What I’ve Read: American Gods-Neil Gaiman

Synopsis from Goodreads: Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

My Thoughts: This was one of the first of what my friend dubbed ‘grown up’ books I’ve read on my own accord. A sucker for mythology, I was really excited to delve into the world Neil Gaiman created. Though I did enjoy the book overall, I felt like it took forever for the plot to even really begin, with things really getting interesting for me between a quarter and half way through the four hundred-some page book.

What I really, really liked about the book was the big idea underlying the whole thing, with the survival on the gods depending on people’s belief in them, and that when their worshipers moved to new lands (i.e. America), the gods went with them, only to be forgotten with the passage of time and growth of a new age. Though the plot is way more complicated than that, I just thought it was an interesting concept. I also like that, like America, the gods featured in the book were a melting pot, with myths of Irish, African, Indian, and Slavic origin (and more) all coming together in a land that’s “bad for gods”.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mythology. Though it’s not blatant in the beginning, I soon picked up on the mythological nuances that fill the pages of Gaiman’s novel. There are very few times that the gods are actually recognized for what they are, and even less are the times that their stories are explained. I actually spent a lot of times researching the background of the characters in the book, gaining knowledge about mythologies I had not previously been aware of.

Overall, I really enjoyed the novel and the world it created for me, and I hope if you read it, you enjoy it too

The Thing About Endings Is…….

Caution: Mini rant about to take place

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I am very, very picky about how books end, and I’m often left somewhere between mildly unsatisfied to extremely irritated. It’s ridiculous really.

But, if you ask me, there should never be what I call “loose ends” when a book finally comes to a close. Though I’m always a little sad when I’m forced to leave a world I have become so ingrained in, part ways with characters I’ve grown to love and/or hate, their story should end with that final closing of the book (at least until the next time it’s read). I don’t want to sit staring off in to space, wondering what happened to a certain character. If they have been brought into the story, it should have been for a reason and their path should be seen through to the end, not cut off with the rest left to mystery or imagination. I suppose I understand doing it on purpose, in an attempt to create some profound meaning, but at the same time it should be done in such a way that it is almost apparent, neat and seamless, not sloppy and blunt.

At the end of the day, I guess I just need closure when I read a book. Many times, things happen in books that I don’t want to accept, like deaths, loves, etc.; but most often I don’t want the story itself to end. So if I’m going to tear myself away from the world I had been whisked into, it needs to be clean and swift, with no jagged edges nagging at the recesses of my mind, conjuring up my own continuation for characters, pulling them out of the void from which their creator so carelessly threw them in when they wrote them out of the story without a proper goodbye.

 

~End Rant~