Book Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

There are some books that I put off reading for a while, but when I finally do, I'm really glad that I did.  It's not that I didn't want to read these books, just that I've got other books and things competing for my attention, so sometimes it takes time to get to them.  Of course, when I do get to these special books, I always wish I'd read them sooner.  One such book is the book that we're taking a look at today.  We're reviewing American Gods by Neil Gaiman. 

American Gods follows a man named Shadow.  He's just gotten out of prison, and he's looking forward to reuniting with his wife Laura.  Unfortunately, she died in a car accident while he was locked up.  Shadow find himself lost and adrift in the world.  That is, until he meets that mysterious Mr. Wednesday.  Wednesday reveals to Shadow that the gods and goddesses of ancient mythology are very much alive in the modern-day United States of America.  There's a war coming, and Wednesday needs Shadow to help him gather the Old Gods for a fight against the New Gods, the gods of modern day life.  Shadow's about to embark on a mythological adventure through modern day America.

Like I said, it took a long time for me to get around to this one, but it was well worth the wait.  A lot of people say they don't like this book because they think it's slow and meanders.  I, however, love it for exactly those reasons.  American Gods is a meditation on the nature of America, and on what it means to be American.  I enjoyed that the book took a laid-back and relaxed sort of way it.  It added to the overall meditative quality the book had for me.  

To me, this is a very 1990s book.  Not in the sense that it constantly references 1990s pop culture, current events or anything like that.  The closest we get to that is a brief mention of Xena the Warrior Princess and the Disney Hercules movie.  No, what makes this a 1990s book is the way it captures the zeitgeist of the 1990s.  During that time, America had just won its decades long Cold War against the Soviet Union, and now stood as the sole remaining superpower in the world.  Everyone was happy, but there was also the a linger feeling of "well, now what?"  American Gods really taps into that feeling of uncertainty, and uses that as a springboard for the meditation on the nature of America.  

Neil Gaiman himself notes this in the introduction to the 10th Anniversary edition.  He says that if he ever writes a sequel it's going to be different just because of how much America has changed since American Gods was first published.  In particular, he notes about how surreal it is to think that a bookstore in New York City where he promoted the book was destroyed in the September 11th attacks less than a year later.  

The novel is set almost entirely in Flyover Country.  There are a few brief scenes set in the coastal metropolises here and there, but for the most part, the vast majority of the action takes place in Middle America.  The summer before I began Middle School I took a road trip with my maternal grandparents and my sister across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states.  It was one of those trips I'll never forget.  As such, the setting of this book, and it's road trip plot, gave it a nostalgic feel to me.  I should point out that not all of the places mentioned are real, though many of them are.  For example, would you believe me if I told you that The House on the Rock is a real place?  It's mentioned that a lot of the places in America where magic is strongest are these out-of-the-way roadside attractions.  Throughout the book you get a sense that there's magic to be found even in mundane everyday life.  

There are several instances where a god won't be directly identified, but if you know your mythology, you'll be able to figure out who they are.  For example, at one point Shadow meets Whisky Jack, better known as the Algonquin god Wisakedjak.  During that scene we meet Johnny Appleseed, but he's different than the historical John Chapman.  I liked the nod to Paul Bunyan probably being fakelore, as well as the importance of mythology to a nation, during the at scene.  There's also a cameo the Welsh trickster god Gwydion fab Don; he works at a grocery store these days, and could be doing better.  

I enjoyed meeting all of the different gods and spirits, and learning how they've adjusted to life in America.  I should clarify that these aren't the original versions of the gods.  The original versions are still in their home countries.  It's explained that, whenever someone who believes in a god goes to a new country for the first time, it creates a new version of that god unique to that country.  So, by extension, this means all of these stories and hypotheses about various peoples making it to the New World before Columbus are true.  For example, the Egyptian gods came over when Ancient Egypt sent a expedition to America in ancient times.  

I also loved the shear variety of gods.  We have gods from Norse Mythology, Slavic Mythology, Egyptian Mythology, West African Mythology, and so much more.  There is a rather notable absence of the Greek and Roman gods.  Well, Medusa had a brief cameo in Rhode Island, but that's about it.  Gaiman has stated that he couldn't find any evidence, however sketchy, of the Greeks or Romans making it to the New World.  That, and he felt that Greco-Roman Mythology had been done to death, and he didn't think he could add anything new.  

If you're at all familiar with Norse Mythology, you'll figure out quickly that Mr. Wednesday is the American version of Odin.  Wednesday is named after Woden, the Germanic version of Odin.  Now, some people might find the way Mr. Wednesday beds numerous women and is generally a bit of a conman to be odd.  However, that's actually very true to the original myths.  In Norse Mythology, Odin and Loki are actually very similar to one another.  Both were very crafty and very much tricksters with a thing for bedding beautiful women.  Odin frequently disguised himself in a grey coat and hat and wandered around Midgard play tricks on morals.  

