Neil Gaiman’s reputation precedes him. As a fantasy/sci-fi guru, most followers of the genre can remember his earlier works like The Sandman. His novels Stardust and Coraline have become major motion pictures, and his graphic novels have been incredibly successful as well. Fantasy is not my first choice for casual reading, but I gave Gaiman a go with the novel American Gods.
Gaiman’s idea in American Gods is that gods exist because we believe in them, and “America is a bad land for gods,” becoming a melting pot of discarded gods that rely on human remembrance for survival. There’s a homeless alcoholic leprechaun, a mortician named Mr. Ibis, and a prostitute who thinks she’s a goddess.
Being a god, however, is not just about being believed in. The darker side of that is that gods need more; they need blood, they need sacrifice, and they are hungry.
One god describes it like this: “You got to understand the god thing. It’s not magic, It’s about being you, but the you that people believe in. It’s about being the concentrated, magnified, essence 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.” A pretty damn cool way of looking at it, and much like Greek and other mythologies, at their core, these gods “are the masks behind which we see our own faces.”
In Cairo, IL, there’s a battle brewing between the old gods and a new crop of gods brought into existence by Americans. These new gods come in packages less familiar than the ones worshipped in the past: they are beeper gods and internet gods and car gods. There is Media, the goddess of television who offers several times to show Shadow, the novel’s protagonist, Lucy’s tits (yeah, that’s right, as in I Love Lucy). The new gods are planning to eradicate the old ones who they feel have become obsolete and worthless. The whole shebang is an interesting concept of American fanaticism with technology versus old world religious fervor which speaks volumes in and of itself.
The most obvious omission: the one god that has become America’s most beloved– singular and with a capital G – that Mr. Ibis calls “one lucky son of a virgin;” but perhaps the absence is partly the point, with Gaiman choosing to focus less on a perfect representation of humanity and instead delving into the gritty reality of the lesser gods.
The human condition is ultimately the heart of the matter here, along with the freedom we have to believe in nothing at all, or to believe- just believe, openly and without remorse.
There’s a WHOLE lot going on in the novel- there’s the main plot, a murder mystery, and quirky flashbacks of the gods themselves- and at times I found it hard to keep all the characters and places straight, but the end effect was a bit of self reflection which is the mark of anything worth reading; it should change you in some way, and Gaiman’s totally off-kilter yet strangely close-to-home perspective kept the novel from being too fantastic. It’s satisfyingly deep stuff, and fans of Gaiman, as well as first time readers, will enjoy the existential storyline and imaginative subplots.
American Gods
Gaiman’s idea in American Gods is that gods exist because we believe in them, and “America is a bad land for gods,” becoming a melting pot of discarded gods that rely on human remembrance for survival. There’s a homeless alcoholic leprechaun, a mortician named Mr. Ibis, and a prostitute who thinks she’s a goddess.
Being a god, however, is not just about being believed in. The darker side of that is that gods need more; they need blood, they need sacrifice, and they are hungry.
One god describes it like this: “You got to understand the god thing. It’s not magic, It’s about being you, but the you that people believe in. It’s about being the concentrated, magnified, essence 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.” A pretty damn cool way of looking at it, and much like Greek and other mythologies, at their core, these gods “are the masks behind which we see our own faces.”
In Cairo, IL, there’s a battle brewing between the old gods and a new crop of gods brought into existence by Americans. These new gods come in packages less familiar than the ones worshipped in the past: they are beeper gods and internet gods and car gods. There is Media, the goddess of television who offers several times to show Shadow, the novel’s protagonist, Lucy’s tits (yeah, that’s right, as in I Love Lucy). The new gods are planning to eradicate the old ones who they feel have become obsolete and worthless. The whole shebang is an interesting concept of American fanaticism with technology versus old world religious fervor which speaks volumes in and of itself.
The most obvious omission: the one god that has become America’s most beloved– singular and with a capital G – that Mr. Ibis calls “one lucky son of a virgin;” but perhaps the absence is partly the point, with Gaiman choosing to focus less on a perfect representation of humanity and instead delving into the gritty reality of the lesser gods.
The human condition is ultimately the heart of the matter here, along with the freedom we have to believe in nothing at all, or to believe- just believe, openly and without remorse.
There’s a WHOLE lot going on in the novel- there’s the main plot, a murder mystery, and quirky flashbacks of the gods themselves- and at times I found it hard to keep all the characters and places straight, but the end effect was a bit of self reflection which is the mark of anything worth reading; it should change you in some way, and Gaiman’s totally off-kilter yet strangely close-to-home perspective kept the novel from being too fantastic. It’s satisfyingly deep stuff, and fans of Gaiman, as well as first time readers, will enjoy the existential storyline and imaginative subplots.