I just finished reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (and boy are 
my eyes tired). Normally, if I don’t like a book I just put it down and start something else. I figure life is too short to finish books I’m not interested in.
But there’s something odd about this book. It took me almost 400 pages to realize that I wasn’t enjoying it. The central plot points are so delicious that I just kept reading on, waiting for a payoff. Then I realized that I had just waded through 400 pages of exposition, which is the kiss of death in a 588-page book.
The sad part is that this book has so much to offer. It is loaded with character and plot points which would make most pagans, indeed most intelligent readers, drool. The problem is in the execution. There are tons of great ideas, any one of which could develop into a fantastic novel in its own right, but not a single one gets fleshed out enough to carry the whole book.
Rather than waste too much space on a bad review, I thought I’d give an overview of some of the basic plot points of the novel. All of them are excellent and easily could be worked into a truly first-caliber story, especially for pagan readers. None of them, though, were satisfactorily explored in Gaiman’s novel.
Spoiler Alert. The following section will give away parts of the plot
- The protagonist, Shadow, spends three years in jail. The night before he is released, his wife is killed in a car accident while having sex with another man. Damn. How many places could you go with this? Revenge, soul-searching, a psychotic killing spree, a mystical search for answers. Instead, Shadow just swallows his hurt and does very little.
- The gods of various cultures came to America with the immigrants of long ago and still live among us. They are immortal, but – since no one believes in them, they are weak. A fascinating concept. Imagine Thor working as a jeweler or Zeus squeezing out a living as a cable guy. So many pantheons, so many possibilities. Gaiman just works it into the plot and moves on.
- A Leprechaun pulls the wrong coin from his pot of gold and gives it away. This results in something (unexplained) that disturbs him so much he commits suicide. I would have loved to have known what was haunting him. What was that coin? Where did its power come from? These questions go unanswered. Perhaps those educated in Leprechaun lore know the answer, but the average reader wouldn’t.
- That coin is placed around the neck of the protagonist’s wife’s body, so she can’t stay dead. She becomes a walking corpse. Cheating wife comes back from the dead and follows her living husband around? Nice. But instead of exploring the intricacies of this awkward relationship, Gaiman leaves their conversations quite conventional, something along the lines of, “Oh, hi, Laura. So you’re dead. How was your day?” He’s content to use Laura to off a few bad guys, but that is pretty much the only interesting thing she gets to do with her deadness.
- The old, weak, gods are beginning a war with the new, strong gods. Tons of potential social commentary here. None of it gets effectively written. Plus, there is enough raw material here to write and entire series of fantasy books. Imagine Hermes battling Email or Aphrodite throwing it down with Cosmetics. Good stuff.
- The Goddess of Media is a polished, smartly-dressed woman. The God of Internet is an annoying fat kid. Awesome personifications, but they are unexplored in any meaningful depth.
- Thoth and Anubis run a funeral parlor together in Cairo, Illinois. Ha! Beautiful idea. It went nowhere.
- The son of Odin sleeps with Bast. A child of two pantheons living in modern Illinois? That’s a good book all on it’s own.
- One of the old gods survives by kidnapping and killing a local child each year. There’s a supernatural murder mystery waiting to happen here. Instead, this subplot gets lost in the shuffle.
- Odin fathers a human child. The half-mortal son of the Lord of Valhalla living in modern times? I’d read that. Well, I guess I already did. Never mind.
- That child voluntarily hangs on a tree naked for nine days. He dies, descends into the underworld, and returns to life. Between the idea of a man becoming Odin by repeating the god’s sacrifice and the obvious parallels to Christianity, there is fodder enough here for multiple layers of reading goodness. Again, however, it is unexamined.
- There is a place in the called “backstage” where gods can go and be their true selves instead of trying to fit into the mortal world. This is a pretty familiar idea to a pagan, and- once it was established in the novel- it could have been utilized in a number of ways to advance the story and add some magical flair. Instead, Gaiman uses it as more of a deus ex machina to get his characters out of sticky situations.
- The random roadside attractions that dot America’s highways are really places of power where gods meet to negotiate, legislate, and – ultimately- fight. I’m almost beside myself thinking of how much could have been done with this idea. An bank heist story with Pluto and Hermes outrunning the trailing cops on their way to someplace like The Mystery Spot comes to mind, as does an action/travel sequence where all of these attractions have to be found and sealed with (insert magical ingredient here) to keep (insert nefarious god here) from taking over the world. Instead, we get a couple of interesting descriptions of roadside attractions to add to our bucket list, and not much else.
- Loki is the antagonist. Enough said.
There was so much possibility in this book. I really wanted to like it. Each one of these ideas, or even a more focused combination of them, could have been developed into greater detail and turned into a truly exhilarating read. Instead, the book serves us what seems like Gaiman’s mental leftovers.
First: you just spoiled the entire plot, without offering a warning for those readers who might not have wanted to be spoiled. That’s generally considered rude in online writing about fiction.
Second: clearly you’ve never read a Gaiman novel before. Part of his style is not explaining everything – you get enough to illuminate the action around the protagonists, and that’s all. The rest is left to the reader’s imagination, as Gaiman is intelligent enough to realize that his reader will have one. I happen to think that’s preferable to trying to explore every possible plot line or ramification of the situation. It’s a novel, not a role-playing sourcebook.
Your basic criticism seems to be that Gaiman didn’t write the novel that you wanted to read. I can see where that might be disappointing for you, but as it’s his novel and not yours, I can’t really appreciate that as a more general critical stance.