Chernobog pretty much stole every scene he was in.  He's just so loud, bombastic and over-the-top that he was hilariously awesome.  I also liked the way he adjusted to life in America.  It's repeatedly emphasized that the gods need sacrifices to maintain their strength, and that there is power in blood.  Chernobog maintained himself by working in the Chicago stockyards and dedicating the killings of the livestock to himself.  There's also a nod to the theory that Chernobog and his brother, the god Belobog, might have been the same god.  Belobog was god of light, and Chernobog get noticeably nicer during the spring, when light gives way to dark, and he does mention he can't remember when he last saw Belobog.  

Chernobog lives with the Zorya sisters, Slavic star goddesses, which leads to a slight deviation in the mythology.  In Slavic Mythology there are two Zorya, Zorya Utrennyaya and Zorya Vechernyaya, the morning and evening stars respectively. However, Gaiman adds a third Zorya sister, Zorya Polunochnaya, the midnight star.  Polunochnaya has no counterpart in Slavic Mythology, and was completely created by Gaiman.  Still, for the brief scenes we get of her, she's a nice addition to the story.

I enjoyed that the Egyptian gods played such a big role in the story.  I'm especially happy that Thoth and Anubis, my two favorite Egyptian gods, played such an important role.  They live in Cairo (pronounced kay-roe) Illinois because that's where the Ancient Egyptians sent their expeditions to all those years ago.  It's a joke because that part of Illinois is called Little Egypt.  Fittingly enough, they run a funeral parlor, and are referred to as Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jackal.  Bast is there too, as their pet cat, and Horus has gone a bit nutty due to spending too much time as a hawk.  Mr. Ibis mentions that there used to be more gods, but over the years they disappear for various reasons.  For example, Set took a trip to San Francisco, and was never heard from again.  

Yeah, even the gods can die, especially is they're low on power from lack of worship and sacrifice.  It's mentioned that there used to be an American version of Thor, but he committed suicide in the 1930s.  That's particularly tragic because, had he held on for a few more decades, he would have lived to see Marvel's Mighty Thor comics.  Of course, it's questionable if that would have helped.

There's a scene where Shadow and Wednesday are in San Francisco trying to get the goddess Easter to join the coming battle.  Easter insist that people still love her, so Wednesday ask a neopagan what she knows about the holiday Easter.  The neopagan wrongly assumes that it originated as a purely Christian holiday, and is shown to have very hazy beliefs about gods and goddesses.  The whole thing nearly gives Easter a heart attack.  The point being that, without traditional rituals and well-defined beliefs, neopagans might as well be atheists or agnostics as far as the Old Gods are concerned.  Some of you might object to the way the neopagans are presented, but I've known many of them that actually are kind of like that. 

Alright, so all of this is going on, but what about Jesus?  American Jesus never appears, and it's implied he considered himself above the coming war, probably because of all the legitimate worship he gets.  Amusingly, there is a deleted scene where Shadow meets American Jesus, and the way he's described sounds kind of like Steven Spielberg.  Wednesday mentions that he once met the Afghanistan Jesus, who is almost completely powerless. 

Throughout the books we also get flashbacks that explain how the various gods got to America.  We see the Norse gods come over with Viking explorers.  We see the Fair Folk thrive as people still tell their stories and leave them offerings.  The gods of West Africa come over with slaves from Africa, and we even see a now forgotten Mammoth god cross the Bering Strait with the ancestors of the Native Americans.  We also get brief vignettes of gods and spirits across America.  We follow a jinn working as a taxi driver in New York, and we briefly follow Bilquis, whom you probably know better as the Queen of Sheba.  

Now let's talk about Hinzelmann.  I already knew what the twist was with him, even before I read this book.  Even then, that arguably made the reveal even more effective.  He comes across as one of those jolly old men who tells funny stories; the kind you can find in most small towns.  Well, if you ignore the fact that he's a kobold who murders children to sustain himself, and make the town such a nice place to live.  It feels like Gaiman was using Hinzelmann to make a commentary on Americana.  As though he was saying that a quintessential small town like Lakeside, Wisconsin could only exist if something horrible was keeping it floating.  

There were occasionally mentions of gods and goddesses I wished had been elaborated on.  For example, we see that the Chinese and Japanese gods are active in America.  Do they get legitimate worship?  Maybe it would matter all that much.  The American version of Kali is joining the war because there aren't very many Hindus in America.  

Now let's talk about the audiobook version that I listened to.  I listened to the 10th Anniversary full cast edition of the American Gods audiobook.  A lot of people say they don't like, but frankly, I can't understand why that is.  All of the voice actors are very talented, and they perfectly capture their characters.  Even Neil Gaiman gets in on the action, narrating the Coming to America sections.  Full cast narrations almost always have leg up on single narrations, and that is certainly the case here.  As far as I'm concerned, the 10th Anniversary full cast edition is the definitive American Gods audiobook.  About the only negative is that, yet again, Audible changed the cover to the television tie-in edition.  They did that for both version of this audiobook, and I really wish they wouldn't.  Of course, the fear of this happening was the fire under my ass that I needed to finally listen to this book, which I did just in time.  

Well, I think it's quite obvious by now that I love this book very much.  I can't believe that it took me this long to listen to it, but I'm so glad that I finally did.  Do yourself a favor and check it out today.  You'll be glad that you did.

Well, I think that should do it from me for now.  I will see you guys next time.