believes? And what if the gods created by our “modern” way of life and worship of money, television and so on - wanted the continent for themselves and had plotted to destroy the old gods?

That sounded weird and fascinating to me, and boy, did Gaiman deliver! Of course, this requires a suspense of disbelief: some reviewers were quick to point out an inconsistency here and there… I can’t say that it bothered me in the least, to be honest. I don’t tend to read urban fantasy expecting rock-solid scientific explanations of all the surreal stuff going on. The staggering amount of research that went into this alternate world-building was too impressive for me to start nitpicking. “American Gods” is not a light read, and at time, it can be challenging to keep everything straight, but that is something I really enjoy. I love books that make me work a bit.

Gaiman has a way with words: he is dry yet tender and funny, and very, very clever! Just the name of “Shadow” for his main, rather (deliberately?) bland character, can be interpreted in many different ways: he is, after all a witness and a pawn, more than an actual player, in the great game of divine chess being played out through the book. A literal shadow…

I could gush about a lot of other things in this amazing novel, but I don’t think I would be doing it justice. I recommend you pick it up if you are a fan of books that will stay with you, that don’t fit easily into any category and that will make you think about folk stories your grandparents told you a little differently.

--

Thoughts on the doomed Starz TV series:

I was so damn excited about this. Bryan Fuller is one of those guys whose vision and aesthetic amazes me so much, and I knew he’d do something amazing with this material! And frankly, the first season is absolute solid gold: the casting is so flawless that even re-reading the book, I can’t imagine the characters differently. Shadow will always look like Ricky Whittle now, and Mr. Nancy could never be anyone but Orlando Jones; Wednesday has Ian McShane’s amazing voice and intense eyes and Pablo Schreiber did what I thought was impossible: he made Mad Sweeney hot as fuck (the fight scene in Jack’s Crocodile bar, ermahgurd, why is it so sexy?!). So season 1: awesome, weird as hell, gorgeous, total home run. Then Bryan Fuller left, Gillian Anderson followed and things got… a bit meh. While the evolution of Media’s character made sense in a 2017 context, and giving Laura a more developed storyline also works quite well with the television format, the magic touch was visibly waning. As I read the book in 2022 I re-watched the whole thing and realized I had stopped halfway through season 2 and hadn’t bothered finishing it. I’m nothing if not a completist, so I pushed on a bit and finished the final season as well. It is still beautiful, and flawlessly cast, but it is slower. It explores some of the characters, like Technical Boy, deeper than the book had, and it’s a very interesting speculative exercise. For all my love for the book, it shows its age with that character, picturing him as a fat nerd who lives in his parents’ basement, but the more contemporary tech sharks are slick, often well-dressed and predatory in a different ways. Laura’s redemption arc and her relationship with Mad Sweeney are another brilliant extension of the original story – as is the conflict between the Ifrit and Salim due to their respective visions of faith. Season 3, sans my two favorite dashing side-characters, continued to unravel, despite the inspired casting of Julia Sweeney as Hinzelmann and the interesting turn Laura’s journey took, something was just not gelling right, and the few moments of brilliance were not strong enough to rescues the sinking clunker. It’s a bummer because the final episode sets up tantalizing things to come, but the off-book bits were not enough to salvage the series.

I simply feel that this series was a “lightning in a bottle” situation, and that Fuller was a big part of that lightning – but they tried hard and made the best with what they had. I wish he had stayed on to run the show from beginning to end because I would have loved to see his full vision, but alas… It’s still brilliant, and updated some elements of Gaiman’s work perfectly, but the shit show that happened behind the camera ended up sinking it, which is a real shame. The show does make one thing very obvious: this book is a folklorist’s story about immigration and about the fact that America kinda sucks. It can be gory and brutal, it’s also beautiful and thought-provoking and managed to distil important ideas into a great feast for the eyes. It’s also a huge bummer the spinoff series about Mr. Nancy starring the amazing Orlando Jones will never happen; I wanted that so badly…

If you are into such things, Shire Post Mint made beautiful coins inspired by the ones handled by the characters: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ShirePostMi...

‎
إن كنت مهتما بالأساطير والخرافات والأديان القديمة
والروايات الحديثة سريعة الإيقاع ‏
فإنك ستحب هذه الرواية

n
"If you are to survive, you must believe."
‎"Believe what?" asked Shadow. "What should ‎I believe?"
He stared at Shadow, the buffalo man, and he ‎drew himself up huge, and his eyes filled with fire. ‎He opened his spit-flecked buffalo mouth and it ‎was red inside with the flames that burned inside him, ‎under the earth.
‎"Everything," roared the buffalo man!
‎

::::::::::::::

هي ملحمة خرافية عن الآلهة الذين يعيشون بيننا متنكرين على الأرض‏
ولكنها ملحمة جد عصرية
ملائمة تماما لأن تكون أمريكية

وهؤلاء الآلهة أشبه ما يكونوا بأبطال خارقين
منهم من حالفه الحظ وصار قوي مهاب
ومنهم من يعيش في الظل
ومنهم من يعيش على أمجاد ماضية لم يبق له منها سوى ذكرياتها‏
ومنهم من صار نسيا منسيا

ولكنهم الآن مواجهون بطائفة من الآلهة الجدد
وعليهم دحضهم والقضاء عليهم
وإلا فما سيحدث لن يحمد عقباه

::::::::::::::

الفانتازيا تكاد تطلق عليها فانتازيا سوداء
فهي مصحوبة بالرعب في هذه الرواية

فالجثث تتحرك وتتكلم ‏
ولها دور هام في الأحداث
والنساء يتحولن قططا

وكثير كثيييير من الغرائبيات



::::::::::::::

الكاتب يعتمد في القص هنا على الرؤى والأحلام بشكل مكثف
وباكتمالها
لن تستطيع إلا أن تحب شادو
ضخم الجثة..طيب القلب..كسير الفؤاد
رجل الظل
والبطل الخفي
صاحب ردود الأفعال غير المتوقعة
فهو رجل ماتت المرأة التي أحب
واكتشف خيانتها مع صديقه المقرب
ودخل السجن وخرج منه
ولم يعد يبق له سوى خيالات وجثث وماضٍ موجع
ورغم ذلك تصاحبه زوجته الميتة ‏
جثة متحللة وعفريتا من نوع خاص

::::::::::::::

ربما لو كانت الرواية أقصر قليلا لحازت على نجمة أخرى‏
ولكن طولها أمللني في بعض الأوقات‏

::::::::::::::

يضيعك المؤلف بين متاهاته
يحرضك على اطلاق خيالك لأبعد مدى

وأبدا لن تنتهي القصة كما تتوقع

When the people came to America they ‎brought us with
them. They brought me and Loki and Thor, ‎Anansi and the Lion-God, Leprechauns and Cluracans and ‎Banshees, Kubera and Frau Holle and Ashtaroth, and they ‎brought you.‎

We rode here in their minds, and we took root. ‎We traveled
with the settlers to the new lands across the ‎ocean.
‎"The land is vast. Soon enough, our people ‎abandoned us, remembered us only as creatures of the ‎old land, as things that had not come with them to the ‎new. Our true believers passed on, or stopped believing, and ‎we were left, lost and scared and dispossessed, to get ‎by on what little smidgens of worship or belief we could ‎find...
n

I understand why American Gods is a crossover classic for fantasy and fiction lovers: there are multiple layers to unravel, threads to pull, ideas to chew on, oddities to marvel at. But this read for me was one where some of the parts are better than the sum of the parts, and while I intellectually liked the top macro layer (old gods versus new gods, how we as humans define ourselves and our reality and what takes us away from that realization and awareness) and I enjoyed some of the micro layers (a lot of the little anecdotes in between the narrative chapters were intriguing and charming and fresh), the main story for me lacked action, urgency, and emotional depth. It's a solid 3 star rating from me: I liked it and am happy to have finally read a Neil Gaiman book, but it was somewhat underwhelming and less cohesive than I might have liked.

I preferred many of the side stories and ancillary characters to the focal points of the main narrative, whose personalities ranged from benignly boring (Shadow) to irritatingly enigmatic (Mr. Wednesday). Perhaps, even if I like my protagonists in shades of gray as well as black and white, I prefer great writing, interesting ideas AND action, and here though the ideas came fast and furious, not enough of them coalesced into real action and plot development for my taste. It's a book that's hard to pin down: road trip, heroic epic, little short stories, a general philosophizing about the merits and demerits about the myth of America and the American way. Its meandering nature means that one can easily get lost in the bombardment of content, which can be quite fun, but some of these brief trips into other tales were more tantalizing than the main yarn. It's not uninteresting, but I was occasionally wearied by yet another motel scene, yet another bizarre interaction with a New God, yet another person remarking on Shadow's size. And though the storytelling and structure didn't hint at a climactic conclusion, the way the plot unfolded and hinted at a war between the gods, I did expect a greater, larger showdown in the book's final act, and was mildly let down by what and how it came to pass.