I was going to mention the spoiler issue, but Scott beat me to it. Actually, Scott’s comment kind of said basically everything I wanted to say. But for spoiling folks, with most blogging software, you can make a cut/break of some kind with a warning so folk can choose to read it or not. It’s something to think about.
Also, I think you missed some of the details of the book – for example, with the gold coin, it wasn’t the leprechaun that pulled it from the hoarde, it was Shadow. As the leprechaun said, only the king of America could have done something like that. Considering the epic length of the book, I can see why that might have happened. I’m a chronic rereader and with each read of American Gods, I find something I missed.
Since we’re spoiling the plot, both Loki and Odin are the antagonists. They engineered the war of the gods between them with the intention of gaining power. Loki gets to ‘feed’ from the chaos of the battle with the plan of throwing a spear over the combatants whilst shouting “for Odin” (iirc) thus giving Odin a power boost by haveing the battle in name. The gold coin is the sun which was intended only for the king of America (Odin), the leprechaun was responsible for the loss of the coin and so he died.
These are all good criticism of my criticism. I don’t think I spoiled the plot, though. These are all plot points that are basic to the story, not spoilers. As for not writing the book I wanted, I would have been happy if the book had explored any of these great ideas. My problem was more that he spewed out a bunch of ideas and just left most of them hanging. It’s not so much that he left the ideas to our imagination as that so much was simply left out to dry.
It’s also true that Odin and Loki are co-antagonists. I didn’t want to spoil that.
Thanks for your comments.
@Tim: I don’t think you quite understood my spoiler objection. It’s key to the operation of the narrative that the reader (mostly) doesn’t know any more about what’s going on at any given point than Shadow does. The fact that, for example, Shadow is Odin’s son is certainly a prime point of the overall plot, but it’s not *revealed* until the last quarter of the book, and in fact a good portion of the story is a setup for that reveal. If the reader knows that fact before she starts reading, then all of the author’s work in creating tension and mystery is completely wasted. A good general rule is not to reveal any more about specific plot points than the book’s jacket blurb reveals without a spoiler warning.
With regard to the other points you make: yes, there were many other directions in which a story set within these parameters *could* have gone. That’s called good world-building. The key point here is that Gaiman wasn’t telling a crime story about a bank heist committed by Pluto and Hermes, or a relationship story about two lovers from different pantheons. The story is about Shadow and his employment by Wednesday. Inclusion of extraneous plot points is at best a distraction, and at worst a complete violation of the narrative structure that Gaiman’s creating. (And remember, just telling Shadow’s story the way Gaiman wanted it told took nearly 600 pages!) If you didn’t like Shadow’s story, that’s fine, but to suggest that the book itself is poorly developed because you wanted Gaiman to tell a different story than *the one he was actually telling* just says to me that you missed the point of the book.
@ Scott: I see your point, and I also concede that I am not an experienced Gaiman reader. My major disagreement with you is that I found the world-building to not be good. Worlds should be built, then utilized in the story. I found world to be built then underused.
I wasn’t suggesting that a bank heist or some other specific story should have been told, only that – in my opinion – all of these great possibilities existed. The world Gaiman built could have been used in so many great ways, and what he chose to do with it was – again, in my opinion – ineffective.
One of the great things about literature is that different people can take different things away from it. I respect that you enjoyed the book.
I would agree with the other comments so far that I was kind of shocked at the level of detail by which you spoiled the entire book plot. I am all for people not liking a book, that is totally fine, but to go point by point of the entire book doesn’t really give somone else a chance to like or dislike it if they hadn’t already read it.
That being said, I have read this book and I really did enjoy it. I love Gaiman’s writing style and I loved the overall story. And oddly enough, I have enough of a narcisictic streak in me that I absolutely love to read books or watch movies or television where the name “Laura” is used. I’m just saying…
One thing I do disagree on is the use of the “roadside attractions” in the book. I *loved* them. Now, I will say I have been to the House on the Rock and it is every bit as bizzare as you might imagine based on the book. So while I was reading the book, I felt really grounded like “Hey, this could *really* happen…I’ve seen that!”. Same is true with Rock City. I think there is enough about both places in the book to intrigue readers who have and have not been to these sites.
OK, fair enough. Honest disagreement is great. Since the general consensus is that I spoiled too much, I’d be happy to eliminate those sections. I propose points 2, 3, 9, 10, and 14. Are there others that cross the line?
Also, I have added a Spoiler Alert.
11 is also a fair spoiler, as the extent to which Shadow emulates Odin. I completely agree with the other comments. You seem to be discontent with Gaiman’s loose handling of plot points and themes. By dismantling each point and setting it up as a book of its own, you’re ripping the narrative apart into a series of chapter books. Oh look, the Gods pull a bank heist. Isn’t that funny/cute. I’m sure you’d be welcome to elaborate on the characters via fanfiction.net or some other venue. Or if you’d prefer a more mainstream modern narrative of the Gods, I suggest Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. It’s a great novel, cute, and something more laid back and tongue-in-cheek if that’s what you’re looking for. American Gods is not. I enjoyed Gaiman’s nod to the epic and darker overview of the U.S.’s melting pot of mythologies.
As for under-utilizing the world, I felt he did an excellent job of utilizing the space, always travelling the expanse of the country, while also centering on points of America that are often overlooked. I’m certain that a fair majority of his readers are familiar with those billboards advertising the World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn, etc. I enjoyed the setting of the major conflict because it paralleled the situation of the old Gods, fading away, often overlooked.
I will agree that I would have liked to see more of the backspace, but I felt it was present enough in the inserted stories, the interruptions of myth that took place in their own backspace of the novel.
