American Gods

by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads author!)

published	September 1st 2005 by HarperAudio
first published	2001
binding	MP3 CD
isbn	0060836253 (isbn13: 9780060836252)
ebook
characters	Shadow Moon, Mr. Wednesday
literary awards	The book won the 2002 Hugo, Nebula, SFX Magazine Award and Bram Stoker awards, all for Best Novel, and likewise received nomination for the 2002 BSFA Award, World Fantasy Award, International Horror Guild Award and Mythopoeic Award. It won the 2004 Geffen Award.
description	Narrated by George Guidall American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip ...more [close] Narrated by George Guidall American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days. Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book. Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow. More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton [close]
date added	05-24-07 edit book

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | more...

discuss this book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

groups with this book

view all groups »

friend reviews (0)

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 13293)

Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 0380789035)

01/21/08

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction

Read in January, 2008

I am giving this book four stars due to two simple facts: the insightful choice of concept and the brilliant way in which the concept was articulated and executed through Gaiman's writing.

I'll start with the idea: I will not claim that the ultimate idea behind this book is particularly novel: the battle of the old ways and the new for the souls of the future, the mixed blessing that is "progress", what we leave behind, and what we learn. These are staples of the fantasy genre. How...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

12 comments

Natalie rated it:

(review of isbn 0380789035)

11/30/07

bookshelves: fantasy, urban-fantasy

First Neil Gaiman book I ever read, and it might be the last. The idea behind this book seemed so cool, but it didn't really play out in a way that engaged me.

In fact, I had three big problems with this book. (I'm vague at times to avoid spoilers.)

First, his characters are so emotionally detached that I can't care about them. I've read stories where emotional detachment is done well, in a way where you feel pain or pity or something for the character, but this was just... hollow. I felt...more First Neil Gaiman book I ever read, and it might be the last. The idea behind this book seemed so cool, but it didn't really play out in a way that engaged me.

In fact, I had three big problems with this book. (I'm vague at times to avoid spoilers.)

First, his characters are so emotionally detached that I can't care about them. I've read stories where emotional detachment is done well, in a way where you feel pain or pity or something for the character, but this was just... hollow. I felt nothing in a bored way, instead of a profound way.

Second, the ending of the book felt like a cop out -- the story already felt aimless, and the one thing you think was going somewhere doesn't at all. I think it could have worked if it had been foreshadowed a little better, maybe? But even then, again, how do you care about what happened, given what happened? Similarly, the whole book has a disjointed, anticlimactic feel to it.

Third, I'm not sure what point the book is trying to make; the only points that jump out at me seem obviously flawed. And this is particularly bothersome, since he seems to definitely have *a* point.

For example, if he's trying to say that Americans care more about emerging technologies than religion, it's irrelevant to drive that point home by saying, "You know, no one worships Horus and Bast and the Norse pantheon anymore." No shit? Americans, and much of the rest of the world today, aren't polytheistic? Wow! That doesn't mean they aren't religious. I mean damn, if you have to skirt around the world's three major religions for your point to make sense, then maybe you don't have a point at all. Furthermore, it's simply not true that Americans are not religious; the United States is (perhaps unfortunately) one of the most religious first world countries.

Then at another junction in the book it seems that he's saying religion AND emerging technologies are all subject to being replaced by something else, which makes sense at least for the technology because it becomes outdated. So it's like he's saying Americans are fickle about what they "worship" and quickly pass it up for the next new thing. But yet again, what of the fact that Judaism and Christianity have been around for over two thousand years, and Islam for over a thousand? Again, it's no wonder why they're barely mentioned in the book; if it's fickle to still believe in a thousand year old religion just because we don't believe in even OLDER polytheistic religions, then shit, call us fickle then. How far back does a religion need to go to please this guy?

At yet another junction it seems like he's saying that both the old gods (polytheistic deities) and the new gods (technology) are things that just deceive people in some vague way, but he never really goes very far with this idea. At the end of the book I thought this must have been the point -- by process of elimination, no less -- but what kind of point is that? Both spirituality and materialism are deceptive, so what's the alternative? Are we supposed to be boring and hollow inside like the main character?

