Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

I recently completed Neil Gaiman’s AMERICAN GODS, 10^th Anniversary edition.

The book had been in my reading queue for awhile while I’m on the hunt for mythology-based fantasy.  AMERICAN GODS is fantasy of an urban/contemporary sort, as opposed to my ancient world/heroic tastes, but the premise was awfully compelling.  Plus, there was the August  announcement that HBO will be producing an AMERICAN GODS mini-series.

The story is about a down-on-his-luck, ex-con Shadow who is pulled into the world of gods  hiding behind America’s everyday reality.  The premise is every generation of immigrants brought mysticism and folktales with them, but as they created a new “American” culture, their beliefs faded, and their Old World gods became marginal sorts of characters like small time con men, prostitutes, drifters and undertakers.

Released early from a three-year sentence to attend his wife’s funeral, Shadow is hired by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday — an alias of the Norse god Odin — to act as a sort of bodyguard and errand boy.  Shadow quickly learns there’s much more going on with the job than organized crime.  Wednesday is rallying the forgotten gods to fight the new establishment that has captured America’s imagination:  the modern idols such as materialism, technology and the media.

In his foreword, Gaiman says he set out to write a long, meandering novel, and long and meandering it is at 500 pages with plenty of plot diversions.  But it’s an immersing story of a large scale, so there’s an epic drive that pulled me forward even through longish chapters that added color to  the fantasy world, or provided a curiously retold parable.

My favorite parable-style chapter was “Somewhere in America,” which concerns a young Arab immigrant Salim who is trying, unsuccessfully, to work as a salesman for his family’s company of touristy knick-knacks.  On the brink of giving up, and returning to his home country in disgrace, he confesses his troubles to an Arab taxi driver who is secretly a mystical demon from Islamic lore.  Salim takes the demon home, they make love, and the demon is gone the next morning.  So is Salim’s passport, which has been replaced with his lover’s taxi driver license, providing Salim with an opportunity to start a new life.

That chapter worked well for me because of my soft spot for gay romance, but it’s one of many literary touches that beautifully articulate the story’s complex themes.  America is a country of immigrants, promising economic advancement, cosmopolitanism, and – in Salim’s case – sexual liberation.  At the same time, it’s a land of assimilation where newcomers abandon their cultural traditions in the pursuit of social mobility and personal independence.

On that level, AMERICAN GODS is a traditional tale of the discontents of modern living, which force people to relinquish their soulful natures.  But it also poses deeper questions about the nature of Old World mysticism and the secular materialism of the day.

The old gods have their quirky charms – the swearing, drunk Leprachaunish Mad Sweeney, and the gruffly earnest Czernobog, a Slavic god of death who misses the good old days of bludgeoning men with his hammer – as opposed to the embodiments of commercialism with their slick-backed hair, expensive suits and sunglasses.  But the brutality and trickery of the old gods brings up equally profound challenges for Shadow.  Are there moral truths behind their capricious ways?  Even if so, are there sacrifices too big to make in order to preserve cultural traditions?

In the end, a touch of sentimentality redeems Mr. Wednesday and his pantheon.  Shadow is a tool in their spiritual survival, by but showing himself to be sincere and selfless, he is given a chance for resurrection—both literally and figuratively—which is an opportunity that’s difficult to imagine if he were playing for the other team.

My occasional qualm with the book is the spare characterization of Shadow.  At times he seems to be a heartbroken drifter—and rightly so—and at others he’s a remarkably cool-headed observer of the bizarre, metaphysical vagaries surrounding him.  I suppose he’s written to be an Everyman character, taking in his fantastical circumstances with a degree of distance.  It’s a minor point, but I found myself wanting a bit more disbelief and emotion from him.

Still, this extraordinary book shows off Gaiman’s sly use of imagery, symbol and foreshadowing.  The ever present coin tricks keep the story grounded in the contemporary while setting up the possibility for magic.  Wednesday’s tales of old time con jobs provide a clever tie-in to the story’s bigger themes of belief and deception in consumerism, religion and love.  A side-story mystery concerning generations of disappearing teens in a small Minnesota town comes to a satisfying resolution through deciphering a “hiding-in-plain-sight” villain (and a clever play-on-words).  Well-done indeed.  I expect the story will be in good hands for a small-screen adaptation by HBO, based on the company’s success with George R.R. Martin’s SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

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