But there's also so much I did enjoy: Mr. Ibis and Jacquel's funeral parlor and the weighing of souls, the tale of Agasu and Wututu, Mr. Nancy, the tale of Essie Tregowan, the town of Lakeside and its unspoken deal with "the devil" to ensure peace and prosperity. And there are great ideas I was intellectually thrilled by, like:

n  n    Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.
A life, which is, like any other, unlike any other.n  n

and

n  n    "This is the only country in the world," said Wednesday, into the stillness, "that worries about what it is."
"What?"
"The rest of them know what they are. No one ever needs to go searching for the heart of Norway. Or looks for the soul of Mozambique. They know what they are."n  n

and

n  n    People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.n  n

Overall, this is a fascinatingly constructed group of tales and has a wealth of ideas and anecdotes that made for a solid reading experience. But the main plot and characters were not quite as strong to sustain my engaged interest throughout, and I ultimately admired more than enjoyed this. experience. I am happy to have read this, but I would not throw over my old gods of beloved literary fantasy novels to worship at the altar of American Gods, though I can believe in its charms and powers for other readers.

'American Gods' is an unusual literary fantasy of epic proportions. I enjoyed it, but I also completely agree with some of the complaints of those reviewers who didn't finish it. It isn't a tightly-plotted novel. To really 'get' it, I think you have to have some education in ancient mythology, and of course, one needs to be familiar with multi-universe fantasy movie conventions. Otherwise, the book may seem only an overlong road-trip diary with too many confusing and pointless activities with fantasy stuff going on.

The slow meandering plot of 'American Gods' captures the basic spiritual decency which underlines the heartland(s) of an American melted-pot society, even if this decency is hidden under our mercenary and mercurial mayfly impulses.

The main character and reformed ex-convict bank robber Shadow Moon is a reluctant human fixer/driver for an Americanized Norse god aspect of Odin, or as he now calls himself, Wednesday, his alias. Wednesday, like all gods, exists only because people believe he exists. But he is an Americanized copy of the original Norse God Odin, though, brought into existence and shaped into form by American thoughts. Other Odins live, too, each culturally shaped by accumulated local beliefs. However this is the story of America's Odin and his, er, Passion.

Wednesday is desperate - he thinks his existence is threatened by America's new gods of pop technology, created by the beliefs of many fervent youthful believers. Wednesday/Odin is trying to rally the older gods for a war against America's new adored gods.

While driving and being driven by Wednesday, Shadow meets many African and Indian (from both continents) gods along with many Norse gods - all tweaked into Americanized aspects of themselves. These old gods were reshaped by our unique Midwestern smalltowns, where immigrants first settled, so this is where these more ancient Americanized gods happen to feel most comfortable. Big cities are too young, full of believers in the new gods of science and technology.

The third-generation of believers, mostly Big City Americans, no longer practice, much less sacrifice, in the old ways of the ancient rites to their newer gods. If something isn't done to arrest the growing power of the new gods, the old gods will soon be entirely gone from America! (The new gods actually are under the same threat, gentle reader, because they will soon be entirely forgotten also by Americans - poor VHS tape god, poor IBM 8088 personal computer lordling, goodbye broadcast TV demigod...just saying.)

Neil Gaiman highlights a few actual and unusual but popular Americana tourism spots in the novel which actually exist in the real world. At the same time, Gaiman is amusing himself, and us, gentle reader, with an embroidered and invented odd-god mishmash that mirrors the relaxed spiritual melting pot American culture has made of world religions. Hollywood movies have laid a heavy hand over religious education in America as well.

Americans do makeovers on everything, including what was once sacred and supposedly unchanging and eternal. We don’t do tradition well. Point taken, Mr. Gaiman.