So really, at the end it just feels like a pretentious failure of an allegory where I didn't feel anything for any of the characters and the exciting thing that was supposed to happen didn't. Worse yet, it's a self-important book with no real point. Terribly disappointing.

...less

Like this review? yes (17 people liked it)

9 comments

Bobbie rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

08/31/08

Read in August, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Neil Gaiman tried just a little too hard with American Gods.

I get it. I *wanted* to get it, so I get it. Odin, Loki, Bast, Ibis, and a host of other Oriental (vs Occidental) gods existed and still exist and came to America where they had to blend in and fit and life was interesting and they are no longer worshipped. They're rather pissed about this, right, and the "newer gods" are quite happy to put the "older" gods into their graves (yeah, they can die, sorta, depending)...more Neil Gaiman tried just a little too hard with American Gods.

I get it. I *wanted* to get it, so I get it. Odin, Loki, Bast, Ibis, and a host of other Oriental (vs Occidental) gods existed and still exist and came to America where they had to blend in and fit and life was interesting and they are no longer worshipped. They're rather pissed about this, right, and the "newer gods" are quite happy to put the "older" gods into their graves (yeah, they can die, sorta, depending), and a war is brewing. Oh, and they need a human (or two) to get things a-moving.

Personally, I like any book that shows gods as petty and manipulative as humans. I liked the Greek gods quite a bit for this. Oh wait, they weren't in this book. Nor were the Roman gods, but you could argue that those were pretty much Greek gods with makeovers. You do get a couple of traditional British Isle gods, and a whippet of Eastern European, but for the most part the author chose to pick on the Norse gods (a fun bunch, I admit) and the Egyptian and Indian ones. I'm all for the Star Trek vibe of having a little of everything represented, but as an Italian I was searching for my swarthy, mustachioed gods and not finding any.

The point I am getting to (albeit blatheringly) is that Neil Gaiman (the author) embraced a very large swath of topic and then spent a very large part of the book ignoring it. The book revolves primarily around a man, Shadow, recently exited from prison, and his deceased wife who endearingly calls him "puppy". Please note, the wife is deceased through the book but it doesn't stop her from turning up and doing things, which makes her (to me) even more endearing.

In fact, I whizzed through this book in 2.5 hours mostly because I wanted to find out what happened to her. She was the only character I could really learn to like; Shadow was so shut down that the things his character eventually went through were about as heart-wrenching, for me, as cutting a daisy chain out of paper. I really didn't feel much of anything for him, and I especially could care less about the plight of most of the gods depicted. This is not because they were petty and manipulative, but because, to me, Gaiman didn't really want us to like them. (The only one that spent any real amount of time being described and worked with was a character named Wednesday, who turns out to be Odin; the fact that you can see this coming about four seconds into his introduction is a bit of a shame).

The wife, on the other hand, was real, flawed, human (mostly), and I genuinely wanted her to find peace at the end. (I won't share how/if that happens). I also marveled how anyone as apparently empathetic as her could fall for anyone as stoically blank as Shadow. (Gaiman mentions, via Shadow in dialogue, that Shadow used to be "small" as a kid. Now he's apparently a big guy. Ok, and what exactly do we do with this, Neil? You've mentioned it 3 times, clearly it has meaning, right? No? Oh... no, it doesn't... poo.)

The book also includes 2 or 3 "back" stories, of the "thousand years ago plus" variety, which were jarringly inserted. Oh, there's a couple of juicy sex scenes (if you need or want that) and some severely gooey violence (again, if you need or want that) that, individually, worked for me but honestly the plot didn't require most. Or any. Oh, there's also a little murder mystery I almost completely missed as the first part of it was all loosey-goosey through the text, then put sharply into focus when it wrapped up. Imagine watching the first 3/4 of a Murder She Wrote in 5 minute increments, sandwiched between All in the Family. Then watch the last 15 minutes straight. Weird.

I like the writing style (except for the minor fragmentations) and I like the principle. The principle was based on an academic discussion Gaiman had with a colleague: Irish, Italian, Norse, etc. immigrants all came to America but why did their gods not come with them? Because it was a terribly large ocean to cross, giggled the academic. And Gaiman tried, he really tried, to tie it all together.

