Reviewed by Djibril
Gaiman's American Gods begins with a serious tone and a real-world setting, and although there are undeniably fantastic elements throughout this weighty tome, it never ceases to feel real. The protagonist, a strong but quiet character by the name of Shadow, is released from prison to learn that his life outside has been tragically shattered, leaving him rootless and without much purpose. It is on a delayed and diverted winter flight home that he meets the enigmatic, one-eyed grifter who goes by the name of Wednesday. The old man offers Shadow a job as his chauffeur, and thus our hero ends up driving America's self-proclaimed greatest con-artist across the United States, on a journey that will see him meeting a ragged assortment of spirits, leprechauns and gods: among whom the spider-like Afro-Caribbean Mr Nancy, and the chain-smoking Eastern European Chernobog with the deathly cough. Some of these strange characters he befriends (he is seduced by the cat-like Egyptian Bastet), others, like Techno-boy and Mr World, he makes deadly enemies of.
For it soon becomes clear that Wednesday is not just planning a great swindle, but is preparing for a war: a war between the old gods who came to America with various waves of settlers from 30 000 bce to the present, and the new gods of technology, multi-media and the information revolution. At first there is no doubt whose side Shadow is to be on, but the plot, as always, thickens. And to confuse matters further, a woman Shadow accidently brought back from the dead is still wandering about the country, inexorably decomposing as she follows and watches over him.
A deeply moving and convincing book rooted in American mythology both popular and traditional, American Gods will ring true with readers all over the world for the universal conflicts it treats: multiculturalism; loyalty, appearance and reality; the clash of tradition and modernity; love, sacrifice and basic humanity. (Perhaps the most enjoyable of the many unconnected vignettes scattered throughout the book is the story of the Middle Eastern trinket salesman on a marketing vist to New York, who ends up sleeping with an ifrit taxi driver.) Gaiman's erudition and knowledge of a range of cultural traditions are as impressive as his mastery of English prose and storytelling. This reviewer picked the book up from the shelves of a mainstream bookshop having been led to believe it would be a modern American classic, perhaps rather earnest and very worthy. He was slightly surprised, but certainly not disappointed.
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