disinclined's Full Review: Neil Gaiman - American Gods
The Christian right likes to claim that there’s not nearly as much God in America as there should be, and that our faithlessness is directly to blame for many, if not all, of the ills of modern society. Nevermind separation of church and state, nevermind freedom of speech; if only the purported Christian majority were allowed to rule, things would be much, much better. (Better for whom, they wisely decline to specify) In American Gods, Neil Gaiman puts it a little differently. The problem is not, and never has been, that there’s not enough God in America; the problem is that there are too many gods – plural – all jostling for space, all desperately trying to gather the worshipers they need in order to survive.
Shadow is serving out the final days of his three-year prison sentence, counting the moments until he can return to his beloved wife Laura, get a job from his best friend Robbie, and start putting the past behind him. When he’s summoned to the warden’s office and told he can go free a few days early, Shadow’s naturally suspicious; the prison system isn’t known for impulsive acts of kindness. It turns out that Laura’s dead, killed in the wee hours in a car accident. No need for an autopsy, though – it’s quite evident what her last meal consisted of, since she died with her face in Robbie’s lap (the sexual act being the direct cause of the accident). So: no wife, no buddy, no job, no life. Shadow’s a free man, but he’s far from happy.
On the flight home, barely able to think through the maelstrom of anger and sorrow and bile, Shadow gets a job offer from a strange man in a pale-colored suit who introduces himself as Mr. Wednesday. Shadow declines, but Wednesday persists; Shadow flees, but Wednesday follows. He’s offering a job as a sort of bodyguard or messenger – Shadow will go where Wednesday wants him to, and do as he asks. For this, he’ll receive five hundred dollars a week, and when Wednesday’s done with him, Shadow can go free. Numb with misery and indifferent to his fate, Shadow reluctantly agrees, and drinks three glasses of mead to seal the deal. And that’s when things start to get really strange.
America is, of course, a melting pot. And when all the immigrants over all the centuries settled here, they brought their gods with them, and anchored them to the land with belief and prayer, ritual and sacrifice. And then…the believers died. They were succeeded by generations who dismissed the old gods as quaint, or turned them into cutesy, powerless caricatures, and finally forgot them altogether. But gods need worshipers to survive – they feed on belief, and on prayers dedicated in their names. Gods can die too, and without the support of the faithful, they simply fade away, helpless and forgotten.
Wednesday is a member of the old guard, and he tells Shadow that there’s a war coming between the old gods and the new: snotty upstarts personifying technology, or media, who are determined to refashion America in their own image and sweep the board clear of all the doddering old-timers. Wednesday’s making the rounds, ferreting out all the disappearing gods and trying to convince them to join up for one last, glorious battle. If they can’t regain their old dominions and power, then at least they can go out with a bang, and take some of the obnoxious new deities along with them. As Wednesday’s right-hand man, Shadow follows him through strange realms and other worlds, on a desperate scavenger hunt of the gods. But Shadow has a much bigger part to play in the upcoming struggle than he suspects, and his path will take him to places he’s never dreamed of – or, more accurately, places that exist only in dreams.
Neil Gaiman is best known for his excellent comic book, The Sandman, and Gaiman fans will recognize familiar themes in this novel: the slow deaths of old gods, the blurred boundaries between reality and dreams, the idea of deities as human creations that take on independent existence but which ultimately rely on humans for survival. With an impressive and, apparently, comprehensive command of mythology, Gaiman effortlessly throws gods and goddesses into his narrative by the handful, like a master chef who doesn’t bother measuring but trusts his skills to make the mixture come out right. And it does: rich, dark, and deeply mysterious, Gaiman’s beautifully imagined vignettes (short stand-alone chapters about ancient peoples and their gods) add touches of poignancy and, yes, humanity to the gods’ bombastic grandstanding. As I read, I visualized Sandman-esque art enhancing the text; this would make a friggin’ awesome graphic novel.
Surprisingly, there’s quite a bit of character development, centered on the conflict between the gods’ and goddesses’ larger-than-life egos and their diminishing power and influence in the world. If anyone comes across as a little flat, it’s Shadow, but he has to play the straight man in order to guide us through this strange and marvelous alternate reality. Not a light read, by any means (if only because you’ll want to stop and enjoy the inside jokes and references Gaiman sprinkles here and there), but intriguing and compelling, American Gods is a deeply satisfying read. If you think there’s not enough religion in America these days, maybe you’re just not looking for the right gods.
Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, ...More at Buy.com
Shadow is a man with a past and wants nothing more now than to live a quiet life with his wife. When his wife is killed in a terrible accident, Shadow...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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