It was, however, a terribly wide ocean for him to cross.

Bottom line, I've read it and I don't think I've pissed away 2 hours of my life (as I felt when I paid actual cash money to go see "Crank" in the theatre); but I wouldn't read it again. I will keep it in the library, though, the next time someone wants to argue comparative religion.

(NB: Gaiman also wrote "Stardust", the movie of which I love and so I think I shall get the book and see if it has all the wit and charm the movie did. I found none of that, really, in American Gods)...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

April rated it:

(review of isbn 0380789035)

04/23/08

Read in April, 2008

This is my first Neil Gaiman book. I've been dying to try one of his books since I saw Stardust in the theaters, and to be honest I think I should have started with Stardust itself. American Gods just didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would, and I wavered on giving between three and four stars on this one.

What primarily turned me off a little was the subject, the various gods from various cultures -- not so much the gods themselves, but the entire hodge podge collection of them, th...more This is my first Neil Gaiman book. I've been dying to try one of his books since I saw Stardust in the theaters, and to be honest I think I should have started with Stardust itself. American Gods just didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would, and I wavered on giving between three and four stars on this one.

What primarily turned me off a little was the subject, the various gods from various cultures -- not so much the gods themselves, but the entire hodge podge collection of them, the combination of rare, small, and obscure gods, and all of them explained very little or not at all. I am versed in and like some Greek mythology, but none of those gods were featured here. We have Norse, Hindu, African, and what have you, but none of those gods really tweaked my interest as I know very little about them and the author didn't really get into them. He made a whole lot of references to the old myths and the old images, as though he expected the reader to already know about them or to go and find out about them. I'm familiar with some of the Irish and Asian references, as well as some of the Native American and older pagan stuff, but they played only a small part in the book.

I kept thinking that the author must like the idea of footnotes in his book one day when he's long gone and his book is taught in a literature class. That, or the book is intended as something like an inside joke, something that only other fellow voracious readers of every imaginable god in all of time and history would truly and perfectly understand.

On another level, I suppose the offhand references to these gods with very little explanation was intended to illustrate just how much of these gods we have forgotten -- except in my case I never knew most of them, so there was nothing to forget in the first place. Rather than intrigue me to want to read more about the original gods, it made me feel either that I was blindly reaching out for anything familiar among all the weird symbolism and obscure references or simply drudging through them, hoping that it didn't really matter.

The whole concept, however, was very intriguing, though I think an old one. I have always imagined what it must be like for all the old country ways and beliefs to be reborn and evolved in this country -- a melting pot of nearly everything from the old world.

However, I did eventually get into the subject. The road story helped to provide me with something on which I could primarily focus, though the whole journey seemed kind of aimless at first. I couldn't relate to Shadow very well because he didn't seem to have much of a will or much of an opinion. He just sort of let himself float like a leaf in the wind, allowing some stranger whose mead he drank make all the decisions. Despite what we find out in the end, I couldn't understand his attachment to Wednesday, which was so strong that he was willing to give up his life for him.

And all the references to a storm about to brew, a war about to be waged, only brought to mind Stephen King's The Last Stand. With that and the gods, it felt just a tad derivative.

BUT ... the book got better towards the end. The true purpose of the journey made itself clear to Shadow, which explained the earlier plot points somewhat. Some of the revelations could have used a little more foreshadowing, though, or perhaps a little bit of flashback to remind the reader of what came before, because when Shadow had his discoveries and epiphanies, I couldn't even fully remember the initial mention of the mysteries.

It was in the trunk, for instance.

I remember the joke or the story being told about the man with the elephant head, or perhaps it was an illustration of a coin trick -- I don't quite remember -- but when Shadow recalls it, only that tiny bit about it being in the trunk is repeated. There's no flashback to remind the reader who said it (was it Mr. Nancy?) and what the context was, and there's no other mention of that bit about the trunk, nothing to make the reader think that perhaps that bit of information might be significant later -- significant enough that when Shadow recalls it, poof! He has a big idea.

Despite my nitpicks, I enjoyed the book, and I could not have predicted the ending, which I liked. I'm still eager to read Gaiman's other books, and I know I will probably like them better. This one was just not to my taste as I had hoped.

