I haven’t posted in a little while due to a combination of being sick and having to work extra hours (the company I am temping for just launched the site I have been working on). The site looks pretty good and my job was extended for a couple more weeks, which is very good news! Since it has been a while, this will be a summary post.

What I am reading

American Gods- I have been reading this for a week now and am only to page 178 out of almost 600 pages. I can’t decide how much I like it – it seems to be moving very slowly. I will keep reading though, I had four people recommend it to me and two say that it wasn’t very good – I will see.

The Girls’ Guide to Power and Success – Since I am trying to find unique ways to get a job, I figured reading a book about female success would be a good idea. I forget how far women still have to go in the workplace. It has been a little bit helpful – I think the chapters on communication will help if I ever get an interview. My biggest problem is that it basically is just saying everything I already know and have been taught for years.

On Writing – I just started this book by Stephen King and I think it will be really good. I have no aspirations to be a writer (other than this blog), but I think it could help me be a better editor and help me understand writers better.

Reviews

I haven’t been writing any reviews lately, but I want to go back and review some books I read in the past. Do you have any ideas? Head over to my Goodreads account and let me know if you want a review of anything!

Query letters

My husband is sending out query letters for his YA fantasy novel and the whole process is really frustrating me. I learned a lot about choosing books and ideas to publish, both fiction and nonfiction, in my publishing classes and querying agents seems to be the complete opposite of everything I learned!

The query letter is supposed to be short and to the point and just talk about what the book is about – everything advises my husband to take out what shows that he is a good writer. Really? You don’t want to see if you have a very strong writer? That makes sense…

Also, everyone says to take out where he discusses his audience and his expertise with them. In publishing, the number one thing of selling any book (both in and through) is knowing audience! Having an author that understands his or her audience and wrote the book FOR that audience is HUGE. For some reason, agents don’t want to know that.

I used his book in a huge project where I wrote up the hook, a marketing plan, press releases, catalogue copy, and basically everything you would need for promoting a book. It was one of the best in the class…but the hook (and any other summary I wrote to sell the book) isn’t what agents want. Well why not? That is what will be used to sell the book to a publisher and the public! I find the whole thing frustrating.

Thanksgiving

I did a big post on my holiday plans already, so I won’t go into that here. I just want to say that I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. It is hard for me to remember to be thankful this year – after seven months of applying, I still don’t have a job, I miss my Ohio friends and family, my grandpa is sick, and things are just tough all around…but this holiday is making me remember what I do have. Most of my family is healthy and happy, I have made some great new friends here, I am married to the most wonderful man in the world, and I have found another great community to be a part of. I just need to remember the goods things more often.

Have a great holiday!

Ancient gods surround me these days. Surely part of it is due to having recently finished Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (I know I’m a few years late on this, but novel-reading time is at a premium even when teaching only part-time). Gaiman’s not the first to have taken on the theme of “what if ancient deities still survived?”. As a child I read Lester del Rey’s Day of the Giants with its science-fictionalized version of Ragnarok, and even earlier H. P. Lovecraft had resurrected Dagon and Cthulhu. Gaiman’s treatment, however, is contemporary and is a barometer of how the old gods are faring these days.

Dark and witty, Gaiman’s treatment is a fun-house ride through the fanciful concept that old-time gods and folk-heroes emigrated to American with their believers. The resulting adventure brings a multi-cultural mix of supernatural powers that end up mostly focusing on the Norse mythological cast. Same was true of del Rey — the Norse mythology reflects a stark world of raw power, betrayal, death and resurrection, that resonates with northern European experience. Anansi and Chernobog also take starring roles in American Gods, although the only ancient Near Eastern deities with any prominence in the story are the Egyptian Thoth and Anubis in supporting roles.

Casting an eye over the American landscape, this assessment is perhaps true to life. Ancient Near Eastern deities seem so distant and unfamiliar. Gods long dead. Despite recent movements to revive the worship of Mesopotamian or Canaanite deities, their powers seem to have dissipated at the middle of the first millennium B.C.E. as Yahweh gained a prominence he has never relinquished, and the Greeks and Romans paved over the graves of Ninhursag and Yarikh with European versions of the more prominent West Asian gods. Universities reflect this lack of knowledge with slowly dying departments of Ancient Near Eastern studies. Like Gaiman suggests, America seems to have gone after the more modern gods suited to our present-day lifestyle.

It’s been a while…  I haven’t had internet at home (I’m looking at you, Virgin Media) and I’ve been busy at work, but I’m squeezing this post in on a Friday lunchtime to let you all know that:

1. I am behind on nano.  This is not a surprise.  The surprise is that I stayed on track for a whole week.  Still, if I double my word count by Sunday, I can have 25,000 words and be back in the game.  I’m pleased with what I’ve been writing, though, so I’m considering the endeavour a success.

2. I’ve just finished reading American Gods.  Fantastic.  Huger in scope than Anansi Boys,  so I felt a more distanced from the characters, but just epic and brilliant.

3. Genuine excitement – I’ve just remembered that I have the manuscript for the new David Mitchell novel in my desk drawer.  I thought that I had nothing to read on the tube home, but now I do!

Oh Neil.

I was really looking forward to this one: lots of accolades+Neil Gaiman+the endless possibilities of the plot’s mythology=gold, right?  Not even close.  And that’s a shame really, because the reviews alone were really exciting, alas, I have to keep telling myself that not every book is for me (or everyone for that matter) to get or like or even love.

What in the world is going on that the last 3 books I’ve read have tipped over to the disappointment side when by all means, they should have been winners?  I’m starting to think that NY doesn’t want me to read good books.  I’ve read 5 books since I moved: Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Angel’s Game, Steve Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts, and now American Gods.  Pedro and Child were excellent, Angel’s was uneven, Shark Texts crashed on its own ambition by aping Jaws, and now Neil Gaiman’s American Gods completely disappoints by being something I never thought I would say of Neil Gaiman: boring.  Just typing that feels blasphemous but that’s exactly what the book is: 600 long pages of nothing.

I had originally purchased Anansi Boys and was about to read it when a friend–who loves Neil–told me to begin the whole “Gods” story with American Gods first. So I did (Now of course, I’m dreading opening Anansi Boys).

In short: A man nicknamed “Shadow” is about to be released from jail and go home to his wife Laura, when news reach him that Laura actually died in a car accident along with his best friend, therefore Shadow gets out early so that he can attend the funeral, etc.  On the flight home, he meets a mysterious man who goes by the name “Wednesday” because, well, it just happens to be the day they are meeting.  Wednesday seems to know everything about Shadow down to the death of Laura.  Wednesday lays it out for Shadow that he no longer has a place to go to or any future for that matter and offers him a job, which after a few discussions and some drinks he accepts.  From there Shadow becomes Wednesday’s bodyguard, basically, and follows him all over the country, meeting Wednesday’s peculiar associates until it’s reveal to him that they are all Gods.  Old Gods from European, Indian, African mythology.  And they are at war with the new Gods of America: drugs, internet, greed, television, etc.  What happened is that all God are real because people will them into existence by believing in them (oh the power of prayer!) and after America was discovered and millions of immigrants moved to these shores, they of course brought the old Gods with them through their beliefs, rituals, etc. As time went by and people moved from worshipping Gods to forgetting about them, the Gods grew weak because they feed on the people’s belief and without it, they disappeared into the shadows and/or became little better than mere humans but they didn’t die.  As television, technology etc, took hold of people’s mind and they started worshipping them by way of their obsessions the new Gods were born and grew stronger, eventually deciding that America wasn’t big enough for both: old and new, and the war began.

