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A review by ikon_biotin_jungle_lumen
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
3.0
[Reader discretion advised: A.G. involves several horrific, not not gratuitous, events.]
Since I learned of the book in 2004, American Gods has always struck me as a book of great cultural importance. Gaiman being one of—if not the—most excellent and prolific SF / Fantasy authors of our time, I knew that I should read A.G. However, the blasphemous potential of a work by the title of “American Gods” held me back.
Gaiman was raised on a diet of Chesterton and Lewis—he is no stranger to theology or allegory. American Gods treads very carefully around the Almighty, leaving ultimate divinity quite undisturbed. I was on pins and needles in anticipation of Gaiman’s inevitable introduction of American Jesus, but it never came (he removed the encounter between Jesus and Shadow from every canonical edition of A.G.). The little-g gods of America are figures of parable rather than myth, representing everything the founders of the Great Melting Pot brought with them from the Old World.
These gods, for the most part, represent the newfound materialism and hedonism of America. Media and Money and Tech have supplanted Thor and Chernobog and Horus. No longer are slaves offered as blood sacrifices at midnight, but they sacrifice their intellect, health, potential, and even children to the new gods, unbeknownst.
American Gods cuts deeply into the supposedly-secular tangle of modern life to reveal a horrifying truth: our supposed enlightenment has served only to exchange the old gods for new.
Since I learned of the book in 2004, American Gods has always struck me as a book of great cultural importance. Gaiman being one of—if not the—most excellent and prolific SF / Fantasy authors of our time, I knew that I should read A.G. However, the blasphemous potential of a work by the title of “American Gods” held me back.
Gaiman was raised on a diet of Chesterton and Lewis—he is no stranger to theology or allegory. American Gods treads very carefully around the Almighty, leaving ultimate divinity quite undisturbed. I was on pins and needles in anticipation of Gaiman’s inevitable introduction of American Jesus, but it never came (he removed the encounter between Jesus and Shadow from every canonical edition of A.G.). The little-g gods of America are figures of parable rather than myth, representing everything the founders of the Great Melting Pot brought with them from the Old World.
These gods, for the most part, represent the newfound materialism and hedonism of America. Media and Money and Tech have supplanted Thor and Chernobog and Horus. No longer are slaves offered as blood sacrifices at midnight, but they sacrifice their intellect, health, potential, and even children to the new gods, unbeknownst.
American Gods cuts deeply into the supposedly-secular tangle of modern life to reveal a horrifying truth: our supposed enlightenment has served only to exchange the old gods for new.