This site is too young to have anything like editorial policies, but I do want to say that I’m opposed to indefinite periods on spoiler warnings. American Gods was published in 2001, for Loki’s sake. It should be well in the realm of open discussion at this point. As far as I’m concerned, for TV you get a spoiler buffer of a day or two at most, movies and music maybe a month, and literature maybe a year.
-Different Scott than earlier in the thread: I’m the Scott over there to the right in the sidebar.
@ Pamela: In a way I agree with you about the “series of chapter books.” Part of my trouble with the book was that it took on so much that it couldn’t all get treated adequately.
As far as your suggestions for other books, it seems you completely missed my point. I’m happy that you enjoy Gaiman’s work – and I have no problem with his “darker overview.” In fact, that was the part I liked. The fact that I didn’t like how he handled the narrative does not mean that I am only capable of reading fan fiction or likewise fluff. Every other comment on this post has been good, honest discussion and disagreement with me and has never touched on personal criticism. I think we can all agree that personal criticism has no place here.
@Scott (the second one): Your thinking is similar to mine when I was writing. The book isn’t exactly new. I was afraid of being accused of being out of date.
@Tim: As long as there’s a warning that there are plot spoilers ahead, I wouldn’t advocate for removing any specific item from your list.
@ScottSchulz: There are always new people coming to old stories. Tim wrote this review because he’d just read the book for the first time, for example. I’m just getting around to watching *Heroes*, which started airing in 2006. Posting spoiler warnings just seems like common courtesy to me. It doesn’t inhibit your discussion of the details of the plot; it just warns those who might prefer not to see them just yet.
There’s a broader point that’s raised by your comment that I’d like to address, though. *American Gods* was published almost a decade ago – that’s enough time to influence a whole generation of new pagans, and more than enough time for pagans to reflect deeply on the work. To what extent do modern depictions of pagan deities like this one and the aforementioned *Gods Behaving Badly* either reflect or influence attitudes about these deities? Does *American Gods* present any interesting models for understanding a world of multiple independent pantheons (where gods of the same “function” are not assumed to be in some nebulous way the same deity)? What about its notion that gods are actively carried around the world by humans, and that different “versions” of the same god can exist independently (Mr. Wednesday vs. the Odin that Shadow meets in Reykjavik at the end of the novel)? Those are the sorts of analyses that I’d like to see in the pagan community, and that I’d hoped this blog would present.
@ Scott: Thanks for the great questions. I was particularly intrigued by the book’s idea of different versions of the same god and how different, for example, Iceland’s Odin is from America’s Mr. Wednesday.
@Scott People should be able to tell from the title of the article whether or not it contains a discussion of a work for which they wish to avoid for the sake of being spoiled. Linda over at NPR’s Monkey See Blog has discussed the point in greater depth and more eloquently than I would care to. I know that people do value not being spoiled (heck, in my review of Going In Circles which was released three weeks ago I hinted at but did not reveal that the plot has major twist let alone what that twist was) ; however, we as reviewers have to balance currancy, topicality and interest. Guarding the interests of the very few who might potentially be spoiled should not be our responsibility when those numbers are small enough and when those same people are perfectly capable of chosing not to read articles about pieces for which they wish to avoid being spoiled.
I think what is most interesting in this discussion is the topic of Spoilers and whether or not it is ever okay or when the statute of limitations might expire. I appreciate that other people don’t like spolers so I think “best practices” is to publish them at least with a warning. My husband, for example, won’t even watch a movie trailer or “Next week on Fringe…” because he likes to know *nothing* before experiencing the media. Also, as has been pointed out, American Gods is 9 years old – is it still spoilable? What if someone posted a synopsis or critique of, say, The Odyssey would we expect that people simply don’t know the plot? Or is that just fair game. Has American Gods reached “classic” status when it comes to pagan or pagan friendly literature? Is it even literature?
@Scott: I see your point, and while I agree to some extent (the avoidance-of-spoilers that the Monkey See article discussed certainly borders on the ludicrous), that argument requires (a) that titles be sufficiently revealing that readers can decide whether spoilers are likely to be revealed, which is not always the case; and (b) ideally, that there’s a click required to get from the title to the spoiler-containing text, in order to facilitate the option for those who want to skip it, which is not the case on the Juggler’s main page. I’m sorry if this seems like an overly nitpicky line of reasoning to you, but as a librarian, I’m accustomed to thinking about reader experiences in the long term (“long” here potentially meaning decades, if not centuries) and across potentially-unforeseen re-formatting and re-presentations of a text; given those considerations, a simple “warning – here be spoilers” statement doesn’t seem like a very high bar, especially in the case of an article like this, which in the course of making its argument revealed most of the important plot points of the novel (note that I support Tim’s right as a writer to cite those plot points in making his argument). We may just have to agree to disagree on this one.
@Laura: your last set of questions is very interesting to me. The question of “high” vs. “low/popular” art has of course been debated for a long time: where are the boundaries, and do or should they even exist? My own view is somewhat akin to the oft-quoted definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” With regard to *American Gods*, I would strongly argue that this is “literature,” realizing that I may be biased because I personally like the work; on the other hand, I like a lot of genre stories, some of which I would classify as “literature” and some not. A perhaps more approachable question in this particular forum is: what constitutes “pagan” art? (I’m using “art” here in the broadest possible sense of “creative works,” rather than as an indicator of quality.) I think we could all agree that not all art produced by pagans is pagan art (“Moonlighting” isn’t pagan art just because Cybill Shepherd starred in it, for example). Do we agree that non-pagans can produce pagan art? Or is a separate “pagan-friendly” designation necessary? Where do works like *American Gods* fall, or *Lord of the Rings*, or the Harry Potter books?
As you may have noticed, I’m often better at asking questions than answering them. =)
On a completely different note: I wonder if we’ve ever met? I did my undergrad studies at Kalamazoo College, and was involved for a time with the pagan group at Western Michigan, so it’s not impossible.
@Scott we’re all new here and at various stages of facility with WordPress. There is a tag (more) which puts the remaining text on another page with a “continue reading” link. I’m trying to encourage all of us to use it for the sake of scrolling if not spoilers. I could edit one into Tim’s post, but I’m reluctant to step on any toes.
@Tim Why not put a more tag after the spoiler alert line?
Just click on the “more” button in the editor.
Go ahead, Scott.
@Scott and Laura the question of the Paganness of the material that should appear here at The Juggler is of interest to all of us. As I see it, there’s sort of a heirarchy (Oh, No!): At the top are Pagan works by Pagan creatives, then there are works of wide interest to Pagans, and then there are works which are of broad interest which can be spoken to from a Pagan perspective. I think that we should cover all of that here at The Juggler, and, to the extent possible, emphasize the top of the pyramid.
I do think that non-Pagans can defnintely produce Pagan art. I’m fairly sure that Terry Pratchett has never attended a circle of any kind, but he gets Faerie far more deeply than most Feri (self-included, to the extent that my bastard branch of the tradition can said to be Feri). See, in particular, Lords and Ladies, Wee Free Men and (for its ontology rather any exploration of Faerie) Hogfather.
@Tim Done.
@Scott
“On a completely different note: I wonder if we’ve ever met? I did my undergrad studies at Kalamazoo College, and was involved for a time with the pagan group at Western Michigan, so it’s not impossible.”
At this point, I have to be honest, I’ve lost track and i am not certain which Scott this is. That being said I would love to talk more off-list and find out for sure. I was very active in Ancient Altars when I was at WMU, so I suppose it all depends when we were both there and if it was at the same time!
Not sure how to get my address to you, though…
So glad I’m not the only one who didn’t enjoy this book. I think your review is spot-on – a great deal of potential treated as throw-away one-liners or superficial plot devices. While some readers might want to read deeply into this kind of shallow writing, personally I find it rather lazy. A great piece of fiction, in my opinion, is one that develops characters and concepts in interesting, unexpected and challenging ways. Gaiman’s work, I have found, relies on readers having rich fantasy lives of their own to fill in the details so he doesn’t have to (and meanwhile, his novels serve mostly as escapism, an excuse to indulge in that fantasy life instead of dealing with the real world).
I went through a phase where I felt compelled to read Gaiman’s work because so many other Pagans thought he was fantastic. But after Neverwhere and American Gods I was already sick of the predictable “quirky girl” romantic interest (in contrast to romantically/literally “dead” ball-and-chain wife) and the lame “bad puns on place names” gimmick (not to mention, Neverwhere‘s fundamentally callous treatment of the social justice issue of poverty and homelessness was just not something I could overlook). By the time I got to Good Omens, which Gaiman wrote with Pratchett, I knew enough of Gaiman’s style to realize that what I enjoyed in Good Omens came entirely from Pratchett’s influence… and thus began my love affair with some truly fantastic, hilarious, intriguing satirical writing that has brought me to tears almost as often as it has made me laugh out loud. If you haven’t tried Pratchett, you might enjoy his work much more – when there’s any opportunity to explore subtle plot points and character quirks like those you mention, Pratchett pushes it to the extreme!
i tried to follow all of the replies to your original post but got bogged down in the commentary regarding spoilers.
one thing jumped out at me, however, in one of your replies you mention that you have more questions than answers.
this concept is one of the things that make Gaiman’s works so entertaining to me.
specifically that while weaving a compelling yarn, he raises more questions than he answers.
for me, the different perspective on a familiar question nestled within the framework of an interesting story which in turn leads my thoughts to places that they might not have otherwise gone, is what makes reading Gaiman so much fun.
thank you all for expressing your opinions and allowing me to do likewise.
I think exploring how fiction can and has shaped Pagan identities and concepts would be very interesting (something more then the annoying ‘teenage girls adopt Wicca because they watch Buffy/Charmed’). There is a chapter in the book Listening People Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism in which Graham Harvey talks about the influence of fiction on Pagans, there is even a section dedicated to Discworld. I’m a big fan of Pratchett and I have read his books since childhood, so I suspect that he has impacted my thinking in thousands of tiny ways. I have heard several Pagans refer to his concept of ‘headology’ when talking about magic. Fiction can be a excellent way to explore abstract concepts, such as the wyrd in Brian Bates ‘Way of Wyrd’.
A couple of bits of Pratchett trivia:
One of his most popular characters is Death.
In 2003 Pratchett was one of two authors (Charles Dickens) to have five books in the BBC’s Big Read ‘Top 100.
Ankh-Morpork ( a city on the disc) is twinned with the town of Wincanton in Somerset, UK.
Hutton makes a reasonably strong case in Tirumph of the Moon that modern Paganism (in the UK, at least) was more an entailment of Nineteenth Century Romantic poetry than any Pagan survival or Wise Woman/Cunning Man traditions. My copy is buried in a box after our remodeling, but that might be a place to start an article on the topic. Maybe I’ll try digging it out of the shed.
AMERICAN GODS is one of my favorite novels, and I don’t think you can fault him for not delving into those plots. It takes a considerable amount of world-building to have a stand-alone structure that has stories in the background, let alone to have the restraint to prevent tangents into unrelated stories from developing. It’s very similar to A NEW HOPE’s appeal to young people in 1977. It doesn’t take the time to explain every detail of what is going on. It throws you right into the middle of everything.
We’ve been spoiled in modern society by authors who tend to milk a book out of every single element in a previously published novel, and I am not the kind of reader who will stand for that. In most cases, it breaks the integrity of the world-building, and I doubt that most side-stories would be interesting enough for short stories OR novels. What if that kid’s relationship with Bast is really boring and average? What if Thoth and Anubis don’t run into any unusual plot complications where they work? Sometimes things just aren’t as interesting in reality as they are when we first think about them.
I actually loved American Gods the first time I read it, and I am generally a fan of Gaiman’s work. However, the more I think about American Gods, the more I have issues with it – less along the lines of what you point out (although I think you have some valid points) and more that, to me, it feels kind of like the ending was created first and then rules were made up that could create that ending. Why are gods different in America, not the same as other places? Does this end exactly at the borders of American, or is all of North American included? (the Vikings landed in Canada, but Shadow or Odin never leave America) And why? Why is Kali – part a living, breathing religion that was never stamped out, certainly not to the extent of the other deities’ worship – in the same boat as Odin? Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world – I mean, I know it’s not as popular in America as it is worldwide, but still.
I guess a lot of people would say these are strings left loose on purpose, but to me they feel like completely arbitrary rules. Personally, I like Gaiman’s work in general, but I like it much better when he doesn’t include pagan deities – I don’t really like his portrayals, and I find the “Ohh nobody worships the old gods anymore, and they’re sooo lonely” schtick (also used several times in Sandman) boring.
Like Michelle, I had severe issues with the book.
I’ve really become annoyed with that obnoxious trope that the gods are dying because they have no worshippers. I mean, this isn’t the Sixties when Star Trek did “Who mourns for Adonis?” Any author can google their premise and discover the existence of modern Pagans.
British authors seem particularly in love with the concept – The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (which was at least early enough to plead ignorance), Gods Behaving Badly, American Gods. It’s not like Paganism is growing any more slowly over there, but they seem to have a mental block on the subject. It just doesn’t occur to them that their premise might be inaccurate.
(I heard a whole interview once with Marie Phillips which made it clear she had no idea that there were Hellenic reconstructionists, much less other branches of the Pagan family tree that might invite the Greek gods into a circle. Sadly, the interviewer didn’t seem to, either. Meanwhile, there are 40,000 Hellenics in Greece alone, fighting in the EU courts to build a temple to Zeus over objections of the Orthodox church. She could’ve found that on the BBC website. I did.)
As for Gaiman? I’m stunned more of you aren’t offended. You guys do realize that the empty-headed Pagan woman at the cafe who’s never heard of Ostara* was meant to stand in for *us,* right – to suggest we have no idea who the gods are, and that our worship is empty and useless?
Gaiman clearly at some point in the novel’s conception realized that the existence of modern Pagans but a crimp in his meticulously-built world. Rather than modify his premise, he tried a lazier approach as an author. By mocking us with an atrocious straw Pagan, he preserved the integrity of his world by attacking us. He’s no friend to Pagans.
*What Pagan has never heard of Ostara? Is there a single Paganism 101 book out there that doesn’t mention Ostara as the source of the name Easter? There are some of us who doubt she was a real goddess, but the idea of none of us having heard of her – the implication in that scene – is just silly.
In Gaiman’s book it’s not so much ‘the gods are weak because no one worships them’, but rather that America is not a good place for gods. It’s not fertile groud for them (e.g. the hoodoo ‘coming to America’ chapter), the land itself rejects them. As for the empty headed Wiccan waitress, I have met that Pagan on several occasions.
First off, that part of the premise was particularly silly. The US isn’t a good place for gods? The land itself rejects religion? 85% of Americans are religious, a higher participation than most Western nations. And they’re more extreme in their Christianity than the rest of the West, and have more power in government. People are returning to the church pews. And before that, the First Nations had thriving faiths, who get vaguely represented here but not all that well.
American Gods mostly represent’s a Brit’s fantasy-world version of America as a theme-park of modernity and Enlightenment reason – “old gods, here in a new land without gods,” as he says in Chapter Six. But it’s neither a new land, nor without gods. Just the opposite.
And I’d have to take issue with your interpretation that the gods are weak only because of the land. The lack of worship is discussed and hit home every single chapter. It’s a central theme.
The gods make long speeches about not being remembered. It’s clear Asatruar do not exist in their America. Odin talks constantly about being forgotten, and about how that’s death to a god. The gods cling to fragments of worship until even those are gone – “Our true believers passed on, or stopped believing,” says Wednesday. That’s the background of the plot. Not small numbers of worshippers – total oblivion, or remembered only as stories without active worship.
He *could* have written it as “We are still weak, though growing in power,” with some minor modifications. But if his rather evil Odin had Asatruar to draw on, he obviously would have. This Odin has nothing. The reason the old gods agree to fight the new gods is precisely because they fear that their time is running out, without worshippers. It’s played up as their last chance, as they’re growing weaker.
(Of course, Pagan populations are rapidly increasing – quadrupling throughout North America between 1991 and 2001, and have probably already quadrupled or more since. Given the tiny populations of ancient Europe, it’s not inconceivable that those populations will soon be larger than their original numbers.)
