American Gods
June 12th 2006 08:25
I guess there's an expectation that a page called 'Bookclub' might only review books that are worth reccomending. I don't know... I kinda want to talk about every book I read, even the shit ones and even the mediocre ones. I guess this book fits into the mediocre category.
I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman's work in the Sandman comics (and I know I'm not the only one, they're some of the most critically acclaimed comics of recent times) so it was with little trepidation that I looked upon his debut novel, 'American Gods'. You see, the guy's a born story teller, and he loves playing with myths and the ideas behind myths and I love hearing about all that stuff and this book deals directly with Gods and the reasons they exist and the way our culture has shifted it's emphasis on Gods since ancient times. Sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, this book is very, very average. It starts off with promise, albeit with a springkling of cliches, but Gaiman drops the ball very early on and seems completely unaware of it. We're shown this noir-ish tough guy ex-con character and automatically I'm imaging comic strips in all their two-dimensional glory. We're also introduced to the character of Wednesday... and whilst Wednesday is a cool idea and well-represented, the idea is a little too close to the one expressed in Douglas Adams' second Dirk Gently novel for me to warm to it too much.
From here the books unfolds into this grand American road-trip and we're introduced to countless characters, many of whom happen to be Gods from various cultures who have come to America via it's emigrants. We're also shown various little backstories that help colour the environment that the book is building up for it's characters. The narrative meanders and winds about, in that way that comic book sagas often do (although they usually do it over five years of intertwining stories). Whilst this approach works in the serial-ised world of comics, it doesn't really make for involving reading across one rather bloated book, and it turned into a yawnfest pretty quickly. I asked myself several times, "Are they getting to a point?" and "Is there more to this book or is this it?"
There are some neat ideas peppered throughout the book but some of the more personal subplots resonate more than the main plot does, and this just made me pine for what could've been. Gaiman is very much a comic-writer at work here... for all it's length and breadth, the book lacks depth and focus and the big ending falls completely flat and left me really bummed out at how much time I'd wasted working up to it. Gaiman has continued writing novels since his debut and has even branched out into television and films, so I can only hope that he has improved since this book.
Oh man, and the book looked so good too, and the blurb on the back made it sound good. I still love Gaiman's Sandman comics but it'll be a while before I read another of his novels. I think his most recent offering, 'Anansi Boys', links in to 'American Gods' as the latter features the character Anansi. Good luck.
Neil Gaiman
I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman's work in the Sandman comics (and I know I'm not the only one, they're some of the most critically acclaimed comics of recent times) so it was with little trepidation that I looked upon his debut novel, 'American Gods'. You see, the guy's a born story teller, and he loves playing with myths and the ideas behind myths and I love hearing about all that stuff and this book deals directly with Gods and the reasons they exist and the way our culture has shifted it's emphasis on Gods since ancient times. Sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, this book is very, very average. It starts off with promise, albeit with a springkling of cliches, but Gaiman drops the ball very early on and seems completely unaware of it. We're shown this noir-ish tough guy ex-con character and automatically I'm imaging comic strips in all their two-dimensional glory. We're also introduced to the character of Wednesday... and whilst Wednesday is a cool idea and well-represented, the idea is a little too close to the one expressed in Douglas Adams' second Dirk Gently novel for me to warm to it too much.
From here the books unfolds into this grand American road-trip and we're introduced to countless characters, many of whom happen to be Gods from various cultures who have come to America via it's emigrants. We're also shown various little backstories that help colour the environment that the book is building up for it's characters. The narrative meanders and winds about, in that way that comic book sagas often do (although they usually do it over five years of intertwining stories). Whilst this approach works in the serial-ised world of comics, it doesn't really make for involving reading across one rather bloated book, and it turned into a yawnfest pretty quickly. I asked myself several times, "Are they getting to a point?" and "Is there more to this book or is this it?"
There are some neat ideas peppered throughout the book but some of the more personal subplots resonate more than the main plot does, and this just made me pine for what could've been. Gaiman is very much a comic-writer at work here... for all it's length and breadth, the book lacks depth and focus and the big ending falls completely flat and left me really bummed out at how much time I'd wasted working up to it. Gaiman has continued writing novels since his debut and has even branched out into television and films, so I can only hope that he has improved since this book.
American Gods
Oh man, and the book looked so good too, and the blurb on the back made it sound good. I still love Gaiman's Sandman comics but it'll be a while before I read another of his novels. I think his most recent offering, 'Anansi Boys', links in to 'American Gods' as the latter features the character Anansi. Good luck.
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