Finished reading April 23, 2008....less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comments

Jason rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

06/08/08

Read in May, 2008

the only other book i've read by gaiman is 'neverwhere' which i thought was great, with a few qualifiers...
i've also read his sandman series of graphic novels which i thought were somewhat hit and miss...
additionally, i LOVED his recent film 'stardust', an unfortunate and undeserving flop, and his not so recent film 'mirrormask', a film that was dreadfully overlooked...
nonetheless, i'm looking forward to this book as gaiman provides a sense of wonder that is hard to find anymore...

i me...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comments

Dan rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

10/23/07

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: americans, gods, and everyone inbetween

This book (in a very round about way) taught me what good literature is. My mother was telling me about this book, and commented that it is good literature. Now, I was surprised to hear this because Neil Gaiman is usually a nonstop sex and violence party of disaffected goth teenager fantasy. Furthermore, I didn't really believe in good literature. I had had so much obvious bull-plop literary analysis crammed down my throat in high school (A high school teacher once said to our class "In...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

add a comment

Loren rated it:

(review of isbn 0060558121)

01/18/08

Read in November, 2007

From ISawLightningFall.blogspot.com

American Gods, the fourth novel by Neil Gaiman is an unholy mess. (I’m writing as a fan.) Yet it’s also an intriguing, engrossing read.

The premise goes something like this: Shadow, an unlucky ex-con, gets out of prison and is almost immediately recruited by a mysterious fellow who calls himself Wednesday. (Yes, as in the day of the week.) Turns out that Wednesday is actually an incarnation of sorts of the ancient Norse god Odin. Gaiman’s central c...more From ISawLightningFall.blogspot.com

American Gods, the fourth novel by Neil Gaiman is an unholy mess. (I’m writing as a fan.) Yet it’s also an intriguing, engrossing read.

The premise goes something like this: Shadow, an unlucky ex-con, gets out of prison and is almost immediately recruited by a mysterious fellow who calls himself Wednesday. (Yes, as in the day of the week.) Turns out that Wednesday is actually an incarnation of sorts of the ancient Norse god Odin. Gaiman’s central conceit is that immigrants brought their native deities to America and, when their devotion began to wane, abandoned them to diminished lives as petty grifters. Wednesday’s goal is to bring his compatriots together against a new threat. During a confab, he proclaims, “There are new gods growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon.”

That quirky central logic, the idea that American versions of ancient (and modern) gods are still bumping around, is the book’s most interesting part. Shadow encounters scores of figures from Chinese, Native American, African, Indian and German pantheons, just to name a few. Gaiman obviously possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of ancient mythology, and the ease with which he redacts his gods into the 21st century is enviable. Try to figure out you’d convincingly fit a child-snatching kobold into small-town Minnesota, and you’ll get an idea of the breadth of his imagination.

The novel also fascinates because it insists that secular, skeptical Americans still worship gods, albeit ones they may not immediately recognize. The Internet (a fat, unsocialized kid who cruises around in a limo) and Media (a pert, professionally dressed woman who speaks entirely in clichés) and Television (whose spokesmen include Mary Tyler Moore and Lucille Ball) all make appearances. “I’m the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray,” Television tells Shadow. “I’m the little shrine the family gathers to adore.” When Shadow asks what sacrifices people bring her, she replies, “Their time, mostly. Sometimes each other.”

In the end, though, the theology of American Gods is strictly secular. That might seem odd, given that deities pop up everywhere from New York cabs to Midwestern supermarkets. But to a one they’re disappointingly small things, pitiful things, the product of peoples’ belief instead of the inspiration for it. Man is at the peak of Gaiman’s Olympus, not Zeus. An ancient priestess tells her tribe, “Gods are great. But the heart is greater. For it is from our hearts they come, and to our hearts they shall return.” After Shadow chides Wednesday for trying to steal $10 from a waitress, the god explodes, “What the hell else can I do? They don’t sacrifice rams or bulls to me. They don’t send me the souls of killers and slaves, gallows-hung and raven-picked. They made me. They forgot me. Now I take a little back from them.” Even Christ can’t escape marginalization. “Jesus does pretty good over here,” one being tells Shadow. “But I met a guy who said he saw him hitchhiking by the side of the road in Afghanistan and nobody was stopping to give him a ride. You know? It all depends on where you are.”

