American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
The idea of pagan deities getting old and crotchety is not a new one.
The first Gilbert & Sullivan collaboration Thespis, or The Gods Grown
Old built on this conceit. Thornton Wilder’s debut novel The Cabala
also found inspiration in this same concept of grumpy old gods. But
Neil Gaiman adds a new twist by setting his story
in the New World. Yes, these are American Gods,
in his novel of the same name.
And the United States, as we all know, is a bad
place to pursue a career as a divine being. The
Yankees just worship fame and money. What’s a
poor Odin or Anubis to do? The core idea in
Gaiman’s tale is that the Old World gods were
rought to America with the great tides of im-
migration, only to find themselves gradually
forgotten as the new arrivals became assimilated
into the melting pot culture. These neglected
plenipotentiaries are jealous of the new gods . . .
those are the things Americans worship now,
like their platinum cards, their home entertainment centers, the
Internet and bling.
These two camps engage in skirmishes, and all-out warfare seems
inevitable. The new gods on the block seem better equipped for battle.
It helps that they control all the cool consumer products. When the
almighty God of Television wants to send you a message, he has 500
cable channels, more or less, to choose from. Poor Zeus only had
Hermes and his winged sandals—heck, you might as well send your
divine directives by snail mail.
The premise behind American Gods is perfectly suited for satire, and
Gaiman dishes out a little—although not as much as I would have liked.
This author, who developed his craft in the world of comic books, still
maintains allegiance to an aesthetic vision that comes straight out of the
pages of DC and Marvel. He knows how to bring to life the fanciful and
magical elements of his story; he understands how to push the plot
forward through a series of crisis points and resolutions; and he is
especially good at adding wry comic elements that lighten an otherwise
dark story. So there isn’t much room left for social commentary, even if
the story ostensibly plays off the fickle tastes of modern Americans and
their inability to distinguish between gods and goods.
Gaiman’s protagonist, a shadowy character named Shadow, is caught in
the middle of the warring deities. He is a former prisoner with a taste
for coin tricks, who finds himself engaged as bodyguard for Mr.
Wednesday (aka Odin, top dog among pagan Nordic deities), who has
sadly been reduced in his golden years to perpetrating small-fry scams
and swindles. The new gods try to get Shadow on their side—one of the
most amusing scenes in the book finds the “boob tube . . . the shrine the
family gathers to adore” propositioning Shadow via a renegade Lucille
Ball in an old TV rerun. But Shadow sticks with his eccentric pagan pals,
for better or worse.
And what do the old gods have to say for themselves. Well, here is a
typical Odin rant, when Shadow asks him how he can justify stealing ten
dollars from an innocent woman: “They don’t sacrifice rams or bulls to
me. They don’t send me the souls of killers and slaves, gallows-hung
and raven-picked. They made me. They forgot me. Now I take a little
back from them. Isn’t that fair?”
Gaiman delivers a distinctly American take on magical realism. If
Gabriel García Márquez can offer padres who levitate off the ground, if
Haruki Murakami can present talking cats, why can’t Gaiman attach his
fantasy to modern American pop culture? The odd angle here is that
Gaiman isn’t American—at least not by birth. He was born in
Portchester, England in 1960. But you would never guess it from
American Gods, which is every bit as American as Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Almost anything can happen in Gaiman’s fanciful universe, and
invariably does if you wait long enough. As a result, there is a charming,
if occasionally frustrating, looseness to the storyline. Unlike, say, the
world of Harry Potter, where the reader has at least a rough-and-ready
notion of the magical powers various characters possess, American
Gods always leaves this ambiguous. Dead people can apparently come
back to life. The pagan deities at some points seem powerful and scary,
at other points enervated and pathetic. This unpredictability creates a
number of surprises in the storyline. On the other hand, it prevents
Gaiman from creating the type of suspense that would result from a
more tightly controlled premise. After all, why should the reader worry
about a character dying, if the deceased might reappear in the next
chapter?
But Gaiman compensates for the loose ends by adding lots of local color
to his narrative. He incorporates bits of low-end Americana into the
story—for example, setting a memorable gathering of the pagan deities
at The House on the Rock, a real life tourist attraction in Spring Green,
Wisconsin. Later he shifts the action to Lebanon, Kansas, which is (in
case you didn’t know) the geographical center of the United States.
Gaiman doesn’t need magic castles or pagan temples to work his
wonders. For him, the fantastic is very much at home in a family diner
or all-night gas station. This familiar veneer of the fanciful is one of the
most endearing qualities of Gaiman’s stories, and imparts a piquant
flavor to his imaginative works that one won't find in Narnia or Middle-
earth.
Along the way, readers of American Gods get a double dose of
mythology. But don’t throw out your Joseph Campbell books quite yet.
Neil Gaiman isn’t interested in telling you the old myths and folk tales.
He wants to create some new ones of his own. And I can’t think of a
contemporary writer better suited for the job.
This article originally appeared on Blogcritics.
by Neil Gaiman
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
The idea of pagan deities getting old and crotchety is not a new one.
The first Gilbert & Sullivan collaboration Thespis, or The Gods Grown
Old built on this conceit. Thornton Wilder’s debut novel The Cabala
also found inspiration in this same concept of grumpy old gods. But
Neil Gaiman adds a new twist by setting his story
in the New World. Yes, these are American Gods,
in his novel of the same name.
And the United States, as we all know, is a bad
place to pursue a career as a divine being. The
Yankees just worship fame and money. What’s a
poor Odin or Anubis to do? The core idea in
Gaiman’s tale is that the Old World gods were
rought to America with the great tides of im-
migration, only to find themselves gradually
forgotten as the new arrivals became assimilated
into the melting pot culture. These neglected
plenipotentiaries are jealous of the new gods . . .
those are the things Americans worship now,
like their platinum cards, their home entertainment centers, the
Internet and bling.
These two camps engage in skirmishes, and all-out warfare seems
inevitable. The new gods on the block seem better equipped for battle.
It helps that they control all the cool consumer products. When the
almighty God of Television wants to send you a message, he has 500
cable channels, more or less, to choose from. Poor Zeus only had
Hermes and his winged sandals—heck, you might as well send your
divine directives by snail mail.
The premise behind American Gods is perfectly suited for satire, and
Gaiman dishes out a little—although not as much as I would have liked.
This author, who developed his craft in the world of comic books, still
maintains allegiance to an aesthetic vision that comes straight out of the
pages of DC and Marvel. He knows how to bring to life the fanciful and
magical elements of his story; he understands how to push the plot
forward through a series of crisis points and resolutions; and he is
especially good at adding wry comic elements that lighten an otherwise
dark story. So there isn’t much room left for social commentary, even if
the story ostensibly plays off the fickle tastes of modern Americans and
their inability to distinguish between gods and goods.
Gaiman’s protagonist, a shadowy character named Shadow, is caught in
the middle of the warring deities. He is a former prisoner with a taste
for coin tricks, who finds himself engaged as bodyguard for Mr.
Wednesday (aka Odin, top dog among pagan Nordic deities), who has
sadly been reduced in his golden years to perpetrating small-fry scams
and swindles. The new gods try to get Shadow on their side—one of the
most amusing scenes in the book finds the “boob tube . . . the shrine the
family gathers to adore” propositioning Shadow via a renegade Lucille
Ball in an old TV rerun. But Shadow sticks with his eccentric pagan pals,
for better or worse.
And what do the old gods have to say for themselves. Well, here is a
typical Odin rant, when Shadow asks him how he can justify stealing ten
dollars from an innocent woman: “They don’t sacrifice rams or bulls to
me. They don’t send me the souls of killers and slaves, gallows-hung
and raven-picked. They made me. They forgot me. Now I take a little
back from them. Isn’t that fair?”
Gaiman delivers a distinctly American take on magical realism. If
Gabriel García Márquez can offer padres who levitate off the ground, if
Haruki Murakami can present talking cats, why can’t Gaiman attach his
fantasy to modern American pop culture? The odd angle here is that
Gaiman isn’t American—at least not by birth. He was born in
Portchester, England in 1960. But you would never guess it from
American Gods, which is every bit as American as Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Almost anything can happen in Gaiman’s fanciful universe, and
invariably does if you wait long enough. As a result, there is a charming,
if occasionally frustrating, looseness to the storyline. Unlike, say, the
world of Harry Potter, where the reader has at least a rough-and-ready
notion of the magical powers various characters possess, American
Gods always leaves this ambiguous. Dead people can apparently come
back to life. The pagan deities at some points seem powerful and scary,
at other points enervated and pathetic. This unpredictability creates a
number of surprises in the storyline. On the other hand, it prevents
Gaiman from creating the type of suspense that would result from a
more tightly controlled premise. After all, why should the reader worry
about a character dying, if the deceased might reappear in the next
chapter?
But Gaiman compensates for the loose ends by adding lots of local color
to his narrative. He incorporates bits of low-end Americana into the
story—for example, setting a memorable gathering of the pagan deities
at The House on the Rock, a real life tourist attraction in Spring Green,
Wisconsin. Later he shifts the action to Lebanon, Kansas, which is (in
case you didn’t know) the geographical center of the United States.
Gaiman doesn’t need magic castles or pagan temples to work his
wonders. For him, the fantastic is very much at home in a family diner
or all-night gas station. This familiar veneer of the fanciful is one of the
most endearing qualities of Gaiman’s stories, and imparts a piquant
flavor to his imaginative works that one won't find in Narnia or Middle-
earth.
Along the way, readers of American Gods get a double dose of
mythology. But don’t throw out your Joseph Campbell books quite yet.
Neil Gaiman isn’t interested in telling you the old myths and folk tales.
He wants to create some new ones of his own. And I can’t think of a
contemporary writer better suited for the job.
This article originally appeared on Blogcritics.
| conceptual fiction |
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's
Stone
Saramago, José
Blindness
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Verne, Jules:
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules:
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Ted Gioia's personal web site
SF Site
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors,
publicists or other parties.
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's
Stone
Saramago, José
Blindness
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Verne, Jules:
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules:
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Ted Gioia's personal web site
SF Site
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors,
publicists or other parties.