Audiobook re-read 2020
I'm sticking with my original rating, but only because the voice cast is simply amazing. If you're on the fence about this version of the book, I'd highly suggest listening to it. It's long, it rambles, and it doesn't go anywhere very interesting. The actual plot of this book could have filled 100 pages, while the other 500 pages read like a mythological travelogue of the United States. There's nothing wrong with that, and it was exactly what Gaiman set out to do. I'm just letting you know upfront what you're getting yourself into because (even with the fantastic voices) I almost DNF'd this audiobook every single day for a week or so. I had to keep reminding myself that nothing lasts forever and this too shall pass. Plus, I couldn't quite remember how it all turned out in the end and maybe there was something cool waiting for me that I'd forgotten.
Eh.
At some point, I'm planning to listen to the original version of the book that his editor got hold of and see how it compares. This version was for me at best a rambly 2 to 2.5 star book. The audio is fantastic, though.
Easily a 5 star audio! <--definitely recommend going this route

  

Original review 2014

High 3.5 maybe 4 stars?
I can't say this is one I would recommend to everyone, and I certainly won't be shoving it down peoples' throats.
But I liked it.
Now, somehow I ended up with the extended 10 year anniversary edition. So, maybe that's why it took me forever to finish this. But I don't think that was entirely the issue. It's just a loooong fuckin' book. And not much happens in it action-wise, so you're not exactly flipping the pages with any intensity.

  

There's not even really (in my opinion) a slow-build up to anything super-exciting. And what I mean by that, is that I never once thought to myself, Oh! Something GOOD is gonna happen in the next few pages!, you know?
Thing is, it has everything I could want in a book. Half-crazy gods, zombie ex-wife, tarnished-but-decent hero, missing kids, and unlikely friendships.
However, it also has everything I usually despise in a book. Trippy/hallucinogenic dream sequences, random quotes from other pieces of literature, plodding storyline, and no action.
But Neil Gaiman just oozes so much talent that somehow I still liked it.
Which is saying a lot, because I'm normally a real asshole when I feel like a book needed to be chopped down by about 400 pages.



Although, unless someone can tell me that Anansi Boys is an Awesome-Not-To-Be-Missed-Roller-Coaster-Thrill-A-Minute-Ride, I'm gonna have to say no to that one.

American Gods isn’t for everyone. I first heard of this book when the TV series came out in 2017. It sounded like an interesting premise. I started to read the book and it was incredibly difficult. I’m not a big allegory and symbolism person. I had to stop about 180 pages in.

Since the second season is coming up, I decided to give it another shot. But this time I read it with a spark-notes companion. It’s the kind of book that some readers may have to study the first read and read a second time for enjoyment.

It’s a sprawling allegory that is part mythology encyclopedia and part love letter to the Midwest mixed in with possibly the best hero’s journey story I’ve ever read. If you’re not wired for allegory and symbolism beware, you’ll need a little grit and determination to get through this. It’s rewarding once you get through the other side though. Neil Gaiman has a lot to say, not only about American culture, but also about personal growth and the resistance to change.

Hold my tea while I puke....

Each time I read an NG's novel the 1st time around, it is unexplicably lovely and incredibly insightful and full of lovely passages that I just want to gobble up and can't have enough of.

Whenever I do the 2nd read, his books turn out to be full of ultimate crap: incoherent, nasty to the brim and full of characters that need mushroom-induced piss to drink are seriously fucked up (not in a good way).

And it's giving me a whiplash.

What the crab is going on? Someone switching my books while I sleep or what?

I'll leave the 1st time around 5 star RV rating but what the hell, I want to give it right now a 1 star and be done with it! Better DNF it with this round and wait for, I dunno, until Loki gives me back my initial lovely volume?

Q:
I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it. (c)

For this and more of my reviews, as well as my friend Petrik's reviews, check out my new blog, Novel Notions.

Mythology has always entranced me. Greek or Egyptian, Norse or Celtic, any myth I’ve ever come across has interested me, especially considering what each myth says about the culture it stems from and how said culture sees the world. Myths are man’s way of explaining the world and its phenomena to himself. How the world was created, why there are droughts and floods, how the tiger got its stripes or the elephant its trunk, are all things that man has attempted to explain through myths.

