Friday 20 May 2005

Pic of the day: 3 highly un-American godesses, namely the Norns of Norse mythology. From bottom right: Urd, Verdandi and Skuld. Amazingly these make a major appearance in American Gods as well, but here they are shown in the Japanese anime Ah! My Goddess!

American gods, review

I had not planned to read Neil Gaiman's book American gods. I have seen some of his fiction in comics, or perhaps they are called graphic novels when people get that famous, and I think he is pretty good and refreshingly creative. But the novel never interested me. I am not American, and what I have read in passing about the novel made me think it was irrelevant. Having read it, I still think so, but for very different reasons. At least reading it was an enjoyable experience.

It all started when one of my American friends (which most of them are, these days) started prodding me to read the book. This went on until at last she threatened to mail me one of her two copies. And we can't have that: My apartment is already so full, mostly with printed matter, that I last week had to dump several old Scientific American in the paper recycling. Can you imagine how it feels? Those magazines are like old friends. You don't dump old friends in the recycling bin just because they live in the past and history has proved them wrong. And yet that's what I had to do. I don't want to ever have to do that with a book. Yes, there is a used-book store in our city, but the secondhand market for American books isn't all that huge in Norway. (We actually have two languages of our own, you know.)

To avoid getting another hardcopy on my stacked shelves, and to save her the cost of mailing the book from America (probably similar to the cost of the book itself) I bought the e-book from Fictionwise.com, my regular supplier. They have a lot of books, particularly science fiction and fantasy, and there is always some rebate going. On this one I got a micropay rebate, meaning that instead of getting the book cheaper, I get a rebate off my next book. That's fine by me, if I don't shop there again it is probably because I'm dead, in which case I doubt I will think much about novels or money.

Seconds later, I had the novel. I proceeded to read it when I did not have work to do, games to play or a journal to write. Pathetically, this took me less than a week. Then again, I got less sleep on the bus than usual.

***

American gods is a glittering exhibition of writecraft. Seemingly random details turn out to be important later, and the plot bends and twists as dramatically and unexpectedly as a Norwegian mountain road. If you try to go too fast, you're likely to fall off. There is no needless babble to skim through. If there's something that's not funny or thought-provoking, you can bet it is important. Sometimes all of the above. As a hobby writer myself, I can imagine the countless long nights of writing, and worse, the countless cold mornings of cutting, cutting, cutting in the living flesh of the manuscript in order to instill that lean tautness of a masterpiece.

A masterpiece it is. A brilliant novel, a proof of genius (as if that was needed with Gaiman), a book that will be remembered for a long time. And I'm sorry to say that. Because this turreted castle with its flying pennants is built on a swamp. It is fundamentally flawed to the point where it, in my opinion, solely has value as a paragon of craftmanship and to kill time, for those who hate time.

I cannot justify this harsh judgment without some degree of spoilers. You have been warned.

***

The story is set in a contemporary USA that is barely distinguishable from our own. (Your own ... I'm Norwegian. But aside from that.) But in the shadows, there are things going on. People who are not who they seem to be. People who are gods or demons, dwarves or kobolds, pixies, self-aware TV sets or the embodiment of a drug. There is a secret war over the soul of America: The old beliefs that immigrants brought with them are being assailed by new idols, magic fighting against electronics. "There is only so much belief to go around" is the motto for both sides. At the face of it, it is the newcomers that are waging a war of genocide – or in this case, deicide – against the old. But the further into the story you come, the more you doubt everything. In the end, you may even doubt your doubt. But by then, it is too late.

It is a world in which a friend, a neighbor or a passing stranger may be a thousand year old spirit, and where gods may die and men may become gods. It is all based on real-world mythology, and those who have taken an interest in the world's minor religions will delight in finding many subtle references here. (In fact, my initial gripe against the book was that I doubted the normal American would recognize much of the mythology.)

There is only one flaw in this great epic. Sadly, this is a fundamental flaw and undoes it all. The premise, explicitly given in the book, is that America is a bad land for gods. It just doesn't have the climate. They can live there, but it is a harsh life that leads to desperation.

In real life, America is a bad land for gods because it is already claimed by the monotheist faiths. In the book, the main religion of the land is reduced to background noise. Even the small gods use "Jesus!" as an exclamation, and only one or two of them seem to be aware of Christianity at all, much less Judaism or Islam.

It seemingly does not occur to Gaiman that the big difference is that in Europe and western Asia, polytheism preceded monotheism, but in America it is the other way around. (Unless you consider the native Americans, which for the most part you can't since they were almost eradicated and then culturally isolated.)

In Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, polytheism was supplanted by monotheism. It should not come as a shock, then, that polytheism has a hard time taking root when monotheism is present from the founding of the nation. But this aspect is utterly, completely ignored by Gaiman. Not even a pseudo-scientific explanation is attempted. It is as if he either doesn't know, or is afraid to mention it. As well he should, since the belief in God is so strong in America, it could totally ruin his reputation and squash his sales if he challenges the One God.

Sadly this makes the book irrelevant. The spiritual landscape which he describes is utterly different from that which the reader will find, and there is no bridge from one to the other. So even though the geographical landscape is portrayed with high fidelity, this makes the novel at best a funny travel guide. For the inner journey, it is as useless as a map of Mars. (None of this changes the fact that it is entertaining and well-written, of course. I guess I just judge it more harshly because I see what it could have been.)

***

I cannot help but compare this to the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card. He also set out to define the soul of America, to create a kind of mythology for a land that does not have one. Card's books are set two hundred years ago in an alternate timeline where magic works and is largely accepted. There is no pretense of being contemporary or mainstream. And yet, it accepts the fact that most people believe in God and the Devil, although they have trouble telling them apart. For this reason, the books are at heart more realistic, despite the alternate history setting. Because as you can confirm for yourself, America is quite occupied with God, the Devil, and sin. None of which make any appearance in American gods.

As for the notion of deities that feed on belief, this is covered in great detail and with excessive humor in Terry Pratchett's novel Small gods, which is set in the fictional "Discworld" universe and therefore makes no pretense at realism. Later the idea is explored in the popular computer game "Black & White" where the player gets to role play a small god starting up and living in a symbiotic relationship with its worshipers. Being so deeply familiar with the concept, I guess I got cheated on the feeling of awe that may have filled some readers of American gods if they met this idea for the first time.

Only at the end of the epilogue did I see something I had not seen in a book before: The idea that gods may change when they move to a new area, to the point where they become a different person. I know I have thought about this myself in the past. This is disturbingly relevant for Christianity. A Swedish theologian whose name I have sadly forgotten, wrote several books about the transition of Christianity from its original Judaic form to the European version we know today. He felt that some valuable parts were lost in translation, as it were, and I vaguely agree with him. But I cannot remember anyone writing about this process more generally. Gaiman does, but only in passing and at the very end, and his careful avoidance of the monotheist religions basically hides the truly frightening conclusion from the casual reader.

The truly frightening question after finishing the book is this: Could the same thing have happened with Jesus? Is the American Jesus a dangerous entity that mercilessly feeds on the violent destruction of other beliefs? It is a question Gaiman never touches with a ten foot pole, and I can understand him. The real answer to this, I believe, is that there is no single American Jesus or American God. It is a continuum. But it is not mere background noise. It is one of the most important factors in America yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And American gods is extremely well written fluff. It avoids the American god that Americans actually believes in, and spins a great tale about ones they don't.

***

As always, feel free to protest in our new forum.