All of that sounds extremely interesting, epic, doesn’t it? If only.  The problem with American Gods, and there’s two issues really, one I noticed on my own and another that a friend pointed out to me, is that even though the book is called American Gods and it is supposed to be about a war between old and new Gods, that’s not really what Neil wanted to write about.  That’s just an excuse.  What the book really deals with, is Neil’s love for Americana.  It’s as if he took a cross-country road-trip and fell in love so much with the backwoods, the small towns, the traditions, the people, the roadside attractions, the billboards inviting you to exit the highway and come visit some marvel of America, that he just couldn’t help but write a book about that part of the good old USA that most big cities folks can’t bother with.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  I’m all up for small town quirkiness, I love all of that and I’m sure lots of other people do.  But Neil being Neil, he had to create some work of fiction, myth around it all (as if Americana folklore didn’t have its own mythology already) and that’s where the whole Gods business comes into play.

But he neglects the Gods, the story reads like this long, snapshots of small-town America and because we are supposed to be learning about the war between Gods, he ends up not making either side interesting.  Everything about the book is boring and when he finally decides to stage this long time coming clash of Titans…… there’s no clash!  All that set up and then there’s no bloodbath, no climax, nothing. It’s also peppered with cliches, I swear *A storm is coming* as way of metaphor for the God’s battle was uttered like 300 times.

Shadow or main guy is yet another cypher; another hollow character that’s only there as a device to tell the story through his eyes.  He’s completely devoid of personality; you can take him out of the story and you’d never know he was there (this seems to be a popular trend among writers).

If you’ve ever read Anne Rice, then you know how her books are in part an excuse for her to get off writing about her *research* her love for history and the golden age and the monarchs, etc…. It’s no secret that’s why all of her books begin in the present but she quickly takes you back 100, 200, 400 years into the past and that’s where the bulk of her stories take place.  The only difference is that Anne Rice (for the most part) injects her love for history with truly entertaining stories and characters that though you might hate, at least they are wholly creations, there’s blood pumping through their veins.  Neil Gaiman hasn’t mastered that.

The second problem is that Neil just isn’t an *adult* novel writer.  When a friend offered that as her point of view, I immediately realized she was right.  Sex and other adult topics just don’t sound/read natural in his novels.  When it comes to kids and young adult stuff, he’s truly brilliant, and I even think that as a kid’s or young adult’s yarn, American Gods would have work better.  It is like when someone you know that never ever says a bad word or has bad manners and it’s just the sweetest person, suddenly says… I don’t know, shit! fuck! penis! vagina! and you immediately turn around and instead of being shocked, you frown, then sort of laugh and say: “please don’t do that again, it doesn’t sound right, it’s not you.”

I have now Shutter Island, follow by The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay on my cue.  Two novels that like American Gods, have been praise to the Heavens and back, so I really, really hope I end up loving them or at least liking them enough, otherwise Ima have to give books a break until New York and I get whatever’s going on resolved. Not that I expect to always read amazing books but 3 disappointments in a row? A bit much. Anyhow, American Gods–Grade: D.

Interview with Davey Havok of AFI:

from: http://www.phrequency.com/blog/INTRVW_Davey_Havok_of_AFI_Part_I.html

“‘Tell him that we have fucking reprogrammed reality. Tell him that language is a virus and that religion is an operating system and that prayers are just so much fucking spam. Tell him that or I’ll fucking kill you,’ said the young man mildly, from the smoke.”
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman

—

“When you say words a lot, they don’t mean anything. Or maybe they don’t mean anything anyway…and we just think they do.”
- Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman

—

I would post the whole Sandman series and entire text of American Gods if it wasn’t illegal, well you get the point.

—

John Burnside
Winter

Imagine I loved you still and nights like these
were visitations,
an endless Pentecost of lips and hands
and bodies resurrected in their beds,
not mine, or yours, but given, like a snowfall.

Out in the dark, the woods are from a map
that someone has left unfinished: hand-coloured signs
for birch, or deer, and nothing to explain
the new red of a kill, or how the silence
wells around a fallen sycamore;

But here, where we lie down in differing weather,
the night fades on our skins while we are dreaming,
and winter is the self, day after day,
ghosting a life from the nothing it knows by heart.

—

“Myth” is a difficult word to define. In the ancient world, however, reality, or truth, was expressed in terms of myth. Today we assume that myth is “untrue” or false. This dichotomy often leads to an unfortunate undervaluing of ancient texts and stories. At root the problem is that we are on the far side of a paradigm shift. This podcast addresses the question of how we might try to understand myth in a way that fits with the modern outlook. Since historical veracity is the modern paradigm, it stands to reason that history has become the mythology of present-day thinkers.

A few years ago I was browsing the sci-fi/fantasy section at Barnes and Noble and stumbled across a book called Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman.  I was instantly attracted to the cover art and when I flipped it over to read the summary, I was doubly intrigued.  The Stephen King blurb was the final selling point and I decided to give it a shot.  The book was fantastic and I adored Gaiman’s writing style. 

Since then I went on to read American Gods (my favorite), Stardust, Anansi Boys and Good Omens, co-written by Terry Pratchett.  Gaiman’s unique characters and stories transport you into whatever world he’s created in the pages.

By the time I read Neverwhere I had been in love with the music of Tori Amos for almost ten years.  I’m absolutely enthralled by her voice and songwriting ability and after a while I noticed a name that kept popping up in her lyrics from album to album. 

I always thought to myself, who is this Neil person anyway and why does he keep getting mentioned in all these songs over the years?

Well, I finally found out, on accident, when I was looking up more info online about Neil Gaiman.  Lo and behold, Tori’s Neil was my Neil whose writing I had just discovered! 

That just struck me as one of those funny little coincidences that make you smile.  It turns out that their work has been rather intertwined for many years (he made her a talking tree character in Stardust, she wrote a song for his anthology, and they’ve both written for each other’s projects including tour books, album theme stories and book introductions).  I recently saw Tori perform at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and I noticed that every time she sang a lyric that included Neil’s name, a group in the front row cheered loudly so I thought he must have been in the audience.

Here are some of the Neil-afied lyrics from Tori’s songs…

“If you need me, me and Neil’ll be hanging out with the dream king.  Neil said hi by the way.”  (Tear in Your Hand)

“Seems I keep getting this story twisted so where’s Neil when you need him?”  (Space Dog)

“And if there is a way to find you I will find you.  But will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?”  (Horses)

“Get me Neil on the phone, no I can’t hold.”  (Carbon)

“Neil is thrilled he can claim he’s mammalian, ‘but the bad news,’ he said, ‘girl you’re a dandelion’” (Not Dying Today)

Have you ever discovered any similar connections?

Here’s SOME of the stuff Neil Gaiman (my favorite award-winning English writer) signed for me after our one-on-one interview with him last weekend. He’s back in USA already, but the dashing Englishman’s made hundreds of local fans happy, this Singaporean fan girl too!

I was totally thrilled when dear Mr Gaiman signed my, I mean, his books for me Check out some of my favorites…

The BFF got this for me for my birthday this year *beams*

It's a very special book, and now even more so

The cover of the book... Coraline, which is now playing in cinemas

And what Neil Gaiman did inside... ♥ love it to bits!

My Absolute Sandman series just became more beautiful...

*happy sigh*

You can be sure this won't be up on eBay!

*another happy sigh*

Mr Gaiman so creatively added a candle to the print illustrations *beams*

And here, we have a falling star ♥ The Hollywood film was ok, but the book & graphic novel's waaaaaaaaay better!

The media passes we got for his talk, along with the actual marker he used to sign my Absolute Sandman 4 volumes *grin* Yes, I'm a Gaiman girl!

Yes, the new week has started and I’m still floating on Cloud 9. Meeting Neil himself is like magic, real magic!

I’ve been beaming like a silly giggly schoolgirl the whole day, with the guys at work being slightly amused… but then it’s gonna be a crazy week ahead with show bookings, meetings, the works… so this sweet mood I’m in, sure helps keep me sane!

Ta for now, more later

I return to Neil Gaiman’s wonderfully entertaining book American Gods.

Quite apart from the fact that it is a captivating story about solving the oddest of murder mysteries  …. that murder has even been taking place is not immediately apparent!  …. the book is a shrewd commentary on incipient idolatry with a hint of its insidious power. Not only that, an imaginative leap juxtaposes the new gods of America (media for example) alongside the ancient gods brought to the “new world” by the immigration flow of the past and present. These ancient gods are alive and kicking, and indeed in a state of competitive combat with the upstart new gods. All this slowly sweeps up, not just the reader, but the book’s central figure, Shadow, a recently released prisoner, whose “chance encounter” with a Mr. Wednesday is the axis upon which the plot turns.

Why am I telling you all this?

“The culture war” is far more complex than is often acknowledged. Gaiman recognizes this and introduces nuances not frequently noted. But, while broad in its scope, his book is by no means completely thorough. The “old faiths” are certainly under assault from an array of glitzy new opponents, contending for loyalty, devotion, and resources, but to Gaiman’s chaotically thrown-together (by history not him) pantheon must be added the perhaps most prominently adored of today’s new divinities: dislocation, boredom, indifference, and, of all the most alluring, despair.

A sub-theme of all this is choice. Who makes the choice? The god or the devotee? It was, if memory serves me aright, the great Yiddish novelist, Isaac Bashevis Singer who, when asked if he believed in free will, replied, “Yes: I must.” Precisely! But nevertheless, choosing remains a hugely important faith factor. Even if you wish to choose the “gods of the fathers” who, being the gods of the fathers, in some sense have already chosen you, choose you must. It is the avoiding of choosing that undermines vigor and empowers the insidious divinities to captivate. C. S. Lewis once wrote that the devil’s greatest weapon was the conviction that he does not exist. (Lewis said it more neatly than that!)

So, it is Saturday (Saturn’s day)! Not only that it is Halloween  …. All Hallowed Eve, the evening before All Saints’ Day.

Trick or treat? Not much of a choice. When you think about it.

What should I believe? thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him, from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: Believe everything.

American Gods follows the story of a man named Shadow Moon, who’s just about to get out of prison on good behaviour after doing his time. He had once held up a convenience store, as stupid an idea that should’ve been, and now he just wants to go home and live a nice, quiet life. His departure, which should be a happy moment, is suddenly shattered by the news that his wife, Laura, has been killed in a car accident.

On the flight home, Shadows meets a strange man who calls himself Mister Wednesday, who somehow knows him. Mister Wednesday offers Shadow a job (as if he knows that the job Shadow was expecting to get back home is about to fall through), and introduces him to some strange people, where he learns some coin tricks (and later finds a golden coin in his pocket that he did not put there).  After an even more awkward than expected funeral (Shadow finds out from his friend’s wife, the friend who was also killed in the car accident, that his wife and her husband were cheating on them together, and the car crash was caused by some sexual hijinks) where Shadow leaves the golden coin with Laura’s body, Shadow returns back into Mister Wednesday, who offers him the job again. Shadow takes it, and makes the deal by drinking some of the mead that Mister Wednesday gives him.

Things go a little strange after that – Laura comes back from the dead (no, she isn’t a zombie – she’s like a ghost, but still has a body. She’s dead, but she’s not). The people Mister Wednesday meets are even stranger than Shadow ever expected, and the situations they throw him is beyond what he had expected.

American Gods is an urban fantasy – this is a world where gods and other beings (such as kobolds, leprechauns, and ifrits, among others) interact with normal people like any of us in our day to day lives; where gods are not that much different than humans. If you don’t like that sort of thing, don’t read it – it makes up a ridiculously huge amount of the plot.

What American Gods does is weave a story about mythology, the new world, and how it all fits together. Even the Native American spirit that Shadow encounters says that “this is not a place for gods”, and maybe it’s true. The novel questions how things change coming across to the New World, how we may have lost sight of what these beings and beliefs once represented to our ancestors, and if we are creating our own gods instead. The gods exist only if someone still believes in them, and they have different selves, mattering on the countries their followers live in. Some die. Some are killed.

The battle between the old gods and the new gods begins and Shadow is stuck in the very middle of it, as his allegiance to Mister Wednesday (highlight for spoilers: and the fact that he is a god himself, Baldr, Mister Wednesday/Odin’s son and best known for not being able to be physically hurt for the most part and also for dying, yet doesn’t realise it yet) makes him a target.

There are also short stories that at first look, have no relevance at all to the plot included in the novel – but they’re the stories of the gods and the followers that came before; the stories of those that came before and that are often forgotten in our world where there is so few gods remembered and believed in.

Part of what makes this novel so compelling is Gaiman’s writing style. Gaiman has the ability to write everything in a poetic fashion, from the mundane to the grotesque, and it shines in this book. From the gorgeous description of when Shadow sees the gods for what they really are and not their human exteriors, the dreams with the Buffalo spirit of the American land, to when one of the new gods kill an old one, all of it keeps the (fairly long) novel from getting too overwhelming.

That’s not to say that American Gods is a perfect piece of literature. Like all books, it has its downsides. There’s a fairly long part (where Shadow stays in Lakeside), where it feels like the story is biding its time and except for the interruption of a San Francisco visit, like everything is hibernating. Everything feels like it’s moving just a bit slower. Then again, this is not an action-filled novel – it’s quiet and dark in places  while the battle begins to boil.

There’s so many gods referenced that it’s hard to even catch many of them on the first read – many of them are there, but not actually named, so it’s kinda like “Where’s Waldo” for mythology. Gaiman really likes mythology.

So, I liked this book. Actually, I loved this book – it’s one of my favourites (there’s a sorta sequel in Anansi Boys, too  in that it’s the same world, but takes place in a different country and based on a different god). It’s a good book. You should read it.

It’s gotten to that point in the year where I’ve clearly not been on enough holidays and I have days left to use up – poor me, I have to take days off to chill out at home.  Oh, and go to the dentist.  Aside from the mouth prodding, I’m planning to use these days to bake (’tis all about pumpkin muffins at the moment.  Even better with ginger icing – mmm!), read, and finally get the outline of this novel down on paper.  Timelines, coloured pens, character breakdowns – oh, it’s all going on!  It’s all taken shape in my head, but I can’t actually say I’m writing it until I at least have the outline in physical existence.