We in America have Native American mythology in our background, but we ran it out and confined it to reservations with its people, relegating that portion of our nation’s heritage to the shadows. We have a bit of folklore, the likes of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill and Calamity Jane, but we as a nation always viewed such folklore merely as stories for amusement, never as truth. Because of this view, our national “mythology” never established itself in our collective consciousness or gained any kind of philosophical power.

Does that mean that America is devoid of mythology? Not in the least. As with the rest of our cultural identity, we have borrowed and stolen gods and myths and legends from a plethora of other nations. When immigrants came, they brought with them their pantheons. And that is what Gaiman’s novel is about: the insane melting pot that is the USA. Not only did people bring with them their old gods, America created her own gods, gods of enterprise and progress and entertainment.

I once heard about a man from India who was staying at the home of some American friends. He told them their home was beautiful, but that he didn’t realize that they worshipped television. The family sputtered in confusion, asking what on earth he meant by that statement. “Well, in India,” he said, “our shrine is the focal point of our common area, as your television is here.” I can totally understand his reasoning. We do seem like a people who worships entertainment, which Gaiman addresses in his book.

This is the story of Shadow, a man fresh out of prison. It’s the story of the old gods brought over to this country from their homelands, gods who have been mostly forgotten and live an impoverished existence compared to the lives they once had, gods who are starving for worship. It’s the story of the new gods, gods of technology and television and gambling, gods whose reign is new and unsteady, gods who worry about being usurped by the old guard. It’s the story of magicians and con artists, and those who aren’t sure which camp they fall into. It’s the story of America, her underbelly and lost highways and gaudy tourist traps. It’s a story told and told well by a British transplant on American soil, who worried that people would ask him how he dared to write such a story when he isn’t American.

American Gods is a strange book, with large chunks of surrealism dotting its landscape like mesas in a desert. This surrealism is a hallmark of Gaiman’s work, and if the main catalyst for both the love and the loathing that his work inspires. For some, this makes the story impossible to relate to, and thus can never connect with Gaiman’s work in any satisfying way. For others, others like myself, it’s exactly what keeps drawing us back to Gaiman’s stories.

Our main character, Shadow, develops little because he basically lets himself be led through the events of the novel by others. That’s just who he is, though, so it worked. None of the characters felt very real, but they weren’t meant to. What felt the most real was America herself. The wonky roadside attractions were based on reality. America used to be littered with them, things like the world’s largest ball of twine and a version of Stonehenge made from graffitied Cadillacs. (Yes, that’s really a thing. I’m not making it up!)

I also know of no other country with such a propensity for road trips. As soon as cars became a luxury more attainable for the population at large, road trips became a national pastime. With the inception of interstates and frequent flyer miles, a lot of the roadside attractions and tourist traps that had been so popular in the 50s and 60s began to flounder and fade along with the highways that led to them. Route 66 is now a ghost road, but it was once the major artery in our nation’s heart. Gaiman does a great job of capturing the soul of road trips, as well as the fading quality of them. He shows America in all her weird, wide, wild beauty, and I love him for it. He dared to write this story because America welcomed him, and his culture was already here waiting for him. Anyone can be at home here, because everyone has brought their home with them. Our identity is comprised of all identities, and that’s what makes America special.

“Every hour wounds. The last one kills.”

This is one of the books I put off reviewing, there's a difficulty in wrapping up my enjoyment in mere words and not come across as sounding too flat. It's hard to cover a book effectively that dares to be so creative in its scope, because I know I won't cover everything. Hell, I know I didn't even get everything. It probably reveals more of itself with each reread.

Essentially a play on people's beliefs and how the strength in that can shape people, cultures and eventually societies. People sometimes let go of old gods and beliefs, either by not believing anymore and paying little attention, or else forgetting them completely. The other half just adopts new ones and recycles them out quickly and irreverently as new technologies merge. American Gods shows those that originally existed, to become strengthened by the people who worship them, and the new ones who were completely birthed because people wanted/needed them at the time. The book is that but oh-so-much more too.

See, already I'm rambling in this review...

It follows Shadow as a main character, a man freshly out of prison and a new widow. He runs into another man who clearly holds supernatural prowess but much mystery - should Shadow trust and follow Mr Wednesday so freely? As a man with little to lose and very little to gain, Shadow falls into a seemingly benign job that comes to have world-wide potential. Shadow makes a worthy main character to follow - he thinks for himself but he follows a little blindly, realizing that he doesn't have to get everything before he commits to each. Wednesday is epic and holds surprises, a favorite of mine. There are plenty of characters - supernaturally touched or not - and all are them are well created and useful in the story. Laura surprised me by being one of the best side characters.

