Title: American Gods
Publication Year: 2001
Plot: 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.
Miscellaneous: The Terry Pratchett novel Small Gods explores a similar origin of deities. While Gaiman says that he did not read Pratchett’s work, he thought they shared a world view due to their same geographic origins and, more importantly, daily phone conversations. He had also sought advice from Pratchett on resolving plot elements of American Gods. According to Gaiman, American Gods is not based on Diana Wynne Jones‘s Eight Days of Luke, “although they bear an odd relationship, like second cousins once removed or something”. When working on the structure of a story linking gods and days of the week, he realised that this idea had already been used in Eight Days of Luke. He abandoned the story, but later used the idea when writing American Gods to depict Wednesday and Shadow meeting on the god’s namesake day. About John James‘s novel Votan, Gaiman stated: “I think probably the best book ever done about the Norse was a book that I couldn’t allow myself to read between coming up with the idea of American Gods and finishing it. After it was published I actually sat down and allowed myself to read it for the first time in 15 years and discovered it was just as good as I thought it was”. In his introduction to Fritz Leiber’s The Knight and Knave of Swords Gaiman acknowledges Leiber’s portrayal of Odin & Loki had “definitely smudged into” and informed his take on the characters.
For our 7th book, we dove into American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The first thing someone said was “This book has everything: humor, sex, violence, drama, gods.” He really enjoyed it. One thing that stood out to everyone was immigration, and more specifically, what happens when one leaves their homeland goes somewhere foreign. What do people bring with them? What do they forget? What fades over time? And when do they wear different hats? In the novel, the gods are feeling forsaken. One reader related it to his grandparents who would come visit him growing up from Mexico. They were sad to see they were speaking English in the home, and that they were not doing their best to preserve the cultures of their family.
The status of being an outsider is also a big theme here. Shadow is an outsider in many ways, and the Norse gods have come to America, so they are feeling like outsiders as well. The outsiders look at those being prioritized and favored (new gods) and call them fat and foolish because people are taking their attention and worship for granted.
There are some sentiments in Atwood’s Penelopiad that show up in American Gods. The old gods see people worshiping new things. Freeways, phones, television, internet. All these things are where people spend A LOT of time. Thus, the older gods and characters don’t have a lot of time with newer generations. Both Atwood and Gaiman see the internet and TV as a “shrine” of sorts, where people sit transfixed for hours on end.
The readers called this book an epic, not only because of its length, but because of its complex themes and ideas. There are a lot of different ideas that Gaiman puts forth, and he lands most of them with grace. The readers kept bouncing around the book, pointing to different passages and explanations of this world. For example, with the dead Laura making multiple appearances, she talks of how her time as a mortal is now like a “photograph” to her. What a fascinating way to put our mortal experience into the perspective of a dead person. Another example is how the gods participate in different worldly things to get attention (casino, prostitution, etc.), much like in Penelopiad.
Every reader commented on how this novel brings up many questions within the reader. It’s hard to read this and ask yourself questions like what do I worship? Why do I worship this way? Where am I spending my time? What am I forgetting that I inherited?
Gaiman is great at “closing the loops,” or in other words, he mentions something early in the book and it comes back around towards the end and is explained or resolved. One reader commented that, with Gaiman being British, perhaps he was more “gentle” than an American author would have been. He wasn’t angry and wasn’t picking a side. Not sure what that’s saying about American authors, but I get their point. They really enjoyed this one, much more than I thought they would.
Next week, we are reading our last book for this group, Jennifer Egan’s The Keep.
Here is a link to an essay talking about “American Gods” as a postmodern American epic.
Until next time,
E.
If you’d like to purchase American Gods, you can do so here: