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Delbeth's review

Anansi Boys
by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads author!)

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2744.Anansi_Boys?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Anansi Boys" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1161517306m/2744.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2744.Anansi_Boys?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Anansi Boys</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1882.Neil_Gaiman">Neil Gaiman</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1166122?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars Neil Gaiman's mastery isn't in his particular voice as an author so much as it is in his ability to create intricate, nearly epic plots from whatever myths he finds as he reads his way around the world (when he isn't breaking fast with Michael Chabon, that is). Two of the things I really loved about Anansi Boys I learned from the afterword: Gaiman consulted with Jamaican-born author Nalo Hopkinson about writing Caribbean dialogue authentically; also, essayist and blogger Pam Noles ( <a target="_blank" href="http://andweshallmarch.typepad.com">http://andweshallmarch.typepad...</a> ) was the first person to read any of Anansi Boys in any form. The second is related to the first, and is part of a legacy that white authors need to learn from and live by.
 
 Pam Noles has written about her life growing up as a Black geek, loving genre fiction but not seeing see any characters of color in the genre world: See her essay "Shame" <a target="_blank" href="http://www.infinitematrix.net/faq/essays/noles.html">www.infinitematrix.net/faq/ess...</a>. If you've read "Shame," you know that, when Noles was eleven, she picked up <a href="/search/search?q= A Wizard of Earthsea&t=title"> A Wizard of Earthsea</a> and found that Ursula K. LeGuin, a white fantasy/sf author, had written characters of color into a fantasy world. Eleven-year-old Noles burst into tears on the living room couch because the books she liked to read finally had characters who looked like her. Noles wasn't the only one: LeGuin received letters from quite a few fans of color, telling her that she had made genre fiction more welcoming to them; that she had, in fact, made the first place in genre fiction where they felt welcome.
 
 Kristin Hersh has said that, just because she's a straight white female, she would hate to think that she makes straight white female music for straight white female people. And white authors need to learn from that. For a white author to undertake writing characters of color is no minor task; the biggest danger seems to be one of perpetuating colonialism by stealing someone else's history; as if that alone weren't bad enough, writing professionally about that history necessarily means profiting from it. But exploitation and appropriation can be avoided by white writers doing their fucking homework and actively being conscious of their privilege. Gaiman consulted with Nalo Hopkinson about writing Caribbean dialogue (and, one presumes, paid her for the service). Even a cursory reading of Anansi Boys reveals that Gaiman read quite a bit about the West African Anansi stories. It's entirely possible for a white writer to build a story around characters of color and the stories that form a colonized culture without co-opting and colonizing the people and culture involved. Gaiman has done it with Anansi Boys. Gaiman may have been writing about the sons of a god, but he was also writing about human beings. Writing towards that human-ness is a necessary part of white writers making their work a welcoming place for people of color.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/82991?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Delbeth's review
rating:
recommended for: my dad, fantasy/sf fans of color

Neil Gaiman's mastery isn't in his particular voice as an author so much as it is in his ability to create intricate, nearly epic plots from whatever myths he finds as he reads his way around the world (when he isn't breaking fast with Michael Chabon, that is). Two of the things I really loved about Anansi Boys I learned from the afterword: Gaiman consulted with Jamaican-born author Nalo Hopkinson about writing Caribbean dialogue authentically; also, essayist and blogger Pam Noles ( http://andweshallmarch.typepad... ) was the first person to read any of Anansi Boys in any form. The second is related to the first, and is part of a legacy that white authors need to learn from and live by.

Pam Noles has written about her life growing up as a Black geek, loving genre fiction but not seeing see any characters of color in the genre world: See her essay "Shame" www.infinitematrix.net/faq/ess.... If yo...more Neil Gaiman's mastery isn't in his particular voice as an author so much as it is in his ability to create intricate, nearly epic plots from whatever myths he finds as he reads his way around the world (when he isn't breaking fast with Michael Chabon, that is). Two of the things I really loved about Anansi Boys I learned from the afterword: Gaiman consulted with Jamaican-born author Nalo Hopkinson about writing Caribbean dialogue authentically; also, essayist and blogger Pam Noles ( http://andweshallmarch.typepad... ) was the first person to read any of Anansi Boys in any form. The second is related to the first, and is part of a legacy that white authors need to learn from and live by.

Pam Noles has written about her life growing up as a Black geek, loving genre fiction but not seeing see any characters of color in the genre world: See her essay "Shame" www.infinitematrix.net/faq/ess.... If you've read "Shame," you know that, when Noles was eleven, she picked up A Wizard of Earthsea and found that Ursula K. LeGuin, a white fantasy/sf author, had written characters of color into a fantasy world. Eleven-year-old Noles burst into tears on the living room couch because the books she liked to read finally had characters who looked like her. Noles wasn't the only one: LeGuin received letters from quite a few fans of color, telling her that she had made genre fiction more welcoming to them; that she had, in fact, made the first place in genre fiction where they felt welcome.

Kristin Hersh has said that, just because she's a straight white female, she would hate to think that she makes straight white female music for straight white female people. And white authors need to learn from that. For a white author to undertake writing characters of color is no minor task; the biggest danger seems to be one of perpetuating colonialism by stealing someone else's history; as if that alone weren't bad enough, writing professionally about that history necessarily means profiting from it. But exploitation and appropriation can be avoided by white writers doing their fucking homework and actively being conscious of their privilege. Gaiman consulted with Nalo Hopkinson about writing Caribbean dialogue (and, one presumes, paid her for the service). Even a cursory reading of Anansi Boys reveals that Gaiman read quite a bit about the West African Anansi stories. It's entirely possible for a white writer to build a story around characters of color and the stories that form a colonized culture without co-opting and colonizing the people and culture involved. Gaiman has done it with Anansi Boys. Gaiman may have been writing about the sons of a god, but he was also writing about human beings. Writing towards that human-ness is a necessary part of white writers making their work a welcoming place for people of color....less

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message 1: by Rebecca

07/22/2008 04:48PM

I was also stuck by Gaiman's treatment of race in Anansi Boys. Toni Morrison speaks of white characters being the default who need no racial clarification in fiction but Gaiman creates characters of color without needing to label their skin color in any obvious way. No one is labeled a blac man or white woman but race is still an intekgral part of the tale. I don't know how he did it but Gaiman seems to transend color while simultaneously celebrating it.

Good review, by the ways.