Wow reading: "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

The author of this rather good blog was the one who talked me into reading this book. In fact, I suspect it was part of a larger plan to convince me of the merits of the graphic novel, to which, in standard British fashion, I have been rather sniffily resistant. Neil Gaiman (British, actually) usually authors graphic novels, one of which, World's End, I was prevailed upon, by the self-same Tayebot, to read and, truth to tell, very much enjoyed (though never wrote up on this blog, you will note). American Gods is not graphic, at least not in the literal sense, but a 635-page conventional paperback novel - though "conventional" is certainly a misnomer from a content point of view. Anyway, perhaps the missionary idea behind getting me to read this was that I would thereafter ineluctably be drawn to take the graphic plunge for real. You never know, I've already been checking Amazon... 


While we're about dealing with the things which might put one (i.e. me, those booky-types who maybe look at this blog...) off this book, it should also be said that your average bookseller will probably classify it in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror section. Yes, that's the part of the shop full of nerdy-looking young men whose poor fashion sense is only matched by their execrable taste in literature, right? But hold! Let us not fall prey to simple prejudice. Tayebot is far indeed from a fashionably-challenged nerd, and I bet he's never even heard of Red Dwarf, so let's approach this with an open mind.

Though I was once a nerdy sic-fi reader, and did indeed read the Lord of the Rings at least three times over as a teenager, I have never been into what is commonly called fantasy. But I have had occasion to make an exception before on this very blog (The Rivers of London), and here I will make a second, and very much more assertive, one.

American Gods is intelligent, gripping, page-turning, weird and wonderful, a tour de force of the imagination. The conceit behind it is that America is full of discarded pagan gods, conjured into reality by the people from all over the world who believed in them, brought to the New World, and then gradually abandoned, forgotten and left rather raggedly to fend for themselves in a world englobing both bland contemporary America (gods consume rather a lot of bad fast food, it seems) and a parallel reality in which their faded divinity remains overt currency. As the very existence of these gods is a function of people's belief in them, their wellbeing is very tied up in the rather sad pursuit of someone who still (sort of) believes in them and possibly even worships them. This is made even harder by a slick new, sharply-dressed and antagonistic group of gods who seem to owe their existence to more modern, but probably even more ephemeral forms of worship, such as adoration of the media, gadgets, internet. The core plot of the novel revolves around the coming showdown between these two camps, provoked in large part by the efforts of one protagonist, Mr Wednesday (aka - it emerges - Odin, geddit?) to mobilise the old gods out of their fatalistic torpor and make a stand.

It is, as they say, much more complicated than that. And also more human, for at the centre of the book is a "hero" called Shadow, who, belying what in the genre one would assume to be a purely metaphorical name, is a character one becomes quite attached to as he tries, following his release on parole from jail at the beginning of the book, to make some sort of sense (along with us) of the totally bizarre world he has somehow found himself mixed up in. Of course, his role in the coming storm turns out to be rather more consequential than he might have expected, as - genre oblige - he plays the game by rules he only very gradually, and then only partially, comes to understand.

Writing this, I am very aware that the above is all probably hugely dissuasive for some. So be it. But if you're not put off by the genre, then know that American Gods is clever, exciting, skilful storytelling from beginning to end. It might even have the odd thing to say about America, society, belief, the world and all that. But mainly it is just very smart, very strange, very entertaining.

And, since I mentioned it, a picture of World's End too...