I finished The Year of the Flood on the tube this morning.  Fantastic novel, but finishing a book on the journey into work always leaves me anxious that I’ll have nothing to read on the way home except a free London paper.  Luckily, working in publishing, new books aren’t hard to come by.  I went into work with nothing and came out with Ghostwritten and American Gods to see me through my lovely looooong weekend.  Reading the bio in Ghostwritten, I realised that David Mitchell was 30 when his first novel was published.  That is my target age for being a published novelist.  I’m still on the opinion that 30 is young for a novelist, despite the sickening two 24 year old debut novelists that we’re publishing next year – freaks!  Damned, talented freaks!

The fiction Lady-Rating returns (on a Monday).

Do you have what it takes, fictionally?

First, apologies–m.snowe has been neglecting this Friday post  idea. But to remedy that on a Monday morning, here we go with a new book to analyze in terms of its female characters, or the presence/lack of any type of feminist ideas.

Today’s Lady-Rating, for American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.

Do ladies ever strike twice?

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Reasoning: First let m.snowe say that she enjoyed this book immensely. It was an easy read, and presented ideas and creative vignettes that were extremely original and thought-provoking. There was an underlying message or preachyness to the book, but it really didn’t distract or take away from m.snowe’s enjoyment of the story. But here’s the problem–most of the lady bits are tangential. The protagonist, Shadow, is actually quite a redeeming character, and it’s clear that he respects and enjoys the company of women (yeah, in that way too). And women do play a crucial role in the movement of the story–Gaiman’s premise of broke-down gods living in America is not neglectful of lady gods–Easter, Mama Ji, the Zorya sisters, etc., and so on. And Shadow’s dead wife is also a key character. But honestly, sometimes m.snowe felt like the ladies were either there to add flourish or intrigue, or merely drive the story–which is fine, but the women don’t get the kind of character development that the men sometimes do. Despite the variety of names these lady-gods are given, it might not be completely unfair to say they are all really Muses. They guide and assist Shadow on his way, and the real players are men–Shadow, Wednesday, Mister World.

But let m.snowe make it clear–she loved this book, and found herself reading passages that were completely unique, and many times wished she could’ve come up with such strange and beautiful stories. The small stories that breakaway from the main action were just out-of-place enough to work, yet intrinsically tied to the plot, even if you couldn’t fully puzzle out why. A scene of a reverse birth was shocking (at least, it was to m.snowe!), and the frank suspension of reality somehow works. In fact, it was mildly disappointing to see that the end was connected to the solving of a “real life” murder mystery, because it hurled the story back into reality, taking the reader out of the world of strange possibilities that Gaiman navigates so fluidly. If only Shadow or Wednesday had a lady counterpart, this story would’ve tipped the lady-rating scales to a seven or eight. But m.snowe recommends you read it anyway.

Nach einem missglückten Raubüberfall saß der schweigsame Zauberkünstler Shadow drei Jahre im Gefängnis und wartete auf den Tag seiner Entlassung. Als dieser dann kommt, kommt er anders, als Shadow es sich vorgestellt hat: Seine Frau wird bei einem Autounfall getötet. Innerlich ausgebrannt, nimmt Shadow das Jobangebot eines gewissen Mr. Wednesday an, dem er als Leibwächter bei einer Reise durch Amerika dienen soll. Schon bald stellt sich heraus, dass Wednesday die Inkarnation des Gottes Odin ist, der sich auf die Suche nach anderen Göttern und Helden der amerikanischen Folklore macht, um sie gegen eine Bedrohung ungeheueren Ausmaßes zu wappnen …

Schon ziemlich lange hatte ich mir vorgenommen, es einmal mit Neil Gaiman zu probieren. Immerhin hat er schon mit Terry Pratchett zusammengearbeitet, außerdem habe ich schon einige Empfehlungen zu “American Gods” bekommen. Neben seinen teils skurrilen Urban-Fantasy-Romanen arbeitet Gaiman auch als Comiczeichner, zeichnet unter anderem für die Vorlage zu den Filmen “Coraline” und “Der Sternwanderer” verantwortlich. Das nur am Rande; ich habe keinen von beiden gesehen. Noch nicht, denn es scheint, als sei Gaiman allemal einen zweiten Blick wert.

In “American Gods” beschäftigt er sich mit einer geradezu philosophischen Fragestellung: Wenn Menschen ihre Herkunftsländer verlassen, um sich in anderen Teilen der Erde anzusiedeln, was geschieht dann mit den Gottheiten, an die sie glauben? In Gaimans Roman haben all die Immigranten, die sich im Laufe der Jahrhunderte in Amerika angesiedelt haben, ihre Götter mitgebracht, sozusagen ein amerikanisches Superpantheon geschaffen; doch nun, in der hochtechnisierten Gegenwart, in der der Glaube an alte Götter und Naturreligionen schwindet, verlieren diese Götter an Einfluss und Lebenskraft, denn, wie Wednesday zu verschiedenen Gelegenheiten sagt: “Amerika ist kein Land für Götter.”

Die Menschen verlassen sich nur noch auf Technologie anstatt den Glauben und erschaffen sich so neue Götter, Götter der Moderne, die nach Wednesdays Meinung nicht friedlich Seite an Seite mit den alten Göttern existieren können. Auf diese Weise drohe Amerika ein Konflikt biblischen Ausmaßes, auf den Odin alias Wednesday die alten Götter vorbereiten will. So reißt er von Ort zu Ort, mit Shadow an seiner Seite, der sich bemerkenswert schnell mit seinen neuen Lebensumständen abfindet und langsam lernt, an das Überirdische zu glauben: So lernt er den irischen Kobold Mad Sweeney kennen, der sein Seelenheil im Alkohol sucht; den slawischen Schlachtergott Tschernibog sowie die ägyptischen Überwesen Thoth und Anubis, für deren Bestattungsunternehmen er eine Zeit lang arbeitet. Außerdem wäre da noch eine seltsame Münze, die Tote wieder zum Leben zu erwecken vermag …

“American Gods” ist ungewöhnlich für einen Fantasy-Roman. Gibt es ein Literatur-Pendant zum Filmgenre des Roadmovie? Wenn ja, wäre es hier sicher passend anwendbar. Dabei scheint die eigentliche Handlung mit Shadow, dem Protagonisten, nie besonders viel zu tun zu haben, denn er bleibt stets außen vor: Weder gehört er wirklich zu Odin und den anderen Göttern, noch schafft er es, sich nach seinem Gefängnisaufenthalt und seinen seltsamen Abenteuern in Wednesdays Diensten wieder in die menschliche Gesellschaft einzufinden. Dass sein Schicksal dabei nicht allzu schwermütig gerät, ist Gaiman zu verdanken, der ernste Themen geradezu bravourös mit fein-, manchmal auch grobsinnigem Humor verbindet und dabei ein Talent an den Tag legt, dass allen Ernstes einem Terry Pratchett gleichkommt – den Verweis auf die Zusammenarbeit mit dem “Discworld”-Autoren habe ich nicht ganz umsonst angefügt. Nicht zuletzt finden sich in “American Gods” an jeder Ecke popkulturelle Anspielungen, die ich vermutlich nicht mal ansatzweise alle mitbekommen habe – egal, ich liebe sowas einfach.

Dramaturgische Unsicherheiten umschifft Gaiman geschickt, indem er dem Buch einen seltsam ironischen Anstrich verpasst, zudem wird die Geschichte neben dem ein oder anderen Sub-Plot auch dadurch aufgelockert, dass Gaiman in Kurzgeschichten-Manier auf die Ankunft der einzelnen Götter in Amerika zurückblickt, was das Lesevergnügen um einiges abwechslungsreicher gestaltet. Ich bin mir sicher, “American Gods” wird nicht das einzige Buch Gaimans in meinem Regal bleiben.

Wertung: 9 / 10

Neil Gaiman: American Gods. Heyne, 2005, 12.00€, 624 Seiten, ISBN: 978-3-45340-037-5

This is a perfunctory post to make up for the extended inactivity on the blog, one I’m afraid will ensue for at least a fortnight more. I’m currently on my study holidays, which is so laughably ironic. “Studying” is the last thing I’m upto, though over the last couple of days my guilt almost succeeded in overcoming my, well, what seems my resolve to leave college books, literature texts I’m supposed to pore over, print-outs of Psychology related paraphernalia I wonder when I’ll start mugging, boring Media Laws awaiting more mugging, profiles, (some relief) movie and book reviews, untouched. Almost.

What I have been doing is the usual. Watching movies and reading more books with the occasional digression of falling suddenly, violently ill and then recovering just as abruptly. But I did (joyously) shop for books! Nice collect this time. Bought more Terry Pratchett – The Fifth Elephant which I’m already done gobbling. Don’t you simply love Sam Vimes? And more  of Carrot and Angua chemistry (That does sound crass, doesn’t it? Heehee), if you can call the weird Terry Pratchett romance romance.

Also purchased Jeanette Winterson’s Boating for Beginners and The Passion. I’ve vowed  not to rest until my bookshelf is furnished with her complete works. I did surprise myself by buying Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which I can’t wait to read now. Meanwhile I’ve had to content myself with opening the book randomly and sniffing at the new pages. Smell of brand new books!

What I did manage to read, and succeed in leaving myself stranded in, is Literary Occasions by VS Naipaul which, apart from being ever so slightly dry, is quite an interesting read. I did get to read the Nobel Lecture I’ve wanted to for a while now, but hadn’t been able to bring myself to strain my eyes on the online version which I’ve got stored away somewhere. But admittedly, it wasn’t as remarkable as I expected it to be. The essays aren’t written exclusively for the book, which is simply a collection of various essays by Naipaul amassed over the length of his literary career, forewords to many of his novels and some accessory writing.  So a lot of what appears in one tends to repeat in others, subtly rearranged. But the first essay “Reading and Writing” was worth the trouble.

The other book I’m bang in the middle of is The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook. I tend to be apprehensive about borrowing How To books, especially where writing is concerned. But I thought I’d risk this one because it has dozens of writing suggestions and exercises some of which I might be persuaded to try over the end-semester holidays. Also, I was similarly distrustful of writing workshops earlier where I’ve happily been proven wrong. Moreover, the book illustrates each topic with the whole or extracts of some very good pieces of writing. I must make a note of them and look them up. Some more nice holiday reading (the others being The Magus by John Fowles and A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, plus American Gods).

Must run now. I have an exam tomorrow and should know better than to unashamedly blog at a time like this.

Meanwhile, here’s a wonderful poem, courtesy The Coursebook:

Sandra Lee Scheuer

(Killed at Kent State University, May 4, 1970 by the Ohio National Guard)

You might have met her on a Saturday night,
cutting precise circles, clockwise, at the Moon-Glo
Roller Rink, or walking with quick step

between the campus and a green two-storey house,
where the room was always tidy, the bed made,
the books in confraternity on the shelves.

She did not throw stones, major in philosophy
or set fire to buildings, though acquaintances say
she hated war, had heard of Cambodia.

In truth she wore a modicum of make-up, a brassiere,
and could no doubt more easily have married a guardsman
than cursed or put a flower in his rifle barrel.

While the armouries burned, she studied,
bent low over notes, speech therapy books, pages
open at sections on impairment, physiology.

And while they milled and shouted on the commons,
she helped a boy named Billy with his lisp, saying
Hiss, Billy, like a snake. That’s it, SSSSSSSS,

tongue well up and back behind your teeth.
Now buzz, Billy, like a bee. Feel the air
vibrating in my windpipe as I breathe?

As she walked in sunlight through the parking-lot
at noon, feeling the world a passing lovely place,
a young guardsman, who had his sights on her,

was going down on one knee, as if he might propose.
His declaration, unmistakable, articulate,
flowered within her, passed through her neck,

severed her trachea, taking her breath away.
Now who will burn the midnight oil for Billy,
ensure the perilous freedom of his speech;

and who will see her skating at the Moon-Glo
Roller Rink, the eight small wooden wheels
making their countless revolutions on the floor?

Gary Geddes

Ordered the book last week, and arrived just yesterday. Excited to finally have the chance to read it, been told that it’s a good book. Will tell you what i think after I’m done reading it (which I am not exactly sure when ).

More readings from Mr. Lacer’s book pile, although of course I’d have gone and brought it eventually if he hadn’t.

Fragile Things is another one of Neil Gaiman’s short story collections and I think this one is even better than Smoke and Mirrors. Now I’m not normally a great fan of short story collections, as I think they can often be an excuse for the author to go ‘look how clever I am’ but Neil Gaiman can always write a good proper story, long or short. There are lots of stories from Fragile Things that I think I can say are favourites of mine; October in the Chair, which is sort of two stories in one and features the nice idea of anthropomorphised months of the year sitting around telling each other stories. Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire is fantastic, a topsy turvy tale of a tortured writer in a gothic world trying to write gothic realism and then realises that maybe he should try some fantasy. The Flints of Memory Lane, a reportedly real ghost story. And whereas Closing Time is  a spooky London-ey ghost story, that captures story telling perfectly, Bitter Grounds capture’s Gaiman’s other ability to capture the surreal elements of journeying across America. Other People is literally a clever and hellish Moebius story. Keepsakes and Treasures is Gaiman back on this side of the pond introducing one of Gaiman’s trademark sinister characters, Mr. Alice, that later pops up in the American Gods novella, The Monarch of the Glen, at the end of the book. Harlequin Valentine is another slice of Americana, written again in Gaiman’s hypnotic prose. The Problem of Susan talks about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and is one of those short stories you find yourself thinking about days after reading it. Sunbird is a fantastic story featuring a group of people who’ve eaten almost everything. And finally The Monarch of the Glen, the American Gods novella, which I thought was brilliant to, making me remember exactly how much I loved American Gods, reintroducing the character Shadow, this time he’s in rural Scotland, a place which from how I’ve read Gaiman write about it elsewhere, he loves and is fascinated by. The Monarch of the Glen opens a little like a Christopher Brookmyre novel, you know, Scottish wilderness, weird locals, big old house, big party, people getting shipped in, you know it’s going to end in murder and mayhem. Except of course Gaiman introduces a mythical element to it, introducing two mythical characters (I won’t say which ones, don’t want to spoil the surprise, but he’s dealt with them before).

So, all in all, a brilliant book and with a high concentration of ghost stories and spooky goings on, great for the lead up to Halloween to!

My friend Tyler copied an idea from another blog about his ten must-read books. I figured that I’d get in on the game with a list of my own essential books. I’ll try and avoid some of the more obvious ones, as he noted, such as Lord of the Rings and The Golden Compass with some stuff that usually doesn’t get enough attention. I can’t, however, promise that I’m going to limit it to an arbatrary number. I will limit it to geek-related reading, however. SF, Science, Fantasy, etc.

The Magicians, Lev Grossman. I read this book late in the summer, and was really impressed with the storyline and direction that it took. While ostensibly a ripoff of Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, this book explores more realistic feelings of a young man being trained in the art of magic.
Wired for War, P.W. Singer. This was an earlier read this year, for which I wrote a review for io9, and had a chance to meet and speak with Mr. Singer. This book is ripe with SF references and potential, looking at the introduction of robotic entities into warfare, and how that effects not only combat, but our military’s structure.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke. Suzanne Clarke is possibly one of the best fantasy writers of our generation. JSMR is a stunning book, rich in depth and prose, and is a very deliberate book to get through. It’s long, challenging and absolutely fantastic.
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, Gerald Jones. This book is what got me interested in social history, which has then gotten me further interested in the field and writing. This book presents a very interesting chronicle of the comic book industry, linking it to major events throughout US history, and traces the beginnings of the first comic strips to the industry that it is today.
Coyote, Allen M. Steele. Coyote was initially published as a series of short stories by Steele in Asimov’s Science Fiction, and is a great read on intersteller travel, near future politics (this was born out of the Bush Administration, and while it’s interesting, it’s not necessarily accurate or really in depth) and the colonization of a world, a sort of parallel with the foundation of the United States.
The World Without Us, Alan Weisman. Alan Wesiman askes an interesting question: what would happen if humanity just vanished? He then goes on to say what would happen – infrastructure would collapse and vanish quickly, and this premise was used in the recent film I Am Legend. However, there’s a really good part of this that examines our relationship with nature.
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch. Scott Lynch’s first novel is an absolutely riveting read. Lynch is a master at epic world building, creating a detailed fantasy society that includes the darker elements that most Fantasy series seem to avoid. His followup novel, Red Seas under Red Skies is also well worth reading.
The Icarus Hunt, Timothy Zahn. This is an older book by one of my favorite authors, Timothy Zahn. It’s fairly light fare, but it’s an entertaining space opera novel that holds up well.
In the Shadow of the Moon, Francis French and Colin Burgess. With the 40th anniversary of the Lunar Landings, there has been an influx of interest in the history of space travel. The University of Nebraska has been on the ball for a couple years now, with the release of In the Shadow of the Moon, which has no connection to the wonderful documentary of the same title. This book examines the history of space travel, on the behalf of the US and Russia, from Gemini to Apollo 11, covering the territory in fantastic detail. The other books in the series are also wonderful.
City of Pearl, Karen Traviss. Karen Traviss’s debut novel is the first of a six book series and helps to establish her as one of the best new SF writers of the decade. Her stories take place in a number of well concieved worlds and looks over near-future technology, environmental issues and corporate demands. Oh yeah, and some interesting first contact situations and interstellar warfare.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman. What’s to say about American Gods that hasn’t been said before? Gaiman has put together an incredible story.
Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan. Richard K. Morgan is another up and coming SF writer who has just burst onto the scene in wonderful fashion with this book, Altered Carbon. Morgan puts together a fantastic futuristic world through the story of a noir-esque mystery.
Ringworld, Larry Niven. This is already a classic in the SF world, but I wanted to include it because it doesn’t get as much attention as some of the other heavyweights of the genre. Ringworld combines epic science fiction from the best elements and lofty themes of the 1970s with another classic theme of SF, exploration.
Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman. Austin Grossman’s first novel about a group of Superheroes in modern society is a fun, exciting and interesting read. These superheroes are a far cry from those of the classic superheroes that are in the comics: these guys have affairs, problems and a rich comic book-style history behind this world. Fans of Watchmen should enjoy it.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon. Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is the story of the creation of Superman, and I would actually recommend reading it along with Men of Tomorrow. It’s a wonderful and engaging read.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol 1, Robert Silverberg. This last book is one that I would recommend above all others. If there was ever a situation in which you could only read one SF book, this is the one that I’d recommend. A collection of superb SF stories from the best minds of the genre, this book is one that is absolutely essential. The stories, writing and authors are all top-notch for their times, and this collection of their best works is easily the best snapshot of the genre that I can think of.

Neil Gaiman’ı çoğu insan Sandman çizgi roman serisi ile tanır. Geçenlerde Mezarlık Kitabı ile Hugo Ödülü kazanan Neil Gaiman uzun zamandır kütüphanemde önemli bir yer ediniyor. Kitapları Türkçe’ye yakın zamanda çevrildiği için Yıldız Tozu dışındaki tüm eserlerini orijinal dilinde İngilizce olarak okudum. Kanaatimce Yıldız Tozu diğer kitaplarına nazaran en naif ve basit olanı, daha çok bir çocuk kitabı olarak yazılmış.

Anansi Boys, Neverwhere, Good Omens (Terry Prattchat ile birlikte), Fragile Things, Mirrormask, Smoke & Mirrors, Star Dust,  Coraline,The Graveyard Book… Bir çok fantastik esere imza atmış Neil Gaiman, ayrıca çizgi romanlar ve film senaryoları da cabası (Sandman, Beowulf, Mirrormask, Neverwhere…)

Sözün kısası sizlere 2001 yılında yayınlanmış ve pek çok ödüle layık görülerek Neil Gaiman’ı uluslar arası üne kavuşturmuş “American Gods” kitabını öneriyorum. Bu kitap, yazarın Sandman ile kurduğu düş-tanrı dünyasının farklı bir perspektifle yansımasını sunmanın yanı sıra Kuzey Avrupa mitolojisini de günümüze taşıyarak modernleştirmeyi başarıyor, modern bir mit yaratıyor. Aramızda yürüyen, varlıkları için mücadele eden, dünyanın kontrolünü ele geçirmeye çalışan Tanrılar panteonu oluşturuyor. Hikayesinin kahramanı olarak da hapisten yeni çıkmış, pek sevgili karısına kavuşacakken onun öldüğünü, hem de en yakın arkadaşı ile kahramanımızı aldatırken öldüğünü öğrenen “Shadow” karakterini tercih ediyor. Gerçeklerin sert uçlarından fantezinin daha da acı veren hayallerine yelken açarken dünyanın metası ile fantezinin tanrıları arasında sıkışmış eski bir hükümlünün gözünden Amerika’yı eğdikçe eğiyor. Üstüne bir de medya, para, şöhret gibi “modern tanrıları” sos olarak ekliyor.

“American Gods” modern mitoloji olarak adlandırılabilecek bir fantastik kurgu, bana Stephen King’in Tılsım kitaplarını ve Kule serilerini hatırlattı. Burada paralel bir dünya söz konusu değil ancak aramızda yaşayan ve dünyayı kendi perspektifiyle gören eski ve yeni tanrıların mücadelesinde kayıp bir karakter üzerine kurulmuş gerçeklik sorgulamaları, öncüllerinden iyi beslendiğinin ipuçlarını barındırıyor.

Ben kitabın orijinal, genişletilmiş (yazarın ödül aldıktan sonra eklediği ek hikayelerle zenginleştirilmiş) versiyonunu edinip okudum. Çoğu okur için dağınık ve detaylı gelebilecek bu basımı özellikle türü sevenler, böylesine bir dünyanın içinde kaybolup gitmek isteyenler için önerebilirim. Ancak şu dipnotu eklemeden de geçemeyeceğim; akıcı kurgu ve aksiyon okumalarını sevenler kitabı zaman zaman çok çizgiden çıkmış ve gereksiz detaylarla yüklenmiş bulabilirler fakat biraz mitoloji ilginiz ve bilginiz varsa bu detayların eski inançlara gönderme dolu kurgular olduğunu fark edeceksiniz. Kültürümüze uzak olduğu için zaman zaman isim ve anlatılara yabancı kaldığınızı hissedebilirsiniz de… Yine de türün meraklıları mutlaka göz atmalı ancak sakın ha Mezarlık Kitabı, Yıldız Tozu ya da Coraline gibi nispeten masum bir çocuk öyküsü beklemeyin çünkü American Gods çok karanlık ve zaman zaman da korkutucu…

Ayrıca;

Eski bir tanrının birbiriyle çekişen ama bir yandan da dünyayı kurtarmaya çalışan çocuklarını konu alan Anansi Boys ya da Londra’nın yer altı tünellerinde bambaşka bir dünya ile karşılaşan Richard’ın fantastik maceraları için Neverwhere; Neil Gaiman külliyatının bence önde gelen eserleri arasında.

Bahadır İçel

Anyone who’s scurried to the movie theater to see Beowulf, Stardust, or Coraline has seen Neil Gaiman’s work. The British author helped to write the screenplay for the first, and wrote the books that the other two were based on.

Gaiman has penned everything from comics to screenplays, children’s books and full-length novels. American Gods is not the least of these.

I first picked up American Gods my senior year of high school. A three-year-long obsession with Terry Pratchett had led me to Good Omens, a novel that he and Gaiman collaborated on. I needed a break from Pratchett, since that was pretty much all I had been reading for three years straight, and I decided to peruse the novels on the opposite shelf from the Discworld author’s display; at that time, there were sitting there three novels: Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, and American Gods; I picked up the last.

The novel follows the story of Shadow, a man who has just been released from prison a few days before his sentence is up; his wife has just been killed in a car accident in his hometown in Indiana. He returns home and gets caught up in the schemes of Mr. Wednesday, a man who knows more about him than is possible, and contracts him to be his bodyguard.

That’s just the superficial plot, though; the novel exists on the premise that the Old Gods, the deities and beings of Old World religions and superstitions, are warring with the New Gods, the deities created by the priorities and the obsessions of the modern world. Shadow gets caught up in this war, and becomes a key player in it, while also being followed by his dead wife, who has been mysteriously reanimated and spends her time being mysterious and saving Shadow’s life out of nowhere.

The novel also features vignettes that illustrate the Old World, the way things used to be, both in other countries and in the initial immigrations to America.

To be completely honest, this is my favorite book of all time. Gaiman is a master craftsman, and he proves it here; the style, the language, and the voice are distinctly different from anything else that he has written; the reader can’t help but lap it up. Perhaps the only things that I could complain about is that his imagery is so vivid that gruesome moments put a distinctly unpleasant taste in your mouth.

I could go point-by-point on everything that Gaiman does right in this, but I won’t, because I really don’t want to take up that sort of space. However, here are some things to consider if there are things that you don’t like in your literature.

1. Profanity. This is in no way a “clean-mouthed” novel; the characters are ex-cons, dead people, and Old and New World gods who have been through the wringer. If you don’t want to deal with the f-bomb, don’t read this.

2. Sexual Content. Let’s be honest, the world is pretty sexually charged, especially ancient mythology. One of the first scenes is an extremely explicit scene between a businessman and a hooker he’s hired – who happens to be an old Egyptian goddess. This alone is enough to say: don’t let your kids read this thing until they’re at least seventeen.

3. Multi-Religious Viewpoints. If you’re one of those people who can’t take the fact that other religions are hailed alongside Christianity in this novel, don’t read it. It will probably offend you.

Aside from those things, American Gods is a stellar example of excellent writing, and I can only hope that they will line this up as the next Gaiman film; Stardust and Coraline were fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but I’m ready for something serious and complex, and if you’re going to do that, you need to do American Gods. At some points you’re pretty sure the man was on some sort of illegal substance while he wrote this thing (actually, he wrote a good portion of it on a plane, I hear, so that may explain a few things). There are parts that are just plain weird, parts that make you feel uncomfortable, parts that you don’t have any idea what’s going on and you’re not sure you want to. The fact of the matter is, though, that it is impossible to put down. Shadow is reticent, but the reader is inexplicably drawn to him. Mr. Wednesday is a raunchy old fart who’s about as trustworthy as a kleptomaniac with a sweet-tooth in a candy store, but the reader is drawn to him, too, although he may not particularly care for him.

This novel requires a pretty high ability of reading comprehension; if you need to work up to it, I would start with Good Omens, then move on to Neverwhere or Anansi Boys, and then on to American Gods.

Now I’m off to sacrifice some small woodland creatures to Mr. Gaiman. Ta!

External Link

• Official Neil Gaiman Website
• Wikipedia Page
• Etc.

Next Week: Forget English-speaking authors for the time being, I feel like talking about Haruki Murakami. Next Saturday is also my birthday, though, so we’ll see whether or not I get that article up between now and then.

So I finally got around to reading (in the audiobook sense) Neil Gaiman’s (dare I say masterwork?) American Gods.  Awesome. Epic. Beautiful. True. Clever. Relevant.  Now I know what all the fuss was about.

Who out there has read it?  If you haven’t, get out there and read it.  I want to discuss it with somebody!  But there’s nothing that I want to say that I don’t consider spoilery (in the sense that I wouldn’t have wanted to read such a post in advance of my reading).  I feel the same way about Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution.  So if anyone has read either of those books, make yourself known to me.  Let’s have a chat.

The audiobook was masterfully read by the inimitable George Guidall.

The experience was also noteworthy because it was the first time that I listened to a book on one of those pre-loaded audiobook gadgets that the library has now.  You get a thing, you stick in a battery, plug in headphones, turn it on, and out comes the story.  It was a great experience, and I’ll be returning to that library to raid their collection.

Aside from the convenience of having such a small and portable version of a book, without the annoyance of changing CDs, and even with options for the speed at which the narrator speaks, audiobooks solve a deeper problem that novels often have.  They conceal your relative location in the book.  With a normal book, you can physically feel how far you are from the end, just by the weight of the book on your hand .  With a normal audiobook, you have the same phenomenon, just measured in progress through the stack of CDs.  If you have read more than a few books in your life, this information (which is probably impossible to filter out) can be a spoiler all by itself.  It is generally clear at the start of a confrontation or conversation whether it will tend to resolve issues or ramify issues.  (This phenomenon and the difficulty of circumventing it are best discussed in Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter; a Scribr version of this whole book can be found at this blog post — the relevant portion begins on page 408.)

But perhaps the spookiest thing came at the very end of the book.  If you are at all familiar with Recorded Books productions, you know that they end by suggesting two other Recorded Books items that they think you will also enjoy.  Now, usually these book are in the same genre as the book you just heard and/or shame thematic elements.  Something like that.  In this case, one of the books suggested was Cod.  This is a “biography” of cod (yes, the fish, cod) and purely nonfictional telling of how cod has played a significant role in the shaping and the history of our civilization.  (It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds.)  Now, I don’t see any connection of any kind between that and a fantasy tale of the conflict between the old gods and myths and the new “gods” of television, internet, and credit card, for the soul of the American people.  But here’s the thing.  It just so happens that I have read Cod.  And it just so happens that I thought it was one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read.  So was the voice in the machine just lucky?  Can there really be some deeper connection to which I am utterly oblivious between the two books?  Or some reason why readers of American Gods would be atypically likely to take a suggestion to try out Cod?

What’s it all about, Alfie?

It’s growing! Not at a particularly alarming speed, but still, hurrah! I loved the `Noah’s Ark` (or, preferably, `zoo creatures and household pets enter life of piracy`) fabric too much to leave it out. It is becoming a bit of a crazy quilt, but who says that textiles need themes? I might embroider pirate hats or eyepatches on the giraffes. Who can tell what the future holds (other than Nostrildamus)?

Could even he have known that earlier this afternoon, Henry spent 45 minutes demolishing a Ribena lolly with the aid of tray, spoon, bowl, wet-wipes and floor? Honestly, you’ve not lived until you’ve seen Ribena underneath your child’s knees!

My sewing entertainment was a BBC radio dramatisation of Jane Eyre (part 4). Jane Eyre has been my favourite book for about a decade now, so any well-made version of it gets a checking over by myself. It was a good version (Sophie Thompson, Emma’s sister, was only slightly terrifying-sounding as Jane, Ciarán Hinds, or Jools Holland’s evil twin, was glorious as Mr. Rochester (as pictured to the left: a part he played in the 1997 ITV adaptation with Samantha Morton as Jane) … aaahhhhh, Mr. Rochester.

Bertha Mason (NEVER Rochester!!!) was almost as terrifying as she is in my brain. Almost.

My new audio fabulousness is in the shape of Neil Gaiman, who deserves an exclamation mark for both his fabulous books and hair along with the fact that he is currently dating the incredibly cool Amanda Palmer – a lady I would very much like to high-five and then really stealthily steal the wardrobe contents of ! Shhh!

Stardust wooed me to sleep last night when Michael was out on a well-deserved brother-seeing break. I’ve got a few others waiting for my auditory enjoyment: American Gods (as recommended by Jendlekin, if I remember correctly), Coraline and the short story collection of Smoke and Mirrors. Am muchly looking forward to them.

Pages: 465
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Brief Summary: Shadow, who has been hired by the mysterious Wednesday, must help his employer rally together the troops for a battle between the old and new gods.
Introduction: “Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”

Review: As I said in one of my previous posts, I decided to read this book for the R.I.P. IV challenge (and the Sci-Fi Reading Challenge). I’ve always thought that Neil Gaiman added a very eerie feel to his writing that gave me the creeps for some reason or another, and American Gods was no exception. The story involves gods, goddesses, their desperation to stay alive, death, gore, and even zombies (of a sort).

The story follows the character of Shadow, a man who has spent the last three years of his life in jail. On his last day behind bars, Shadow is told by the warden that his wife has passed away. Feeling lost and confused, when he is confronted by the strange Mr. Wednesday with a job offer, Shadow accepts (though it takes some persuading). However, Shadow has no idea that he is going to become involved in the lives of the gods. He and Mr. Wednesday travel around the US, trying to persuade the old gods (such as The Morrigan, Easter, etc.) to join their battle against the new gods (technology, gold, drugs, etc.).
I really enjoyed how the gods were depicted in the novel. The old gods were brought to the US, traveling in the minds and hearts of those the worshiped them. However, sooner or later, their beliefs in the old gods waned and the gods lost their power or disappeared altogether. These old gods get by on whatever the can: becoming con-men, resorting to stealing and prostitution, and things of that nature. America is again and again referred to as a land that “has no time for gods,” and Gaiman does an amazing job personifying this idea for his readers. Although the old gods are battling the new gods, there is evidence that these new gods are beginning to lose their power and influence (such as robber barons). The old gods are battling against progress, but all of the gods are battling for some sort of belief or faith from the common man.
As I said before, Gaiman lends a rather eerie tone to his writing. There is no shortage of ominous passages, gory scenes, or cryptic metaphors. There are some absolutely beautiful and haunting moments in the book, passages that I would go back and reread over and over. I’ve found that this is a common trait throughout all of his books, even in his YA novels such as Stardust.  Here’s an example from American Gods, that I think sums it up pretty well:

“The man he was following took his long stick, which Shadow realized now, as it moved, was actually a spear, and he slashed at the dog’s stomach with it, in one knifelike cut downward. Steaming entrails tumbled onto the snow. ‘I dedicate this death to Odin,’ said the man, formally.’
‘It is only a gesture,’ he said, turning back to Shadow. ‘But gestures mean everything. The death of one dog symbolizes the death of all dogs. Nine men they gave to me, but they stood for all the men, all the blood, all the power. It just wasn’t enough. One day, the blood stopped flowing. Belief without blood only takes us so far. The blood must flow.’”

Apart from the writing style and the idea behind the book, I really enjoyed the characters Gaiman brought to life, and the little details that didn’t seem to matter at first but would come back in a big way. Scenes that I thought were nothing but a break in the actual story came back in a surprising way in the end. By far, I think this is my favorite Gaiman book of the bunch.
I did read The Anansi Boys before I picked up American Gods, but I don’t think it really ruined anything for me in the least bit. I don’t think Anansi Boys is really meant to be a sequal, as there is a different tone to the story altogether. There is nothing at all about the fading powers of the gods, if I remember correctly. American Gods is much darker than Anansi Boys in that way.
Recommend: I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of science fiction or fantasy, or someone looking for a new twist on an old idea. I don’t know if someone is easily offended by the idea of there being other gods coexisting with theirs would like the novel.
Final Say: 5/5. And I’m definitely going back to reread it when I get the chance. Now that I’ve finished the novel, I think it would be fun going back and picking up on all the little hints that Gaiman left behind for his readers.

“People believe, thought Shadow. It’s what people do. They believe. And they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.” (s. 580)

 

Da er jeg ferdig med 650 sider med Neil Gaiman.

Denne boka er kompleks, fin, vanskelig, rar og tjukk.

Boka handler om hvordan Amerika er et land uten sin egen mytologi. Den handler om hvordan alle menneskene som gjennom tusenvis av år har kommet til Amerika, fra alle andre steder i verden, har tatt med seg sine egne guder, men hvordan disse gudene sakte, men sikkert, dør ut fordi menneskene glemmer dem.

Vi møter norrøn mytologi ved Odin og Loke, vi møter indiske guder som for eksempel Kali, vi møter mange ukjente guder fra slavisk mytologi, og vi møter igjen Anansi. Alle disse gudene (sammen med en haug andre) er karakterer i boka til Gaiman. Disse gudene er i krig med krefter og ’helligdommer’ som det moderne mennesket tilber; teknologi, media osv.

Midt i det hele står ’Shadow’, en helt vanlig fyr som slipper ut etter tre år i fengsel. Han gleder seg til å komme hjem, men får beskjed om at kona har blitt drept i en bilulykke i det han slipper ut. I stedet for å komme hjem, kastes han ut i et vanvittig eventyr sammen med alle gudene (og sin døde kone).

Jeg likte boka godt, men synes den var vanskelig å forstå. Det er så vanvittig mange personer, referanser og surrealistiske krumspring at det er vanskelig å gripe noen helhet. Det er kanskje ikke meningen heller. Neil Gaiman må ha gjort litt av en research for å skrive denne romanen. Jeg kan jo nevne at mannen min leste den og mener det er en av de beste bøkene han har lest.

Jeg er nok ikke helt ferdig med Mr. Gaiman enda. Han har hjemmeside her.