Every once in a while a book comes along that is so powerful in every sense, it seems to change the way people think about fiction, about novels, about . . . well, everything. That certainly seemed to be the case when Neil Gaiman’s AMERICAN GODS was published in 2001. Review after review came in, all of them 5 stars, all of them glowing. I saw the book at the library often and thought just as often about checking it out, but the thing was so dern thick, it scared me. And I like thick books. But I’ve read Gaiman before and just couldn’t see myself purposely diving into almost 600 pages of his prose. Recently, however, I took that plunge anyway, and was glad I did.
Conceptually, Gaiman is an awesome writer. The stories he comes up with, the situations, the details, the characters, everything is in place for some amazing fantasy. It’s what he’s really good at. And AMERICAN GODS is no different. He’s taken the question, “What happens to a god who is brought to a strange land, and then forgotten?” and tried to provide an answer. In the novel, all the gods brought over by early-American immigrants are still around, but most of them are leading sad lives. Some are cab drivers, some live in slums, some are prostitutes. Some live in fear of the new gods, the American gods, like the god of Media, the god of the Internet, etc. We’re a very fickle bunch, we Americans. We fall in love with something one day, deify it, and then when someone presents us with the new and improved model, we think nothing of turning our back on the old one. And it’s a never-ending cycle. We’ve gone from gathering around the fire to swap stories, to gathering around the radio to listen to stories, to gathering around the television to watch stories. We went from writing letters, to making phone calls, to sending emails, always getting lost in the latest technology. And the gods we create along the way are pushed aside in favor of the latest model.
This is the premise of AMERICAN GODS and it’s an awesome one.
I just don’t think it’s quite the novel the hype would have you believe. At least, I didn’t find it to be so.
Shadow, our main character, is finishing a 3-year stretch in prison, biding his time, keeping his head low, waiting to get out and see his wife again. The day before his release, he gets word his wife has died in a car accident and he’s being released early to attend her funeral. On the way there, he meets a man on a plane who offers him a job and, considering the man knows way too much about Shadow for it to be coincidence or chance, Shadow accepts. All he has to do is keep his new boss, who calls himself Wednesday, safe. Shadow attends his wife’s funeral, then sets out with his new employer as they travel the country, enlisting the aid of people Wednesday knows in preparation for some upcoming event Shadow doesn’t understand. But with the money he’s being paid, understanding what’s going on--or rather, his lack of understanding--is no reason not to follow along. Along the way, Shadow does discover the secret of his mission.
His new boss is one of the old gods and he’s enlisting more of the old ones in his army, because there’s a battle coming, a face-off between the old gods who just want to continue existing, and the new gods who just want them dead.
I was preparing myself for an amazing book and an even more amazing battle royale in the end. The book was okay, the battle was flat. If not for Gaiman’s near-perfect style . . . well, it’s the only thing that saved this book from being incredibly dull, if you ask me.
The problem here was action. There wasn’t any. You’d expect a 588-page novel to have a car chase or something, a knock-down drag-out in an alley, maybe. No such luck. Instead Shadow plays checkers, does some shopping, reads . . . the level of detail Gaiman goes into with this book, describing Shadow’s every action as if it were important was mind-numbing. Seriously. It was so bad, it had the feel of someone who’s writing, but doesn’t know quite WHAT they’re writing yet, and so they fill in as many details as they can, hoping one of them will spark the idea that’s been eluding them, the thing that the book’s REALLY about, or the detail that will perfectly sum up their character. I know that slow, staggering pace, I’ve used it too many times myself, I hate to admit.
With that being said, AMERICAN GODS is still a joy to read because Gaiman is such a natural writer. His words come out like they’ve always been there, like the book has always been, he’s just clearing away some dust and holding it up for us to see. Despite the minutiae of Shadow’s daily existence, there were times when I couldn’t put it down. Even when Gaiman’s saying nothing at all, sometimes it’s just the way he says it, huh?
The histories presented here are rich and interesting, the characters (Shadow aside--he’s really NOT a very interesting main character, I’m afraid) are fun to watch and a pleasure to meet. I was particularly fond of Chad Mulligan, the chief of police in Lakeside, a small town Shadow is stashed away in by Wednesday to keep him out of trouble. It’s just . . . good God this thing was dull. I just can’t see a way of justifying the length of this book with the level of action within its pages. It can’t be done. AMERICAN GODS is a good book. I won’t call it great, even though the writing was some of the best I’ve ever read, because it could have been cut by a good 200 pages, I believe, but for all its faults it’s still a good book. I guess good will have to be enough.
A master of inventive fiction pens the story of an ex-con who is offered a job as a bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday, a trickster and a rogue. Shadow soon ...More at Buy.com
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