Neil Gaiman actually has a wonderfully playful approach to writing and inventing, synthesizing ancient myths and modern popular culture, creating new myths from the oral tales passed down from the oldest civilizations of the world. However, some story aspects seem to come straight out of Gaiman's subconscious mind, which are built on his actual life experiences and travels, and seem also very Jungian. Other elements and characters are built out of the existential angst I think most of us feel at times.

I think Gaiman is an academic-level student of myths and awfulness, maybe from trying to figure out why evil is created and maintained by some people. Most young adults become terrified and disappointed by the Real World at some point, once they leave the safe cocoon of toddler childhood. Some of us study ancient myths and religions in an effort to learn why many societies are awful at times, me included. However, studying ancient literature can add to the sense of existential misery because we learn chaos, death and evil has been haunting and scaring humanity exactly the same for 10,000 years. But myths give people a sense of understanding universal mysteries, however faulty, and maybe even an acceptance of the terrors of death on occasion, if one can suspend real life knowledge and ignore that many delusions are common human brain mindfarts. However, even though science is tearing down superstitions, myth is to literature as foundations are to houses.

I study myths all of the time. Any student of mythology can see that the various gods fill somewhat the same roles as humans, mirroring our own inner demons and angels. But they are each oddly twisted and re-named by regional culture, and yes, local technology and science.

Gaiman imagines that people can make their gods really live through their collective cultural beliefs. He posits immigrants can carry living old-world gods with them, hitchhikers in their minds, when they move on to other countries.

America is peopled entirely by immigrants from the world, and, bumpy though the process of becoming a citizen may be, eventually most people are assimilated and changed by the culture of America. If they carried old living gods within them from their previous culture, the new changes made by contact with America's culture would be profound! Our American melting pot of cherry-picked immigrant beliefs is one characteristic most visitors can see traveling about our vast country, tweaked and re-worked into a thousand minor variations across the many regions of America. Stir in the basically true stereotypes of our restless boredom with anything traditional and the constant seeking of the new and shiny for relief of what most Americans see as the dull continuity of daily life, and it becomes plainly visible - American cultural vacuity!

American culture is always in a fast-forward bubble, an ever-changing national soap opera with a million past episodes, a new one shown daily. Whatever issue it is that has us all in a passion, it usually engenders a loud, vulgar and earnest cultural response that is quickly done in a week or two. Whatever captures our attention so overwhelmingly mostly is completely forgotten in about a decade. Our culture is dreadfully shallow even while it is popular, often painted in bright Technicolor, with contorted silliness, but often our attention spans have the longevity of mayflies.

Traditional gods really do not have a sturdy place in daily American life. Most of us forget them except on holidays or when expressing sympathy. We individually often change religions as if we were changing shoes. But we DO have faith, of sorts. Most of us think something might be out there. Maybe. And we are a moral society, overall.

Gaiman doesn't say it explicitly in the book, but I think he shows affection and amazement towards American culture in all of its flavors, while at the same time he sees we are afflicted by the usual ills of humanity which are everywhere in the world. I suspect he has also noticed the persistent attitude and pull of American culture to change itself completely into a 3.8 million square-mile commercial Disneyland. 'American Gods' is a bittersweet story about America with a lot of ironic humor.

I thought he captured the overt pride we have in making deals and trades. Ebay and Craig's List are HUGE enterprises, as are other similar buying/selling/trading websites - even Amazon enables third-party deals. We are at heart a merchant/consumer nation of mostly independent entrepreneurs, gamblers and reckless adventurers (even if only in our hopeful desires while daydreaming at our corporate deskjobs) who nonetheless, have to depend on each other for some sustenance. Americans are truly more like cats than dogs, culturally, in my opinion.

But we are also a perverse people in dealmaking, gentle reader, and Gaiman saw that too, I think. Although we often have a deep respect for those who offer a genuine reliance on trustworthy morality - you trust me, you give me your faithful service, and I'll give you something in fair exchange in return - sometimes we enjoy taking advantage of naivety. We are a people who admires the dark version of trading, too - we often are openly in awe of the unscrupulous con artist and trickster with their immoral theft of our resources and their taking of our autonomy, perhaps by using, for example, our willingness for unexamined faith and affection. Con artists present themselves as we desire to be. Image trumps reality.

If we create gods shaped in our cultural beliefs, should we be shocked when they reflect and possibly amplify our national character for good and ill?