Gaiman's writing style is smooth going and an easy addiction. His words flow into each well and he dishes out dialogue that's easy to hang on to. To say he's creative with his story structure and surprises is a little bit of an understatement. I had pre-guessed some of the revelations, but never all of them.

I get the bulk of the story, but there are small tendrils that confuse me. Such as this (only read if you've read the book) Obviously for the ritual to take place, he would have had to known it would be done since it needed to be done by someone (spear in side). I have to say I don't get why he told him not to mess with him earlier because he didn't want him to ever be a martyr, when he really wanted him to become one - I'm assuming he was telling Mr. Town something, knowing he would do the opposite, like reverse psychology. It's a little confusing.

The book gets brownie points for this alone -

“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.”

Overall it's an epic novel that should be experienced. I'm ignorant on mythology so some of this was over my head, but it was still creatively constructed, beautifully written, and rewarded my interest with fascinating twists.

This my second book of Gaimans. I really need to check out his Sandman series next.

Do you ever read a book and become completely lost in the words and, ultimately, wonder what is actually happening? Well, I do. So, I go back and read the bits I may not have picked up or accidently skimmed over. This allows me to actually understand the book. I tried doing that with this, and I quickly realised that I still had no idea what was going on. The plot of this felt completely random, drawn out to the point of ridiculousness and the events, themselves, felt incoherent. I have no idea why most of the events actually happened in here, and at this point, I can honestly say that just I don’t care anymore.

Did I miss something?

The book begins with the protagonist, Shadow, finishing his prison sentence. On the day of release his wife is killed in a car accident. What initially appears as mere bad fortune slowly evolves into what can only be considered as something much odder. His wife’s ghost visits him, and assists him in the random events he then encounters. I say random because that’s exactly what this book is. The events that occurred had no discernible point. I kept expecting to see some reasoning behind it all, but just couldn’t.

Perhaps I missed something. But the plot of this felt barely connected. There was an overall lack of cohesion and plot driver. I had very little reason to read this, and as I got further and further into it, I had even less. The book seemed to be going in a weird direction of its own that felt completely ungraspable. I just don’t understand the point of most of it; the characters all felt like they belonged in a psyche ward. I understand the overall meaning of the book, but the way in which the author presented it was awful. The actual events and scenes that took place were bizarre to the point of them having no purpose. For me, this book needed much more than just an overall juxtaposition of god types; it needed to be enjoyable on the surface level as well; it needed a proper plot.

This book almost killed me

  

If a book bores me this much, and confuses me this much, when reading, the overall message of the book cannot save it in my estimation. The reading process was dull and plain arduous, I wanted to cry at points because it was that bad. Indeed, I had to force myself to complete reading this incredibly packed out, and rambling piece of randomness. If someone asked me to give a concise summary of the book, and tell them what happened, I’d be unable to complete the task. Perhaps it’s just me, but this book is so strange. I have nothing positive to say about it, in any respect, and absolutely hated reading it. I just can’t appreciate what Gainman was trying to achieve because he did it such a roundabout way.

I simply detest this book. It was an absolute trudge to finish it. This just seemed far too long. The message that the author was trying to capture could have been done in half the word count. Perhaps, it doesn’t help that my copy was the original version, which means its twelve thousand words longer than the normal one. For me, this meant that there were entire chapters that were completely pointless. Nothing happened in them, and nothing was achieved through them. At points, this novel felt like a connected series of events that could barely be considered a plot. It will, indeed, be many months before I pick up another book by this author, maybe even years, maybe not ever again. I’ll never forgive the author for this tripe.

A very disheartened one star

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n  n

My literary promiscuity being what it is, I have read and loved a lot of novels in many different genres. However, among the beau coup books that I have loved long time there are a select few that hold a special, hallowed place in my pantheon of favorites…American Gods is one of these elite.

Gaiman’s writing is both subdued and poetic. It is deeply emotional, but without a hint of melodrama. His descriptions are elaborate yet not drawn out. He tells a huge, complex, eternal story, one small tale at a time. I don’t know how else to say it, in this book Neil Gaiman took story telling and made it his bitch.

Therefore, upon learning that I had the opportunity to read Neil Gaiman’s preferred and expanded version of AG containing an additional 12000 words, my reaction is what you might expect. I exploded into tears of ecstasy, lost my bowels and wept uncontrollably for well over an hour. This made for a particularly awkward moment at the book store but at least I was prepared…
n  n
Later, when I was calmed down, cleaned up and baby powdered, I sat down and tore through this over the weekend.

Since this is the 10th anniversary edition of this modern fantasy classic, I am going to assume that a fair number of you reading this are at least familiar with the story. However, I will still avoid major spoilers in this review, except for disclosing (1) the identity of Wednesday and (2) the basic plot. Both of these things are revealed pretty early in the book so I don’t think I’m story flashing any of you with this information. I just think it is difficult to explain the novel without these two nuggets of bookformation.

Therefore, for those of you that don’t want any spoilers, you may want to look away now…

….for everyone else, let’s talk AMERICAN GODS….and English gods…and Irish gods…and Norse/Scandinavian gods…German and Russian gods…and Egyptian gods…and Greek gods (plus those “FUCKING Albanian” gods)…and Indian, Hindu and Japanese gods…and Hungarian gods…and Babylonian and Persian gods…and Native American gods…and Voodoo gods…and African gods….and even “forgotten” gods...plus all manner of dwarf, sprite, imp, giant, kobold, vampire, mythological beast, djinn, witch…and one very large and mysterious SHADOW!! Just listing the countries represented in this book makes me smile and break out in goose zits.

THE TALE OF AMERICAN GODS

So our guide throughout the story is Shadow. Shadow’s a big, soft spoken, even tempered bad-ass, ex-con whose life is shattered by the tragic death of his wife in a car accident (there is more to it than that, but, you know, spoilers and such). While reeling from the aftermath of his loss, Shadow is approached by smooth-talking and mysterious grifter named Mr. Wednesday. [HERE COMES MINOR SPOILER #1].

Turns out, Wednesday is actually a manifestation of Odin, ruler of the Norse Gods, and king of all things Asgardian.
n  n
Why you ask is the “AllFather,” the god of war, wisdom, poetry and magic scraping his way through life as an aging con man? Ah….that brings us to the heart and soul of the story.

You see gods are sustained and kept strong, according to the novel, by people’s worship and their belief in them. Thus, when the ancient Norsemen came to America, they brought belief in their gods with them. When they made sacrifices to Odin, Thor and the rest of the Norse gods, it made them strong and powerful. Conversely, as the people forgot about the gods and stopped telling their tales and making offerings to them, their power waned, until now at the beginning of the 21st century in America, Odin’s godly “vigor” is all but lost.

Meanwhile, the “gods” of the 21st century have grown strong and powerful. These new gods of Media, Technology, Internet, Electricity, Highways, Drugs, etc. are young, brash and dripping with vitality due to the worship and adoration they receive from you and me. Now, these godly young turkers and looking to destroy Odin and his ilk forever and claim supremacy over all of godness.

A war is coming…sweet!!!

Realizing the powerful of the 21st century gods, Odin is on recruiting mission to gather up the old gods and get them to sack up in order to avoid being slaughtered at the hands of the upstarts. He hires Shadow to be a glorified errand boy at $500 bucks a week and to accompany him as he travels America (and places in between) trying to rally his gang of gods to fight in the coming battle.

From a broad brush perspective, that is really the frame for this novel. However, as with all great art, the beauty of this story is in the details, the aspects, the shadings, the nuances. Odin’s mission acts as a terrific catalyst for Gaiman to explore the history of America, his great love of mythology and the enormous power of belief.

n   ‘This is the only country in the world,’ said Wednesday, into the stillness, ‘that worries about what it is….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

As with many of my favorite books, this is a “journey” story and not a “destination” story. Thus, if you’re someone who doesn’t like tangents, flashbacks, veer offs or segues in your plot and are constantly hoping to straight line towards the conclusion, than this book might frustrate you enough to cause hives. This is a beautiful, elegant, but long and meandering journey through the heart and soul of America full of rich and detailed landscapes, historical flashbacks, memorable characters and mythological anecdotes.

