American Gods by: Neil Gaiman

 

American Gods, like the United States of America, is a sprawling work with many tangents, diversions, little cultures, and roundabouts throughout its rather large page count.  Neil Gaiman set out to write a novel about America, and in 2001 it was published for the first time.  A decade later, Gaiman revised the text to the Author’s Preferred Edition, the version that I read for the purposes of this review.  Like Gaiman’s larger bibliography, American Gods is a highly philosophical work wrapped in the core of a very pulpy novel, following several individual escapades of Shadow Moon, our human, American protagonist, released from prison days early due to the death of his wife in a car accident where she was conducting an affair with a mutual fan.  This inciting incident creates this sense of disconnect in the reader, Shadow’s personal identity throughout the novel has the sense of unbelonging, perhaps in a comment on the American prison system being punitive and not restorative, perhaps reflecting the very nature of America as lacking in a cohesive national identity.  Shadow takes a job with Mr. Wednesday, an anthropomorphic personification of the Norse god Odin, as a bodyguard, as they travel across America recruiting the old gods for a war against new, explicitly American, gods that essentially wish to live.  Some critics have pointed out some of the problematic portrayals of certain gods, which knowing Gaiman, is something that if he had the chance to rewrite or adapt in a new medium he would likely attempt to rectify.  There is also a valid reading that the poor portrayal of some gods may also be a particular comment on Gaiman’s part through using Wednesday as completely manipulative.  There is also an appearance from a figure heavily implied to be the Christian Jesus that Gaiman has flip-flopped on including in the novel through its various printings.  Two person cons are a recurring element in the novel through dialogue between Wednesday and Shadow, much of the point of the novel being an entire con on the part of Wednesday and how Shadow’s life falls apart.  By the end of the novel, while Shadow has gone through the hero’s journey, there is still this sense of displacement, but the idea that perhaps he is going to find something for himself now.

 

The new gods are largely used to also comment on American and modern society in general, Gaiman largely using these sets of anthropomorphic personifications to comment on often how fast the modern world is as well as its general similarities to the gods of the past.  While the new gods may act as if they’re “new”, adhering to the old rules of the gods for battle and their specific temptations and aggravations towards Shadow being reminiscent of the general ideas of old gods with the veneer of the new.  Gaiman is clearly not attempting to glorify the past either, while several of the god characters are incredibly endearing, Mr. Nancy and Czernobog in particular, the old gods are equally as bloodthirsty and destructive.  There’s also a lengthy section of Shadow having to live essentially a normal life while Wednesday is on his own which is a fascinating sequence, again one that often turns people off, but it’s also a chance for Gaiman to explicitly explore humanity as a whole, something he often does in his work, through the American lens.  The novel is dealing with themes on a cosmic scale, but at its core it really is Shadow’s story, the story of a man who has become part of a con to find some peace of mind.

 

American Gods may not be Neil Gaiman’s conventional work, it’s long and meanders from place to place, from episode to episode, with a large segment of stagnation in the middle integral for forming the central thesis.  It’s a statement on the nature of America, the nature of belief, and the formation of myth and faith, making it right in line with Gaiman’s best.  9/10.