Gaiman, an Englishman, is an astute observer of us Americans in most of our formations, permutations and contradictions. He may be disappointed in some American failures of mindfulness and intelligence - aren't we all - but I think he also has much faith in us, too, as he seems to admire ordinary Americans in spite of (and because of) our sometimes provincial simplistic morals and blind faith. At least, I think he wants to believe, even if sometimes there is nothing but possible Shadows on cave walls to see. However, frankly, I am uncertain if it is the con artist or the saints among us he finds most satisfying...

Wikipedia on Norse mythology:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse...

Wikipedia on Africa mythology:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradi...

Wikipedia on Hindu mythology:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu...

American Native American mythology:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytho...

Carl Jung's psychology theories:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jung%...

I find myself shocked at the awards this book has won and the praise heaped upon it. How on Gods’ Earth could a book about Gods walking on the Earth among mortals be so pedestrian? Somehow Gaiman managed to turn a potentially cool premise into something boring. For those who love this book—and I know it is many—please forgive the sarcasm to follow as I blaspheme against the beloved Gaiman. But Gods help me, the more I read, the more I hated American Gods.

First off, while the premise sounds interesting the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. The basic idea: the more worshippers a God has, the more powerful they are. The plot: there is a building power struggle between the old Gods (Norse, Native American, pagan, etc.) and the new Gods (Technology, Television, Money, etc.). Okay, I’ve heard the ratio-of-worshippers-to-power idea before so that’s not so original. But it’s not a deal breaker. It has potential. Here’s the unique twist in American Gods that caused my political antenna to start twitching—every God (like say Odin) has an “avatar” of him or herself in each country. Or is it each continent? Gaiman’s not quite clear about that. Would there be an Odin in Belgium and Luxembourg? Or does all of Europe get one Odin who is different from the American Odin? I find it politically disagreeable to suggest that every country (or even continent) has different God-avatars. To make this the premise turns intangible political entities (nations) into strictly bordered spiritual containers. It’s parochial thinking. I disagree with this premise radically because I reject that people of a given “nation” are somehow bonded spiritually. Countries are artificial. Like Afghanistan. Like how we stole the native people’s land to form America. I ascribe to the perspective that while people should always be fighting for political freedom and better political systems locally and nationally, we are truly citizens of the world together. The premise of American Gods manages to privilege the people in one country as somehow being united in their spiritual energy, feeding the Gods only within that country. As a metaphor (Gaiman repeatedly feels the need to state that this premise is a metaphor) it fails. There should be no metaphorical boundary between my spirit and my sister’s and brother’s spirits in Nicaragua, even if we have different local needs. Further, I could go on about how old Gods (religious deities) are in cahoots with modern Gods like wealth and technology. Just look at the fact that all the evangelists support the party of the 1%.

Political oversensitivity on my part aside, the rant continues.

The main character, Shadow, was about the dullest hero I’ve ever read. For Gods’ sake how many times do other characters have to refer to how “big” he is? Is he a big man? He sure is big. Wow, you’re big. Apparently he’s big. Is he big? Oh boy is he a big man. Yep, he’s big. He was big and boring and one-dimensional. So pure of heart that it grated on me. I found the majority of his dialogue to be trite and conventional. He struck me throughout as a pawn of the author (and yes he was a pawn of the Gods, too) more than a real being. His words were missing that spark of believability to bring the character to life. I didn’t even believe his repeated sleight-of-hand behavior. It felt like a character trait on a chart that Gaiman could pull out every couple of chapters. And when it came to the other God characters? I just wasn’t feelin’ it. They seemed phony as all get-out. I did not find his representation of them credible. I think my reaction to their characterizations were primarily due to a reaction to mediocre dialogue. The dialogue wasn’t awful, but I found it to be consistently off—slightly awkward, slightly unnatural, subtly stilted.

Most of the story was told in very close third person from Shadow’s point-of-view. But every once in a while, Gaiman would throw in a chapter from another character’s point-of-view. These chapters read in some ways like short stories inserted into the novel to expurgate some backstory, elucidate the God/worshipper premise in more detail, or delve into a side character. I find such techniques utterly amateurish. One or two “interludes” in a book might be acceptable but to have an entire story driving in a close third person POV and then jump into another character because you can’t “explain something” from the primary POV is cheap. It’s an easy out. I react badly when authors feel the need to “explain things” to begin with. And to interrupt the flow of the structure you’ve created to do so pisses me off. It made me feel as though Gaiman were talking down to me as the reader, like I was a little kid who didn’t get it. Or like his storytelling just wasn’t good enough to tell the story without jumping out of it to explain it. Understanding should come organically. Or else the POV jumping should happen more frequently, such as, every chapter. It’s all about rhythm of storytelling.