Now, despite the novel taking its sweet, leisurely time sauntering towards the end, when it finally gets there, it is arguably my favorite 100 pages of any book EVER. In fact, the climax is so amazingly good that is it likely to cause one…so be prepared
n  n

Of course, I am talking about the final dust up between the old and the new. This segment is filled with more gods and legendary creatures than I have ever seen assembled in one story (if you are a South Park fan, think Imagination Land and you will have an idea of the kind a concentrated star power I mean).

n  There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.n

ADDITIONS TO THE PREFERRED TEXT

For those of you that have read the original and are wondering whether this expanded edition is worth your time, I say yes…with a caveat. I don’t see a need to go rush out and read this if you have just finished the original version of American Gods. The story is basically the same and the added text is not so extensive that they change the essence of the novel. However, it you are thinking of a re-read or have never read the story before, I would certainly recommend this edition as I think it provides some additional insight and clarifications that are interesting and worthwhile. Plus, this expanded version also includes a very neat “apocryphal” segment in the afterward showing Shadow meeting up with Jesus that I thought was interesting.

Overall, I love this book. I have now read it three times (something I do not generally do with books) and I am fairly certain that a fourth time is in my future. If you love mythology, it is hard for me to imagine you not loving this book. One thing I would recommend is that you have handy either your own mythology guide or else a link to this website that lists all of the gods appearing in the novel. http://frowl.org/gods/gods.html#odin

I think it enhances the experience of the story significantly being able to match up the people encountered in the book with their mythological persona. 6.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!

P.S. BONUE QUOTE

I couldn’t find a way to work this in above, but it is one of my favorite quotes from the book, so I wanted to share it:

n   God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.n

***Now a celebrated TV series on Starz.***

“‘I read some book about brains,’ she said. ‘My roommate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that people thought when the right lobe of the brain said anything it was the voice of some god telling them what to do. It’s just brains.’

‘I like my theory better,’ said Shadow.

‘What’s your theory?’

‘That back then people used to run into the gods from time to time.’”

n  n
Shadow Moon is played by Ricky Whittle. Excellent casting.

There are few experiences that will teach someone more about himself better than going to prison. It is a microcosm. It is like shoving the world into a shoebox. There are rules, not prison rules, but prisoner rules, and you better get them figured out in a hurry. It is one of the few places remaining where people really have to interact and deal with other people. Inmates learn how to cooperate, or really bad things happen.

Plenty of bad things happen anyway.

Time keeps traveling at a normal rate outside, but inside the box, this minute is the same as the last minute, and when a person emerges from prison, it is like being dropped into a different world because his brain is still shackled in place, in whatever decade he first went into prison. A person spends a lot of time with himself in lockup. They become either a better version of themselves or a horrible twisted version of who they were supposed to be.

Shadow lost his temper and lost three years. He came out of prison probably a better person than who he was going to be. He learned to ignore the bullshit and focus on what was most important...living.

The universe is not done fucking with Shadow, not by a long shot. Prison is just the beginning, the burnishing of his character. He barely has made footprints in the dusty highway of his new life when he meets a god. Like it would with any of us, it takes a while for him to really believe he has met a god. This supposed god doesn’t glow or have a thunderous voice. He is abnormal, but in a kooky uncle sort of way, who besides being weird also happens to be a con man. He is frankly...kind...of...annoying.

Gods have fallen on hard times in America.

This god needs Shadow to work for him.

n  “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. And to get by as best we could.”n

Christianity commits deicide. The whole convert or die thing sort of makes pagans and what would be considered alternative religion types to quickly reevaluate their level of faith in the old gods. It is easier, after all, to focus on one god than figuring out the pantheon of gods they were trying to please before the first bedraggled priest washed up on the shores of their community. Christianity simplified faith. This left all the old gods, used to receiving tasty animal sacrifices, fresh fruits, virgins, bereft of not only sustenance but also...love.

We brought these gods to America with us and then abandoned them.

The new gods who are putting the final nail in their celestial coffins are the new deities, such as internet, media, and cell phones. They hurl insults like these: n  “You-you’re a fucking illuminated gothic black-letter manuscript. You couldn’t be hypertext if you tried. I’m…I’m synaptic, while, while you’re synoptic…”n It is hard to be insulted by a compliment, isn’t it? These new gods are even starting to chip away at the strong foothold that Christianity has on the minds of the American people. If he doesn’t watch out, JC is going to be bumming rides from truckers on the interstate and hoping for the kindness of his former people, eyes focused like zombies on the screens before them, for a handout.

Not to mention the fact that Shadow has televisions asking him, n  ”Do you want to see Lucy’s tits?”n

I’d explain that, but it is more fun for you to find out for yourself.

Needless to say, things are dire.

n  n
Ian McShane plays Mr. Wednesday, brilliantly of course.

Shadow’s boss, Mr. Wednesday, you can probably figure out who he is, decides it is time to wipe the new kids off the block (a version of Titan vs Olympian) and seize the power the old gods so passively let slide through their fingers. Shadow is caught right in the damn middle of it. He is Odysseus in the midst of the Trojan War.

Shadow naturally asks himself, why me?

When Neil Gaiman first submitted this book for publication, his editor/publisher suggested that he cut 12,000 words out of the manuscript. If you are having deja vu feelings of The Stand by Stephen King, you are on the right fright frequency. Gaiman won a plethora of awards for American Gods, so how can you argue that the cuts weren’t a good idea? The thing is, those orphaned 12,000 words were still whispering to Gaiman, and when the decision was made to put out a tenth anniversary edition, he decided it was time to put the kids back with their parents. I would highly suggest reading the 10th anniversary edition. I do not feel the book is bloated. All the scenes are relevant to the larger arc of the plot. I would be nervous to lose the experience of reading any part of this book.

I was skeptical when I began reading this book. Gaiman introduces these gods from different cultures and does not exactly explain who any of them are, or at times he is even being cagey with their names. He is expecting a certain sophistication from his readers that is not only refreshing, but startlingly bold. I thought, in the beginning, that he has the Stephen King magic figured out with the easy accessibility of the writing and enough interesting factoids to make people feel like they are learning something as they work their way through the plot. He has those things, but he doesn’t just let us dog paddle on the surface of the water. He snags our ankles and thrusts us deeper beneath the waves to where things get dark, and we have no choice but to examine ourselves in the context of this story.

And what a pleasant surprise it has been.

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.”n

With books like this, we resume a richer life.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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Interesting. It appears that this book that I reviewed back around 2011 was deleted off my shelf and readded in 2017 - but definitely not by me. What makes me furious is that it erased the entire long comment thread for this review.

Conversations with friends are NOT replaceable.

But at least it prompted me to start the long-overdue re-read.

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n  2020 re-reading:n

This book is long and epic. It slowly meanders through strange places and events, with nothing coming together to form a coherent picture for a while, almost frustratingly so — until the last quarter of the story where everything crashes together with a vengeance, and the whole emerges from the pieces, and everything falls into place and makes you see that it was all worth it to finally get here.

n  “What I'm trying to say is that America is like that. It's not good growing country for gods. They don't grow well here. They're like avocados trying to grow in wild rice country.”n

What strikes me now is that I completely forgot how strangely detached Gaiman’s narration is in this book. It adds a subtle layer of unreality - like it’s almost a strange dream where you start to realize you’re dreaming and decide to just roll with the punches because you can’t wake up. Shadow — our eyes into this world — is so strangely even-keeled and unperturbed by anything around him; it’s like he is trudging through a fog. It’s like he’s not wholly there, like he’s detached from this world, like he is like his name — just a shadow. And that’s of course deliberate:

n  “You're not dead," she said. "But I'm not sure that you're alive, either. Not really […] It's like there isn't anyone there. You know? You're like this big, solid, man-shaped hole in the world.”n

And it’s in the end, in the last quarter, when this detachment finally cracks — and the book springs to life.

n

Well-done.

Frustrating in places, yes — but trust this story, roll with its punches and let it take you where it wants to take you — because ultimately it knows exactly where it’s going, and it is so worth it.

n  “You know,” he said, “I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don't need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It's what we do.”n

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n  Old review from 2011:n

Neil Gaiman must have British gonads of titanium to write a huge sprawling epic story about the nature of American belief. It's a gamble that worked perfectly - since, as he said, "Nobody's American [...] Not originally. That's my point." ¹

¹ Well, except Native Americans, of course.

n  n

"It's a god-eat-god world." This quote by Sir Terry Pratchett, another amazing British writer, perfectly summarizes the surface plot of the intimidating bulk of American Gods.

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

American Gods is Gaiman's ode to America, the land which has become a melting pot to more than just people. It also took in the beliefs they willingly or not brought with them to the New World, embraced them, changed them, allowed some to flourish and others to nearly wither away. It pitted the old gods not only against each other in the endless battle for survival, but also against the new deities of consumerism and technology for the precious belief that keeps them going. To quote Sir Pratchett again, "You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?".

"Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end."

n

But the squabble among the old and new gods is just the surface. The heart of Gaiman's novel lies in portrayal - through seemingly unconnected interludes and sketches - of the people who brought the legends to this land, brought them among blood and loss and sorrow and heartbreak, of the people now who live in the this patchwork country that made a whole out of many little bits, of their origins and pasts, and of the soul of present-day America, the glue that holds it together.

"There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like that it seems so simple."

And to top it all off, we are treated to the portrait of a seemingly idyllic, very Stephen King-esque small American town of Lakeside, hiding its own dark deep secret. Lakeside, the quintessential American small town, the stuff of legends, as one may say. Terrifying legends, indeed.

Don't be fooled into thinking the ex-con Shadow working for a mysterious Mr. Wednesday (whose real identity is not that hard to spot almost immediately) is the protagonist. No, Shadow feels flat and underdeveloped simply because he is just our binoculars into the vast landscape of American mythology, this world of belief and legends.

"What should I believe? thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: Believe everything."

The imagery that Gaiman creates is stunning. He paints a vivid picture with confident brush strokes, creating an unforgettable literary landscape. And he takes a gamble with the storyline and the plotting as well. Do not look for exciting battles and confrontations, for non-stop action or fast-moving plot. This is the book unfolding slowly and finding its depth in the side stories and interludes that are there not to move the plot forward in the traditional sense but to give an extra glimpse, an extra dimension to the unfolding epic picture.

Love it for the unforgettable, fascinating and fully immersive experience. Mr. Gaiman, if you want a title of an honorary American, well - here it is.

"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 fooling a soul."

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Also posted on my blog.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, by the author’s own description, is a work that has inspired strong emotions and little in between – readers have either liked it a lot, or loathed it entirely.

Reading some of the reviews bears witness to this dichotomy.

I liked it, liked it a lot, but I can also understand why someone may dislike the work. Gaiman, in his storyteller way, has stepped over boundaries and stepped on toes. And not just religious or theological ideas, but nationalistic ideals as well. Gaiman has painted a portrait of America that is not photographic, but impressionist enough to grasp a resemblance of us as maybe we are, and maybe he gets closer to the truth of the matter than some are comfortable with. And I’m not talking about myths, but rather, as he puts it, the myths we have lived with, tangled into the skein of our culture and even formed ourselves.

Like many great works, and I do count this work among that group, the story works on multiple levels. It is on its surface a fantasy, rich in detail and fun to read, but also on the level of metaphor with complicated ideas and symbols thrown in, a novel that leaves the reader satisfied but still with a lot to consider once the book is put down.

Like almost all great works, putting the book down is not an easy thing, and difficult to admit that the story is over.

***** 2017 re-read

“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.”

“Hey," said Shadow. "Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are."
The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes.
"Say 'Nevermore,'" said Shadow.
"Fuck you," said the raven.”

“Every hour wounds. The last one kills.”

“I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.”

“Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you—even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition. Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world. So none of this is happening. Such things could not occur. Never a word of it is literally true.”

******* 2019 reread – So I had to reread this because I watched the Starz series.

Liked it. Liked the direction, liked the casting. Good adaptation.

The pace of the series is too slow, though, and moving in odd directions, I’m ready to get to Chattanooga!

Anytime I get to read about or see something in my state I get as excited as a dog riding in a car and looking out the open window.

“Hey! I know that place, I’ve been there! Hey everybody, you can see my house from there!” and so on. I turn into a six-year-old when I eat too – “Why yes! I did have spaghetti with red sauce for lunch, how on Earth did you guess??”

One other thing all my GR friends should know about us Tennesseans. Doesn’t matter if we’re a hillbilly from East Tennessee or a Blues Traveler from Memphis, we all agree on one thing: anybody disrespects Dolly Parton, and you’re looking for a fight.

OK.

So.

On to the 2019 reread of Gaiman’s masterpiece.

I love this book, enjoy the story immensely. What Gaiman has done is to create an urban fantasy that blends elements of myth and legend into a realizable whole, deftly combining theology with mystery.