This is where the conceit starts to unravel, because a god of one’s own imagining isn’t really a god at all. Shadow’s conclusion that “people imagine and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen” rings false in a world where birds of thunder flash across the sky and leprechauns snatch gold coins from midair and the pagan goddess Estore scatters flowers behind her as she walks. A gripping plot might have distracted from this contradiction, but American Gods doesn't really have much of one. I suppose it’s good that it doesn’t....less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Gayla rated it:

(review of isbn 0380789035)

07/19/08

bookshelves: suspense-horror-mystery

Read in April, 2006

This book is great. At times its a little confusing what is going on in this story, but that just adds to the quality of it because the moment you figure out what is going on is like a great slap-in-the-face moment of understanding, like OHHHHHHHHHH, I ... GET IT! This book has some funny parts and it has some interesting concepts that makes you want to take a moment to ponder them, and I just really liked it.

Here is my FAVORITE excerpt from the book, a little long, but SOOO worth reading....more This book is great. At times its a little confusing what is going on in this story, but that just adds to the quality of it because the moment you figure out what is going on is like a great slap-in-the-face moment of understanding, like OHHHHHHHHHH, I ... GET IT! This book has some funny parts and it has some interesting concepts that makes you want to take a moment to ponder them, and I just really liked it.

Here is my FAVORITE excerpt from the book, a little long, but SOOO worth reading. This excerpt I had found written somewhere prior to reading the book and was what brought me to seek out this book in the first place.

I can believe that things are true and I can believe 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 Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. I believe that people are perfectible, 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 wrinkly 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 American is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternate. 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 the 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 bumblebee 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 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 that 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 your alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it....less

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

add a comment

Yolanda rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

12/23/07

bookshelves: 2007

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: fantasy, sci-fi, religion, and mythology geeks

I need to preface this review with the following statement: THIS IS THE FIRST BOOK I HAVE DEVOURED IN AN OBSCENELY LONG TIME. And it was great!

Part of me has always liked fantasy and sci-fi because there is no pretense of “this is Real Life, but better” because, quite frankly, it can make you think and draw metaphoric critiques but it never makes point-blank critiques about the pathetic nature of your unexciting existence. Or maybe I’m just too sensitive.

American Gods is about . . . go...more I need to preface this review with the following statement: THIS IS THE FIRST BOOK I HAVE DEVOURED IN AN OBSCENELY LONG TIME. And it was great!

Part of me has always liked fantasy and sci-fi because there is no pretense of “this is Real Life, but better” because, quite frankly, it can make you think and draw metaphoric critiques but it never makes point-blank critiques about the pathetic nature of your unexciting existence. Or maybe I’m just too sensitive.

American Gods is about . . . gods in America and how America is not a good place for gods. We do not believe. The emphasis is on the non-Abrahamic gods, so basically anything except Jesus (depending on your branch of Christianity) and the God of the Torah, Bible, and Q’ran (in that order!) qualifies. Gaiman’s got Norse gods, Egyptian gods, Indian gods, demons from the Middle East before Muhammad was spoken to by Allah, African gods brought over on slave ships, and more. And they’re all here, in America, languishing because people don’t believe. Gods need worship or they wither and they become almost mortal, in that you can kill them then and they won’t come back.

This is interesting because, as I’ve mentioned, most of the gods are imports, brought over by immigrants both voluntary immigrants and involuntary ones. There are a few purely American gods discussed, but they’re not so much gods as folk heroes. We don’t have indigenous gods, unless you’re counting any Native American spirits which, as is discussed at one point, not the same as a god. Trickster Coyote wasn’t worshiped; Native American gods, like Greek gods, were rather temperamental and fallible in the same way we, as people are. But, even then, there weren’t any all-powerful figures to whom respect had to be paid. They were more semi-powerful imps to be tolerated, not even feared.