Swathes of American Gods were just plain boring. About 2/3 of the way through I started skipping whole paragraphs, then pages to get to plot events. All the stuff between the plot events was trying my patience. Shadow spends a great deal of time stuck in a small town in northern Wisconsin, meeting all these good-hearted locals and exploring bits of small-town life. I felt like I was stuck in a small town in northern Wisconsin during the winter the whole time. I’m like—this is not freaking Housekeeping and Gaiman sure ain’t Marilynne Robinson. He does not have the writing chops to pull off an intimate look at real small-town life.

Modest spoiler: The entire chapter where the old Gods meet the new Gods in truce made no logical sense. Even if the place they met was neutral due to its magical qualities, the new Gods simply had to track the trucks when the old Gods drove off and bomb the hell out of them. It was just this weird excuse to have some conversations between the old and new, between Shadow and the new Gods. And to get that body back. Contrived.

Oh yeah, and if you tell me over and over again that a war is coming, a big, big, big fucking war is coming, then you better give me a big fucking war. Guess what? What do you think?

Big spoiler here: Let me see if I can summarize the speech at the climax, which prevented the war from happening. Shadow finds out that his father set up the war all for his own gain. So he goes in front of all the Gods … what is he going to say? How is he going to stop this horrendous war from occurring? What could he possibly say?!?! Well, he proceeds to explain to them that his father set up the war all for his own gain. Wow. I can’t believe he pulled that off. Except by just explaining it. Which he did. Great. Thrilling.

By the end, I was ready to shoot American Gods but I had to wade through an epilogue and a postscript. It was like a pimple on top of a wart. But I guess I’m not surprised that he wanted to tie up loose ends after the climax because he couldn’t figure out how to do it during the story itself. Bah.

I viscerally disliked this book. I think it’s because as a whole it felt emotionally manipulative. Such a charge could have been avoided with living, breathing characters. But despite the transparent planning and plotting, none of it rang true. Even Fantasy characters need to feel real. These didn’t.

I am getting ready to start the second book in the series and figured it was time to actually write a review for the first. It is such an epic read and so much has been said it about it already that I am at a loss for words on what should be said. I guess stating that I loved it would be a good starting point. It wasn’t too much or too little, it was exactly everything I wanted and needed it to be. My favorite aspect of the read was how it felt like a bunch of short stories rolled into one big one and those shorts were easy to follow and even easier to place back into the big puzzle.

The author has an amazing talent that brings the story to life in one’s mind so perfectly that it hurts to say goodbye at the end. He is a one of a kind storyteller and I am really looking forward to the next book. You can’t let my reading of other books in between make you think differently. When I happen upon something I enjoy as much as I have this first book I want to stretch out the good as long as I can allow myself. I guess you would call it delayed gratification. I know it is going to be good and I want to have that to look forward to as long as possible.

Here’s to the next being just as good as the first. *fingers crossed*

“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 foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

I picked up the extended tenth-anniversary edition of American Gods. At 742 pages it was more a marathon than a sprint, so bring a snack!

Shadow Moon’s journey is interwoven with flashback stories of the old gods coming to the new world. In the midst of it all is a war between the old gods and the new ones, and Gaiman did a good job of fashioning the magical realism needed to carry the story. The book started off with a bang, but in the middle I found my mind wandering, then the pacing would pick up and propel me further along. Shadow Moon, the primary protagonist, is a well-developed character, but then the character evolution of the gods stalled until they seemed little more than a side note by the end of the story. The wrap-up, too, was somewhat anti-climactic for me, I wanted so much more.

All that being said, the book is a decent read and Gaiman is clearly a good writer; just not my cup of tea, sadly. I wouldn’t recommend this tenth anniversary extended edition to any but the most die-hard Gaiman fan, since it is extremely long.

I was initially excited to read this novel and, despite not holding my interest at times, it was good overall.
Is it worth reading? Definitely!