This time around I paid closer attention to the characters, not just Shadow and Wednesday, but also Laura, and Anansi, and Easter and Mad Sweeney, and Bilquis and Czernobog, and Whiskey Jack. I liked how the Starz series developed Laura’s character (though I did not like the casting) and also Mad Sweeney’s storyline.

I have picked out seven books that are my favorite and this is one of them, and I’ll read this again.

n  n

Buddy read with Tash and Evelyn.

Remember when I thought there would be no more bad books for me till this year ended? Well, it seems I was wrong, because American Gods was a very disappointing way to end 2015. All the characters were flat and undeveloped, and I liked none of them, less of all Shadow and his wife and... really, everyone else.

It's kind of ironic, I think, that I liked the idea of old gods and new gods, what they represented, and what Gaiman was trying to do, but I didn't like the book itself at all. It was boring as hell, and every time I opened it I felt it was an obligation.

As I said in a status update and in the first line of this review, I was buddy reading it. For this buddy read, we read 10% of the book per day. The thing is, everyday, I told myself: "You have to continue. You can't skip a day of reading. If you do, tomorrow you will have to read 20%, and if 10% is already too much (because you're not liking it), now imagine reading two times that." American Gods felt like a punishment.

Aside from that, it was so weird. I have no problem with weirdness (except if it is for weirdness' sake), but after a while of reading something that made no sense at all - not even in the book's world - it got exasperating. It seemed the only face I did throughout the book was this:



Furthermore, everything was just so convenient. There were characters whose only purpose was to appear whenever Shadow couldn't handle the situation alone, and their appearance was reduced to that: For being there just when they were needed. They had no other roles. It's not as if I wanted them present all the time, either, because they were all flat, but I mean, how convenient were they appearing only in those moments?

If the writing were good, at least I would have kept pushing for that, but not even good writing could this book give me. It was too insipid. In general, that's just how Gaiman's writing is, I noticed from the other works I've read by him, but in this book, that tasteless writing bothered me because it intensified the characters' and the plot's flatness and weakness.

Originally, I had rated this book 2 stars, but upon some reflexion and discussing the book with Tash, I realised I liked none of it, so I lowered my rating to 1 and decided to edit this review to add more things that annoyed me. Thus, this is my conclusion: American Gods was a waste of time, and now I want those precious hours back.

American Gods (American Gods #1), Neil Gaiman

American Gods (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman.

The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shadow.

Shadow is an ex-convict who is released from prison three days early when his wife Laura is killed in a car accident. Shadow is devastated by her death, and is distraught to learn that she died alongside his best friend Robbie, with whom she had been having an affair.

He takes a job as a bodyguard for a mysterious con man, Mr. Wednesday, and travels with him across America, visiting Wednesday's acquaintances.

Shadow learns that Wednesday is an incarnation of Odin the All-Father, and is also recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods, whose powers have waned as their believers have decreased in number, to participate in a battle against the New American Gods – manifestations of modern life and technology, such as the Internet, media, and modern means of transport.

Shadow meets a leprechaun named Mad Sweeney, who gives Shadow a magical gold coin after Shadow beats him in a fight. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و نهم ماه اکتبر سال 2019میلادی

عنوان: خدایان آمریکا؛ نویسنده: نیل گیمن؛ تهران، زبان، مهر، 1398؛ در 705ص؛ به زبان اصلی؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 21م

درباره ی شخصیتی به نام «شدو»، که به سه سال حبس در زندان، محکوم شده است؛ در حالیکه تنها چند روز از دوران محکومیت او باقیمانده، «شدو»، به دلیل کشته شدن همسرش، زودتر از زندان آزاد می‌شود؛ او سپس با فردی به نام «چهارشنبه»، آشنا شده، که به او پیشنهاد کار می‌دهد؛ «چهارشنبه»، در ظاهر فرد حیله‌ گری به نظر می‌رسد،؛ که به دنبال استخدام «شدو»، به عنوان نگهبان خویش است؛ ولی در واقع او یکی از خدایان به نام «اودین» میباشد؛ «چهارشنبه»، در حال مسافرت به دور «آمریکا»، و گردآوردن خدایان کهن است، که اکنون خود زندگی آمیخته با سبک زندگی «آمریکایی» دارند، تا برای رودرویی با خدایان تازه، از جمله خدای تکنولوژی، و رسانه، که هر روز قوی‌تر می‌شوند، آماده شوند؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 14/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی