Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Ratings: 3.75 of 5 stars
This book certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and with such a strong plot base I’ll be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with the ending, climax and a whole lot of stuff that came in the middle.
The entire reason I even picked this book up was because of the tv adaptation and while I honestly couldn’t stop gushing about the show I have much fewer things to say about the book. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it but for such a well executed first season I really thought the book would be more engaging.
This book is about how the old gods, brought to America in the myth and beliefs of immigrants for thousands of years, are alive on the fringes of our society. Our culture has no time for them, and they wither and grow old in the lack of worship. These gods can practice magic; but they are relegated to the position of grifters, criminals, con men, and prostitutes. Meanwhile, the new gods, gods of technology, internet, wall street, and media are becoming strong and want to kill off the old gods. This book is the story of their war.
For such a long book there is very less action so if you want a book to keep you at the edge of your seat you’d better try something else or just stick with the tv show.
While I was expecting moments where I would have to google search gods and goddesses from around the world, I didn’t expect to be left with even more questions than the book gave me in the first place.
One of the things that really irked me was the “numerous” incarnations of the same god all around the world. While I understand that every person who worships has a certain thought out image of the one they worship, what exactly is the point of this? It’s not like the gods are going around granting wishes and dolling out justice. Hell, the only real interaction between gods and humans that we see are (A) when they are worshipping the gods (and I don’t mean it in a conventional way *cough*Bilquis *cough*) and (B) when they are being manipulated or used for information.
Throughout the book, we read about the building power struggle between the gods and you think the “war” would just stop because of a heartfelt speech? No one cares if they were supposed to be sacrificial goats, the new gods were already going around killing the old ones before the war.
Even with all its flaws, American Gods is good literature. This book is very well written. The language is complex but it flows well and reads easily, at least until the author gets extremely descriptive or one of the characters decides to give an unnecessarily long speech. There are so many stories interwoven into the main one that by the end of the book you don’t even realize how many myths and legends you’ve read about.
The parts that I considered the very best were all the ‘’Coming to America’’ chapters that show how the real heroes of the story are the people, not the gods. There are so many beautiful quotes, dark moments and metaphors about religion that clearly show why Gaiman is considered a master of his Art. The themes he relates to the people who shaped America -by force or by their own free will- the cultures and the gods that crossed the ocean to protect those who believed in them and ended up almost destitute, couldn’t be more relevant to our current times.
This was my first Gaiman and I'm not completely impressed yet.