As for the waitress, it’s not just that she’s a single, empty-headed individual. If she didn’t stand in for all of us, the scene would lose its power. The whole point of that scene is that Ostara is being confronted with the supposed “fact” that no one remembers her. Of course, that’s totally inaccurate. She’s extremely well-remembered, as a goddess, and called into circles around the world every year in Spring.
Gaiman frustrates me. He’s excellent at the craft of writing – so excellent that he collects ardent fans among the people he insults. I come to it not just as a Pagan, but as a gay man. His portrayals of queer people are nasty, too, and yet he has loads of queer fans who don’t seem to notice they’re being insulted, and passionately defend his many, many shallow gay men, murderous or sociopathic gay men.
But the Pagan thing resonates throughout his work. In the Sandman, there’s an ancient, immortal named Thessaly who’s magic is real and whom the gods really listen too, contrasted with a character who “dabbled” in Wicca early on. Again, our faith is presented as “not really serious,” whereas other faiths are.
@Hamish – I actually emailed Gaiman about that, because I was curious (the waitress having no idea of Ostara, because I’ve known that since about age 12 when I very first started looking into paganism). His answer was, IMO, kind of dismissive and snotty – I forget his exact words but his response was basically that he asked some people on the street in San Francisco who Ostara was and none of them had any idea. Okay? But did you ask pagans? Apparently not.
@Gareth – It’s also used several times in Sandman, though. There’s one instance I found particularly eye-roll inducing, with a monologue from Bast about how she’s so lonely and she looks for people praying for her and there’s only one worldwide. Are you effing kidding me?! Bast is a very popular deity, not only among strictly Egyptian pagans but eclectic pagans as well. And yes, part of the book deals specifically with America not being a good place for gods, but it is made explicitly clear that not being worshipped makes them much weaker – when Odin talks about Soma, for instance.
Like I said, I like Gaiman’s work in general. But I’d prefer he stay away from pagan deities because, IMO, he tends to use them in a way that suggests he just wants something ‘exotic’ to add to the story, without actually acknowledging that to many of his readers, they’re not just literary devices, they are living, breathing deities who deserve at least a modicum of respect.
@Michelle – I think exoticism is part of it, but I think also it’s a “safe” substitute for Christianity. “New atheism” and the religion debate is huge in Britain. It’s no accident that the UK gave us both Richard Dawkins and Chritopher Hitchens. The land once called the home “of 42 religions and 2 sauces” is now a place that (like Gaiman’s America, and unlike the real America) seems to reject religion in all its forms.
I suspect that most of it is that writers (and publishers, networks, game studios, TV execs) are a little scared to criticize religion by using one of the Abrahamic religions. Beating up on the Jewish faith after all that’s happened in the last 2000 years is just nasty. Beating up on Christianity tends to get death threats. Attacking Islam is quite popular over there, but writers et al. might also worry about the same problems associated with both of the other faiths.
Then there’s Paganism. Most Britons seem to be under the impression that Paganism evaporated when Christianity waltzed into their neighbourhood a millennium and a half ago, and that it never returned. Marie Phillips is still, apparently, blissfully unaware in spite of a book tour. The few who know we exist – like Gaiman – believe we’re just bored college kids and drug burnouts and 45-year-old Dungeons and Dragons virgins playing with swords. They don’t see it as living faith, as something heartfelt and holy, and as something shared in families and passed on to children.
So, we’re a safe target. They can critique Christianity and Islam all they like. They probably don’t consider us at all.
Another possibility, of course, is that the Brits might also be using our gods to symbolize their shaky aristocracy, whose power has been receding so quickly that the institutionalized privileges of the peerage might not live to see their millennium in 2066.
There are North American uses, too, of course, of the tired cliché of the lonely god. But they aren’t as common. The God of War video game series recently published a third instalment that has the main character killing off all the gods of Olympus (he started with Aries, and worked his way up). The authors wanted to explain “why the Greek gods have no worshippers today.” But overall we’ve made better progress into the North American imagination.
Sorry, I wasn’t going to comment until I saw Hamish’s crack about “The few who know we exist – like Gaiman – believe we’re just bored college kids and drug burnouts and 45-year-old Dungeons and Dragons virgins playing with swords. They don’t see it as living faith, as something heartfelt and holy, and as something shared in families and passed on to children.”
Now as someone who’s had care to read most of Gaiman’s ouvre,and to meet and talk to the guy personally, I don’t think you should include him. I’ve never seen anything in his works to suggest he views Neo-pagans that way. I think his continuing friendship with Tori Amos alone (one of the least in the closet goddess fans I’ve ever met),not to mention the beautiful works he’s done about Goddesses (Blueberry Girl, Stardust) merits him what I refer to as a “Circle pass”(It’s like a ghetto pass, but different). Though since he’s lived in the states for two decades, I think he’s at least half ours anyway.
I thoroughly enjoy the civil commentary here. Just thought I’d say. :3 Haven’t read all of it yet, but still. Haha.
To make this comment worthwhile, I completely see Tim’s points, but I personally enjoyed the book thoroughly, but it’s not for everyone. 2 cents.
I dislike Gaiman’s writing style intensely. In that I agree with Ali and the OP. I just can’t understand what people find so likable in his books. They are (to me) nothing but a long, disjointed series of frustrating stops and starts.
If you want to read a series that shows Paganism (Wicca, really – until you get to some heathen later in the series) as a living, breathing, respected religion in the current day – check out SM Stirling’s Dies the Fire series. You can read the first half of the book here – http://www.smstirling.com/
[...] the pagan origins of Easter is a fairly 101 topic. When the topic came up in the comments of a recent Juggler post, another commenter, Hamish, said: I’m stunned more of you aren’t offended. You guys do realize [...]
So I was going to avoid commenting on this but I really think the point of American Gods has been missed. It’s this vast epic tale full of wide open spaces, not because Gaiman is lazy, but because that’s what America is like. It’s big and a lot of it is empty. You can never fully know New York City or Kansas or the Pacific coast. Gaiman didn’t provide a neat, pat little story with all questions answered, he wrote an epic that had space for our imaginations.
Nothing will endear an author to me faster than giving me the opportunity to co-create the story. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a great example of this. He creates this fascinating world but tells us very little about it. He leaves room for the reader, and I appreciate that.
Ok so I will go ahead and admit a few things. 1. I did not read all of the replies to this so I don’t know if what I am going to say has already been said or not. 2. I am in the process of reading American Gods and have not yet finished it, and 3. this reply has spoilers not only in regards to American Gods but also to the novella that follows it. That being said I will respond to each complaint in order.
1. As for Shadow’s possible emotional turmoil following his wife’s death, if you recall Shadow himself states that there was something to be said for bottling up emotions for it allows you to feel nothing at all. Feeling numb following a death is a very normal reaction, very human, very common. By including this Gaiman allows readers to relate to Shadow. Also, with the events that follow Laura’s death (the information about her affair, her reappearances) Shadow has little time to do much “soul-searching” regarding her death. Furthermore, Shadow is a character who keeps his thoughts and emotions to himself, it is part of his entire personality. Anything less than swallowing his emotions would have been completely out of character. He just spent three years in prison, a cold and unforgiving world. His natural response to pain is not to try to analyze or work through it, but to ignore it and take what is handed to him. In case this is all too detached for you, Shadow does admit to crying himself to sleep after the funeral, so he does indeed feel quite a bit of grief over Laura, he just keeps it to himself. In regards to plot, Laura’s death along with Robbie’s merely allows for Shadow to be free to be employed by Mr. Wednesday. If Shadow had gone on a killing spree the book would have been called American Revenge, not American Gods. Laura’s death and affair also creates a nice commentary on the new world, seeing as she lied and betrayed Shadow in the name of lust, and thus directly relates to the New Gods.
2. The plot of the story is the war between the Old Gods and the New Gods. Of course Gaiman only works the fact that the Old Gods are weak and hiding in normal society into the plot and moves on. It is only part of the story. The story is about those gods rallying together to fight the new ones, not about those gods and their new mundane occupations. Did you really expect Gaiman to talk about all the old gods and what they are up to these days? That doesn’t seem like a missed possibility to me, it seems more like Gaiman avoiding a very silly and somewhat shallow story line in favor of one with depth.
3. As for Mad Sweeney- I too was very curious about the coin that was given to Shadow, as coins play a large part in the book, and the leprechaun’s appearance in general. However, knowing that Gaiman obviously put a great amount of research into mythology while writing this book, I decided to look it up instead of just ponder. Gaiman is the type of writer who challenges his audience’s mind and imagination. If everything were explained upfront the book would not have been nearly as intriguing. After doing a tiny bit of internet research I learned that leprechaun mythology originates from a Euro-Celtic god called Lugh (pronounced Luck) who was a sun god and the closest relative of leprechauns. The Celtic gods created a field of four leaf clovers in which to hide their treasures and it was to be guarded by the leprechauns, a task given to them by Lugh. According to the story, Vikings entered Ireland and were intent on stealing the treasures in the field of four leaf clovers, which they did through trickery, taking all of the coins and leaving one. Eventually the leprechauns recovered the coins but they never trusted humans again. That being said, many things become clear. The coin that Shadow procured from Sweeney was representative of the sun and very powerful protection. This is made apparent when Shadow is having the conversation with Zorya Polunochnaya on the rooftop, if you were reading carefully. She also mentions when she offers him the protection of the moon that it is the protection of the daughter not the father, which refers to the Sun God. That answers what the coin was and where it’s power came from. Now, as for it’s affect on Sweeney, that is up to interpretation, as many things in good books are. Mad Sweeney’s character is based off of a legendary king of Ireland, who was cursed with madness. Perhaps this was Sweeney’s undoing. Perhaps it was the pain of having given away the sun and it’s protection to a Norse (Viking) god. Speculation and intrigue are part of story telling and mystery is part of myth. Once again, if everything was explained, the story would be boring. I would also like to reiterate that I did not know any of these things about leprechauns or Mad Sweeney prior to reading the book. I looked them up. Because I cared enough to understand the book.
4. Once again, the story is not about Laura. The coin he gave her was the sun and offered the protection of the sun, obviously therefore keeping her corpse from decay. However, she is still dead. She remains dead. It is obvious she is dead. She admits she is dead. Therefore your assessment that she “can’t stay dead” is irrelevant. As far as exploring the intricacies of this relationship, I reiterate that Shadow is a very emotionally detached character. After all of the insane things that are going on in his life, his dead wife showing up, while disturbing, seems to fit along with all the other chaos. Laura, being dead, mentions that once you are dead, emotions and caring don’t matter as much. She also states that she is there to watch out for Shadow since he has gotten himself mixed up in the war, therefore explaining her offing the bad guys. I would also like to argue that their entire first conversation does delve into their relationship. It opens the first door to answering the question of why Shadow went to jail (for Laura) and how messed up her concept of love was to have engaged in an affair but only while Shadow was in prison and once he got out everything was to go back to normal, like some sort of high school vacation fling. Also, Shadow refuses to say “I love you” to Laura and how she wants to “work on several aspects of their marriage”. All in all, a very revealing conversation.
