Jul 23 2010
Book Review: American Gods
Neil Gaiman is a strange creature. I feel like I should LOVE the guy since he just kind of embodies the ‘geek’ aesthetic BUT he I find him more polarizing then anything else. I’ve read two Neil Gaiman books in the last month and a half and they literally took that long to read: about a month and a half. I respect his writing talents, like his seemingly effortless talents, and appreciate his tendency to be charmingly strange but I am also unnerved by his overlong plots, odd pacing, and obnoxious attention deficit disorder. Reading one of his books is a test in both joy and madness and, in the end, I think Gaiman himself would get a kick out of that.
As I said in my very short review of Good Omens (which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett), I mentioned that Gaiman’s ideas are glorious for short stories and American Gods, one of his most critically awarded books, is exactly the same. American Gods is an epic. Sure, it isn’t approaching the 1,000 page region but it’s near-600 page length is made to feel like double that. And the way I got through it was pretending I was watching a TV show. Is that considered a success for a book? I dunno. But American Gods, if treated like roughly two seasons worth of 45 minute episodes, is a masterpiece of television. The problem is this is a book and it’s all one story that seems to drag on and on.
It doesn’t mean I don’t like it. American Gods has moments of absolute brilliance and during some stretches I was absolutely hooked. But then ADD Gaiman would step in and interrupt the story with a 30 page treatment on characters we’d never see again. Very frustrating. But it is what it is. American Gods is about a man named Shadow who, upon being released from prison, learns his wife has died whilst cheating on him. Along the way to her funeral he meets a man named Wednesday who hires him to be a helper. Shadow, with really nothing to lose in his life, joins Wednesday on a journey all throughout America where they commit bank heists, meet old friends, and prepare for war. The war, you ask? Well, it appears Wednesday and his group of friends are old world gods who have fallen out of favor in the young country of the United States and the newer gods, who come and go like fads, are stealing all the power.
What Gaiman deserves credit for instantly is being entirely original. There is a lack of cliches. Shadow isn’t given much of a past (it comes in pieces) but he is so intricately written that he is fully three dimensional within the first few pages. The characters he meets that he is unsure of are kept perfectly mysterious. There are no real big reveals in the plot to explain how everything ticks and while this can be somewhat maddening for those who NEED things explained (me, sometimes), it is unique and compelling for those looking for a world that feels both fantastical/mysterious yet real.
Until the very end, Gaiman manages to base the plot in some sort of reality. Any type of magic or ‘godness’ is subtle. You always suspect Wednesday and his friends are more then they seem but you are often waiting for the catch or for something to break. It doesn’t and I have to give Gaiman all the credit in the world for that. But, like mentioned earlier, Gaiman has excellent ideas that sometimes can’t handle being stretched over 600 pages and, maybe noticing this, Gaiman shifts gears heavily throughout the book. Shadow will be in one place for awhile and then go somewhere else and almost live out an entire book’s existence in that place. Then he moves again. This is, of course, when he isn’t interrupted by tales of Gods that span all types of different time periods.
The ‘interludes’ as they are often called, in which Gaiman describes a god who was once prevalent but faded once on America’s shores, are actually the best written stuff. . .and if they were isolated short stories then great. But they interrupt the other story he’s got going on and while the stories sort of have their place, they are beautiful distractions that, in the end, do not aid the other 530 pages you’re reading. I remember at one point reading about 80 straight pages and not wanting to stop but then seeing the ‘interlude’ and getting completely sucked out of the zone I was in. The book would have been finished a lot faster without these distractions.
So, once again, I’m bestowing a middle of the road rating towards a Gaiman book and I think I’m going to retire from his novels. I still would like to read his graphic novels (Sandman) but his novels, while intriguing, end up being more chores then anything else. Being amazed just isn’t worth feeling like I’m working and sweating.
,
Thank you! I felt like I was all alone in my feeling that American Gods is a mess. It’s the only Gaiman I’ve tried reading, because, like you, I feel like I OUGHT to like him. But I couldn’t make it through. The opening really grabbed me, all that great stuff about Shadow first meeting Wednesday. SUcked me right in. But the interludes bugged me and by mid-book the whole thing was just a slog. He was in this town in the midwest not doing anything and it just seemed like nothing was happening and I just couldn’t be bothered to care anymore. I had to force myself to pick it up and read it and eventually I just stopped. If this is his greatest book, I don’t see how i’m going to find any of his others to be any better. I, too, am done with Gaiman. I just don’t get it…
What did you think of the interludes? I really enjoyed them BUT they were so alien to the story itself that it bothered me more then anything else?
The story about the slaves was incredibly engaging. . .IF it was isolated. I was just trying to figure out why I was caring about these people when I’ve got Shadow and Wednesday and all this other stuff to worry about!
And the first interlude, with the woman who eats people with her vagina (!), what the hell? I thought she would be the villain of the piece or something but then she doesn’t come back until about 400 pages later and she is quickly killed. Ugh. Confusing.
Well, good sir, I went through TWO Gaiman books and I am exhausted. It completely killed all my other reading. I couldn’t read anything else and American Gods took OVER a month. It was a disaster.
I didn’t care for the interludes at all. Completely distracting to me. I just didn’t get it. And when some of them went on and on and on, I just wanted to skip them altogether. I just wanted the regular story to keep moving along, but then it, too, seemed to bog down into not really doing anything, no story being told at all, just Shadow meandering through the winter weather. I don’t know. I wanted to like it, I really loved the first couple of chapters, but after that, ugh. I finally took my copy back to the paperback swap shop.