So Gaiman proposes gods of technology such as Media who looks beautifully familiar and gives of a faint phosphorous glow. There is a fat kid, socially awkward but technologically brilliant, to whom the dot-com entrepreneurs obviously worshiped. And then, Gaiman proposes war on the basis of a too-short American attention span. Fringe gods risk being pushed out of the way entirely, and new gods, seeing the fate of the predecessors, aspire to maintain their presence in our minds.

It is at this point that my comfort in faraway fantasy is rattled. Because, isn’t it true? Raised without religion in the traditional sense, I have to admit that I don’t really pray and if I do the hardest part is figuring to whom. I’ve sent thoughts do my deceased grandparents, but they’re not gods just protective figures who protect in spirit (harhar) and not body. I don’t have a god to pray to, and if what he’s theorizing has truth (because don’t gods “disappear” when no one believes? so wouldn’t it make sense that our belief is crucial for their existence in an analogous way to food in ours)? I could be the reason that gods die!

There’s one memorable scene where Easter argues that she’s still celebrated. So Wednesday asks the waitress if she celebrates Easter, to which she retorts angrily that she’s a Pagan and doesn’t do any of that Christian stuff. Except, Easter’s got it’s oldest roots in Paganism! The fact that she, as a modern day Pagan, doesn’t know that, means that there is definitely some sort of a gap between what religions once were in the Old World and what they’ve become after crossing the Atlantic.

Aside from the metaphysical and theological implications, Gaiman also explores life vs. death and morality—without turning it into one of the papers I read for my philosophy seminar on God, Freedom, Evil and the co-existence or lack thereof of the three. It was engaging! And Shadow was a good protagonist. Overall, a great reintroduction into fiction....less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Candace rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

07/29/08

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Candace by: Marti

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

At first, I was worried. I was interested when I started, but before it really became something I absolutely had to be doing, there was a bit that bugged me. Let's just say I've suddenly realized that I'm sick to death of vaginas being things of fear and terror. My lady-parts don't have teeth, no one's ever woken up tiny and crawled inside, and I sure as hell haven't swallowed anyone whole with it. On top of that, I had a naysayer - I believe the word he used was "hack." Now, I'll admi...more At first, I was worried. I was interested when I started, but before it really became something I absolutely had to be doing, there was a bit that bugged me. Let's just say I've suddenly realized that I'm sick to death of vaginas being things of fear and terror. My lady-parts don't have teeth, no one's ever woken up tiny and crawled inside, and I sure as hell haven't swallowed anyone whole with it. On top of that, I had a naysayer - I believe the word he used was "hack." Now, I'll admit that you can't write a pun-filled, strangely literal story about the power of belief and have it focus on a largely mysterious character - there but not - named Shadow, who works for a one-eyed old man named Wednesday, no less, without opening yourself up to the possibility of being called a hack. Still, I'd reserve that title for someone like Dan Brown, so I think it's a little harsh.

Anyway, I kept going, and after that initial bit of buggage, I started wanting to know. And then I thought I did know, and I wanted to be right (which I mostly was). And then I was invested, and not only did I want to know, and to be right, but I wanted this or that to happen the way I wanted it to, or at least the way I thought I knew it would. And then, in a way that I couldn't quite follow, I went from "hm, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to stay awake just a few pages longer" to "ohmygodwhenwillitbelunchtimesoIcanreadsomemore?!" It never quite made it to "Holy crap - I totally missed my stop!", but the last thing that was that good involved a boy with scar on his forehead.

So, now it's done. I did really like it, by which I mean that the build-up was mostly awesome. The climax good, and even though I thought I'd figured it all out (I pride myself on being able to see a plot twist coming a mile away), there was still a surprise or two left for me. They were good ones, as opposed to that-didn't-make-any-sense-and now-I'm-mad-that-I wasted-my-time ones. So I give it a thumbs up and a place on my keeper shelf.

I've found myself being really dissatisfied with endings lately, though, and this was no exception. The denouement left me a little meh, and I mostly disagreed with the ending. It didn't make the book bad, it just made me think that I'd have done it differently.

There are also lots of good thoughts to be thought there. Gaimon is thinking about the disenchantment of the modern world, or perhaps more appropriately, its refusal to be disenchanted. You can disagree, but how much money got spent on superheroes this summer? American Gods is a creative statement of what it is we're doing when we believe in things, be they gods or cultural paradigms, and it's pretty good one.

I won't even get started on all the storytellers in this, the need not just to tell stories, and to remember, but to understand them, to know their power. I will say, though, that when I got to the end of this one, I wondered immediately whether I'll enjoy it as much the second time. That, I think, is the short version of this wordy review. What will be left when the surprises have all been had and the mysteries have become misdirection and coin tricks, sleight of hand in place of magic? Gaiman's answer, of course, is Shadow's last coin trick, and the instructions given to him by the buffalo men.

Believe....less

Like this review? yes

1 comments

Mike rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

03/08/08

bookshelves: favorites

recommends it for: quiet thinkers, and people who are stalled out, or need a change.

"one describes a tale best by telling the tale. you see? the way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. it is a balancing act and it is a dream. the more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. the most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless."

"you know" says the man in the light gray suit, when his drink arrives, "the finest line of poetry ever utte...more "one describes a tale best by telling the tale. you see? the way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. it is a balancing act and it is a dream. the more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. the most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless."

"you know" says the man in the light gray suit, when his drink arrives, "the finest line of poetry ever uttered in the history of this whole damn country was said by canada bill jones in 1853, in baton rouge, while he was being robbed blind in a crooked game of faro. george devol, who was, like canada bill, not a man who was averse to fleecing the odd sucker, drew bill aside and asked him if he couldn't see that the game was crooked. and canada bill sighed, and shrugged his shoulders, and said 'i know, but it's the only game in town.' and then he went back to the game."

"you got to understand the god thing. it's not magic. it's about being you, but the you that people belive in. it's about being the concentrated, magnified, essense of you. it's about becoming thunder, or the power of a running horse, or wisdom. you take all the belief and become bigger, cooler, more than human. you crystallize." he paused. "and then one day they forget about you, and they don't believe in you, and the next thing you know you're running a three-card monte game on the corner of broadway and third."

ok this is a very quotable book. i really want to type out the whole monologue where the girl sam rants about the nature of belief. you'll know it when you see it.

this is an amazing piece of americana for being by a brit. but maybe the only person who could see america as clearly as this is someone who adopted it gradually instead of growing up here.

i like the philosophy, i like the mythology. i like the main character's vices and habits and conflicted feelings about his wife, and his obsession with coin tricks and pithy advice he learned in prison. i also like his name - shadow - and i like his taste in books. i've spent a few months now derailed and reading books that shadow mentions liking himself as a younger man. i like the forces that molded him, and i admire his responses to things, simply because they're so different from what my own would be. i like the realizations that shadow comes to about being human as a result of being surrounded by gods, as well as on the nature of happiness, good, and evil. i like the cast of this book, the simple quiet townspeople who are also never quite that simple, and the gods who display magnified versions of all the typical human tendencies such as insecurity and lonliness.

i've read this book in pittsburgh pennsylvania, and i've also read it on a greyhound bus on the way to visit my girlfriend in cincinnati ohio, and i've also read it in san francisco california. what i really need to do though is read it on the road through heartland america. i need to actually stop and see some of the places they pass through, and try to think about their power, if any, and what it means for me to be there.

...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Jesse rated it:

(review of isbn 0380789035)

01/19/08

bookshelves: modern-fantasy

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Jesse by: Tom
recommends it for: Anyone who wants to read a brilliant story

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This book is brilliant, and when I have more time I'll explain why. I just want to put up a bit here after reading a few reviews of this book about how many complete IDIOTS read this book. It astounds me that so many people could read this book, quite possibly one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read in my 30 years, and find it "ok" to "it sucked". All I can say in response is, "I kick your face!". More later.

I just reread this book after about 3-4 y...more This book is brilliant, and when I have more time I'll explain why. I just want to put up a bit here after reading a few reviews of this book about how many complete IDIOTS read this book. It astounds me that so many people could read this book, quite possibly one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read in my 30 years, and find it "ok" to "it sucked". All I can say in response is, "I kick your face!". More later.

I just reread this book after about 3-4 years since my first reading. It just as amazing the second time around. I rediscovered little segments of the story I had all but forgotten about, and visited the ones again that I'll never forget. Mr. Nancy still made me laugh, Czernobog still made me wish I new more about Eastern European mythology, and the bank heist was still one of the coolest scenes.

This book is poetic, simple, and life altering. It has messages about who we, both Americans and citizens of the world in general, are. I felt like I breifly glimpled the heart of my homeland, and the vision was provided to me by a man from England. I'm gushing I know, but I can't help it. I want anyone reading this to understand how amazing this book is.

When people ask me to describe this book to them I usually tell them two things. One, it is quite simply the best book I've ever read in my life. Not the best fantasy novel. THE, BEST, BOOK, I've ever read. And two, its essentially a road trip story. These are the best things I can think of to describe this book in broad strokes. Yet its so much more. Its a story about gods, the title did not lie. Its about the land, soul, and people of America. There are momments of pure hummor. There is a woman that is a zombie. A dog that is a mortician. Easter, slave revolts, and Las Vegas are all in this book. Between the begining and end of this book you will attend 1 funeral, and 2 wakes (one vastly more fun than the other, and one VASTLY more enlightening than the other), 1 bank robbery, ride in several cars, and witness countless coin tricks. A man will fight a tall leprechaun. I could go on and on. This book has mystery, magic, tragedy (both human and mythic), jokes, stories, morticians, bad food, good food, there is even a half-demon hooker (quite possibly the first hooker).

I am a man that has never reread a book in his life. This is my first one. I type here as a man who doesn't reread, and I tell you this book was just as good when I reread it as the first time I read it. So go read it. You'll discover quite possibly the greatest writer of his generation, or at least in the top 5. I've started a tradition now. Every time an election comes around, I'm going to reread this book. That way I'll always be remind of a time before that future present, and will always look on this master piece with new experiences to take it in anew every time....less

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0747263744)

07/13/08

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Brian by: Amazon.com

So far, I'm loving it. Hence the five stars. I especially like the story of Essie Tregowan. Gaiman is a fantastic story teller and I have come to the conclusion over the past few books I've read that it is the great storytellers, not the most verbose authors, who are best remembered. That is why The Alchemist has sold millions of copies and is one of the world's most beloved stories. And mine! I believe American Gods will be one of those.

Well, I have finished reading American Gods, finally!...more So far, I'm loving it. Hence the five stars. I especially like the story of Essie Tregowan. Gaiman is a fantastic story teller and I have come to the conclusion over the past few books I've read that it is the great storytellers, not the most verbose authors, who are best remembered. That is why The Alchemist has sold millions of copies and is one of the world's most beloved stories. And mine! I believe American Gods will be one of those.

Well, I have finished reading American Gods, finally!! It felt like the story would just never end and if one is anxious for the story to be over so he can get on to the next one, then the book can't have been all that good.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this novel of gods and men, it was just too tedious at times and a tad bit boring. And I thoroughly enjoy the subject of religion, so this should have been a dead ringer for me, but it wasn't.

As I said earlier, I loved the story of Essie Tregowan but after her story, I kept waiting for more like it and it just never came.

I love it when a novel is able to incorporate a lesson or when you are able to learn something from reading it. I believe that is one of the best ways to learn, when you don't even realize that is what you are doing because you are having such a good time. Entertainment can be educational as well.

The entire premise of this book though was that America, being a land of immigrants, in point of fact even for the Native Americans, that America's peoples brought their old Gods from the old lands with them and that over time when the old gods are forgotten, they die. Ok, that is not anything really groundbreaking, it's common sense really. The attempt to turn this premise into a story of the old gods wanting to fight a war with the new Gods for their very survival and incorporating the twist in the end whereby it was not really a war after all, but a bloodbath, just seemed kind of silly to me. The entire idea of the old Gods living human lives just seemed trite and boring. I like at least a semblance of reality in my fiction.

I didn't hate this novel, I was just greatly disappointed because I feel it had such great potential.

In a literary sense it also began to grate on my nerves how Gaiman just could not seem to describe a scene or a character without using the word gray. "The sky was gray." "His eyes were charcoal gray." "The rocks were gray!" I have heard such great things about Neil Gaiman and really enjoyed his short story collection, "Smoke and Mirrors" so I KNOW he has more creativity than this. ...less

Like this review? yes

add a