5. I’m sorry but this one made me a little upset. The entire novel is social commentary. People of the current age completely forgetting the traditions of their original homes and tossing away ancient ways of life in favor of the “gods” of the technology age? If that isn’t social commentary then I must be mistaken on the meaning of the phrase. As for the series where Hermes battles E-mail and Aphrodite has a girl fight with Cosmetics, that just sounds juvenile and ridiculous. Neil Gaiman, in my opinion, writes with depth, intrigue, intelligence, challenge, imagination, and insight. Not teenage manga where current adaptations of Greek Gods “throw down” with their modern day incarnations. Aphrodite and a super model who works for Cover Girl having a battle just sounds like some sixteen year old boy’s fantasy. I know this particular response was harsh, and I apologize for it, but really? Did you even read the book? (Not to mention Gaiman did write a short story which followed American Gods. It is called The Monarch of the Glen and appears in his collection of short stories Fragile Things)
6. Do you want Neil Gaiman to write a book called “Exactly What I Meant By Everything Symbolic in American Gods”? YOU are supposed to do a teensy bit of thinking and pondering. YOU explore the possible meanings behind the personifications of Media and Internet. Media- revered in our society as the life everyone should want; high class, fashionable, chic. Internet- while used by the entire population, when someone thinks of a web geek, what comes to mind? A kid, probably overweight due to sitting in his mom’s basement all day playing World of Warcraft. They were self explanatory and had plenty of depth just in their appearance alone. Figure some things out for yourself.
7. They are the Egyptian God of the Underworld and the author of The Book of the Dead. They run a funeral parlor. Like you said, brilliant. Where did you want it to go after that? Their adventures in the exciting world of the mortuary business. It went nowhere because it was not important to the main plot. Move on from the desire to have every old gods new life revealed to you. Or write a book about it yourself. That was not the intent behind American Gods.
8. That was not this book. He didn’t want to write about that. It was merely a subplot. Gaiman doesn’t want to write another version of A Kid in King Arthur’s Court. If you want him to so badly, send him a letter. I have no idea what this particular comment has to do with what you wanted out of American Gods except apparently a completely different story.
9. How many times does one have to say that the book was about the war. It was not a supernatural murder mystery. Why would Gaiman cast aside his plot to write about that particular god’s issues with the local law enforcement, if there were any at all. “Well I decided it would be a good idea to start out with this epic story of a war between the gods of old and the gods of the current society, but I decided I would turn it into a supernatural murder mystery about one particular old god who kills a kid each year to survive. Just seemed like a better story line.” Unlikely and thankfully so. Subplots are exactly that. SUB. Not MAIN. They are supposed to get lost in the shuffle otherwise they would take over the main plot.
10. Why is this even a complaint? Yes Odin fathers a human child. First off, Shadow is not human, so you did not already read the book you apparently want to. He is Odin’s son Balder, the Norse God of light, beauty, love, happiness, bravery, and goodness. Gaiman hints at it in American Gods and obviously leaves clues for his readers to figure it out, as well as admitting it in an interview and making it apparent in The Monarch of Glen, the follow up to American Gods.
11. It did not need to be examined. It was not the main plot. It brings to light more of Odin’s connection and as far as the parallels to Christianity, this is not a book on how Norse mythology relates to Christianity. If you want to explore that, do it yourself, Gaiman had other places to go with his work of fiction rather than turning it into a text for a mythology class.
12. The place does further the story and add magical flair. These gods who are masquerading as humans can get themselves out of situations by going to a place where they can be their true selves? Well firstly, that keeps the story from getting bogged down by subplots and allows for it to move forward and secondly, the fact that the gods can do that is pretty darn magical I’d have to say. Furthermore, it ties in more Pagan mythology in a new and inventive way.
13. Once again, if you hated the original story line so much, accept that you didn’t like it and move on instead of wishing it was a completely different book. I say once again, the story was about a war. Not a bank heist. Not a desperate adventure to keep evil gods away from places of power. The spots were important to the book as they gave an amazingly interesting idea of places for gods to meet and fight. Who would have thought that instead of say Stonehenge, a place of mystery, gods are fighting at road side attractions. That was plenty in my opinion, much more than just a few places I now want to visit. Sorry if it disappointed you, but I have a feeling that so do movies with actual plots and character development and a lack of constant explosions and car chases. Once again sorry for the bluntness, but if you attempt to bash literature with no real reason, you kind of ask for it.
14. Did you do no research regarding the book at all? With Shadow being Balder, it makes perfect sense that Loki would be the antagonist. Loki, according to myth, through trickery killed Balder. Since Shadow is the protagonist of course the one who killed him in mythology would be the antagonist. Furthermore, Loki is often said to either be assisting or making problems for the gods, more often making problems and attempting to turn them against each other. Also, Odin and Loki are thought by some scholars to have been one and the same until the early Norse Period and in many myths that Loki often aided Odin.
I am truly sorry that you did not see this book for what it actually is and got so caught up in what you wanted it to be. Either it just isn’t the right kind of book for you or you need to learn to invest more in the books you choose. Rather than being judgmental, how about learning something new and thinking for yourself instead of having everything explained to you? Once again, I apologize for being as cruel as I’m sure I come off, but based on your criticism of this book you had no real foundation for your distaste for it, which spurs me to respond. I would respect your opinion and your right not to like it if you showed that you actually understood the book at all or really tried to read it.