Though Neil Gaiman is an undeniably successful author with a very loyal readership, I have read very little of his work. A person who has read several of his novels could most likely offer some insight as to whether American Gods is fairly representative of his style, but I cannot. What I can say is that American Gods is that it is an enjoyable book with a well-balanced mix of fantasy and reality.
The book follows Shadow, a recently released felon who finds himself working for Wednesday, an unpredictable con-man. The two are involved in preparations for a coming conflict; the old, traditional gods are facing new gods of Internet, media, industry, etc. Both sides are trying to rally their troops and gain advantage before the conflict that everyone agrees is imminent.
With this book, I often got the feeling that I was missing some of Gaiman’s symbolism; coins are very important but I don’t know that I am clever enough to always get the meaning behind the object. Unfortunately, this is probably my own lack of knowledge of world religions working against me in this case; obviously Gaiman knows a lot more about this than I do. That being said, I’m sure I could quite easily find an excellent article on the inter-web in which someone will gladly explain this to me (maybe a project for tomorrow?). Nevertheless, the story is fun and well paced – surely enjoyable to those who know a lot about this, and those who do not.
