American Gods
Well, with everything that’s been going on of Christmas type stuff, I don’t know if this was really the appropriate time to read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, but since I’m feeling guilty about not having read the books that Jess lent me, I decided to read it on this vacation.
My overall impression was that I really liked it. I think I need to read it again when I’m focusing less on trying to get through it and not being quite as distracted by other things going on around me and just trying to get through it to see what happens next, so to speak. And the other thing that I really feel like is that I don’t know enough of other mythologies from around the world. I mean, I feel okay about the Egyptian and Norse ones, but when you get to Eastern European ones and things like that I start to feel rather ignorant. And I feel like I would have enjoyed the book more if I’d understood more of those things. Or maybe not. I don’t know. But I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been rushing through it trying to find out what was going to happen next. But that’s what you get for being impatient.
The only other Neil Gaiman stuff I’d read before was really his short stories in Smoke and Mirrors, which I liked a lot, although a great many of those were really disturbing. And then I’d read the Sandman graphic novels, which are also extremely good of course.
I’m not really sure whether I thought the book was satisfying or not, or whether I liked its idea of cosmology. It reminded me a fair bit of Mage: The Ascension, in some ways. I wonder if Neil Gaiman is a gamer at all.
Anyway, the other book of his that Jess has lent me is Neverwhere, which I’m going to read next, since I’ve also brought it along on this trip. Then when I get back perhaps I’ll read Coraline, or come back and re-read this and things will make more sense the second time through.
i’d say that your knowledge of world mythologies rates ok compared to most people’s…
I loved American Gods because it really captured the feel of the region, and I was pleased with how it gave explanations to seemingly inexplicable features of the Midwest: the House on the Rock, the Dickeyville Grotto, and that thing they do where they put the old car out on the lake and wait for it to fall through the ice in the spring.
If you want to visit the Grotto and the House on the Rock, they’re about a couple hour’s drive from us.
I think my copy of American Gods is currently on loan to Scott, so I can’t check up. However, I think that no more than passing knowledge of any mythology beyond the Norse is really necessary to appreciate the book. I think most of of it you can understand from the context.
As for Gaiman being a gamer or not, I don’t know either. However, I think he wrote up how magic worked for the DC Heroes RPG years ago. (3rd edition, I believe. Probably on my shelf somewhere.)
I thought it was interesting that each nation had different sets of deities, which resulted in duplicate versions of the same deity. I’m not sure how that concept would extend to places where political boundaries are not synomymous with ethnic boundaries. Then again, I suppose it might be a continental thing.
I’d definitely be up for visiting the Grott and the House on Rock, if it meant that Jason and Britt would drive for a couple of hours and then trump me.
No such luck, but flights to O’Hare aren’t that expensive! And there is an excellent private bus service from the airport to Beloit.
Yay for guilt! I’m glad you enjoyed the book
I don’t really know that having a handle on other mythologies really helps all that much — I have a decent knowledge of most of the ones mentioned, and still didn’t know who some of the gods were, but I don’t know that it hindered my understanding. Mostly, I found reading it a second time helped everything make a lot more sense, even the Norse stuff, which I do have a decent idea of. I think you will find Neverwhere to be a bit less disturbing, although I had to read that one twice, too, before I understood what was going on. But then, I’m slow like that 
Hey Dan,
What good does it do for a mother to buy her children large numbers of books dealing with various mythologies – Russian; North, Central and South American, Celtic, Norse, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Chinese…. (I just went and looked at the top of the bookcase). I feel you are implying that I fell down on the job – surely you didn’t mean THAT!
No, I’m not saying that you fell down on the job. I am just saying that, while I probably at one time in my life knew these things better, I seem to have forgotten a lot of them
Linked from the wikipedia page for American Gods is a quite complete list of all the Gods and Mythical creatures in the book. It’s quite enlightening and there are lot of pretty obscure ones in there, as well as references to some of his other books and things like that.
OK, as long as we have it clear that it is NOT YOUR MOTHER’S FAULT. (Good that something isn’t.)