American Gods

I have to say that I am SO HAPPY that I was told to read American Gods. American Gods has been sitting on my bookshelf brand new and never opened for perhaps four years or something ridiculous. And it seemed quite intimidating. 600 pages or so, fairly generic cover, I don’t know. I had bought American Gods and Neverwhere at the same time when I was looking randomly around in the science fiction/fantasy section and I liked what I read on the backs of the paperbacks. I read about…oh, maybe 30 pages of Neverwhere and never got around to picking it back up again….and American Gods remained never opened. However….upon reading that it was assigned on the class list I thought well I own that book, I should go ahead and see what it’s about…and I am SO happy I did. Yes. American Gods is so rich and interesting and full of character and magic and interest and sex and death and I love it all. The colors were so vivid and oh my lord I need to go to The House on the Rock. Seriously. I need to go there. I loved the careful description of each room and I of course looked it up online as soon as I finished that chapter. And even though it’s in nowhere, Wisconsin, I need to be in a place that crazy. I loved Gaiman’s depiction of Shadow (which by the way I always imagined looked like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man). Gaiman’s writing of him was so honest, and of course I’m sure Gaiman has been in a state like that in some time in his life.

I would say my favorite parts of the book were those with Sam and Bast. I am normally absolutely not interested in female characters in most tv shows or movies. They are often written very shallowly or something. But both Sam and Bast were very empowered, proud, women, rich in personality in the glimpses of them we saw. I loved all the parts with the Egyptian gods in them, and of course how clever it was to make their modern day personas working at a funeral home.

I also was of course very curious about the one god that was a mystery. The one that shadow had riding in the backseat of his car and he was unable to remember his face or what he said. At first I thought that it was an example of a god who had simply been forgotten, and maybe that is the case. But there was also a fuller scene where he is in Vegas and helps a waitress come into a lucky future…so perhaps he could be a very elusive god who blesses those that he finds but can’t be found if you look to him….I definitely can’t get a good grip on who he was supposed to be. I looked online for it and of course everyone is speculating but no one knows. And fans have asked Gaiman himself and he simply implies that we must think it out for ourselves.

Ah well. I am happy about American Gods because I feel like it is the best stand-alone novel I have read in a very long time. And I got through it without problems! I was able to read 600 pages in a very short time…that’s often hard for someone with an attention span like mine!