I must say, the further the story progressed, the more pleased I was. The best part was keeping in line with how little Shadow truly understood about his own situation, as well as the consistent reminders of how little knowledge he possessed of gods, mythology, and various religions. Whenever he misunderstood someone’s name, it was not annoying or cop-out, it was a perfect way to put it in the common reader’s perspective of the mythoi that Gaiman was stringing together.
Even if he put the correct spelling of the name of the god or imp in question, I probably would have read it incorrectly – pronounced it poorly in my American, not-so-educated tongue. Letting Shadow interpret for the reader keeps in line with not overwhelming someone who may only be vaguely in touch with varying deities – and I appreciated his clumsy progress through the story. I felt like a lumbering, confused and sometimes sad guy reading this, the pace was well done.
As I said before, I wasn’t shocked or saddened, or even slightly vengeful when the somewhat-big-reveal of Laura’s death came about. It just mildly irritated me, and I suppose it was more the same emotion that Shadow seemed to have when she showed up as a walking-corpse later on. Not really surprised, but not very impressed either. That’s how I felt about most of the book, it really was a quick-read – a lot less thick (physically, mentally) than a Dark Tower installation (which I’m still ragged over and processing somehow) but, it was not fast. Even in parts that seemed to emulate urgency, did not feel very urgent. I suppose it comes back to the eyes we watched most of the plot unfold through, eyes still-blinking at the real world.
There are some points in fantastic plots where I’m pulled out of the story, wondering how the protagonist can accept all that happens around them, despite the absurdity; having just left prison after 3 years, Shadow is not only bombarded with the shell-shock of his wife’s death, but in addition being propositioned by a strange man with a glass eye, having a bar fight with a leprechaun and – as if the dying weren’t enough – the news of Laura’s affair. If all of that happened to me within the first 24 hours of being set free, I’d probably be pretty misaligned and adjusted all at the same time; nothing else would seem too shocking. Guessing that’s why I shrugged off Shadow’s readiness (not willingness, he never seemed to try to accept things) for what was happening to him.
I really loved the small portions of story-telling within the plot; “Coming to America” gave a great background for creatures that we do not associate with our own land. I do not think of American Gods or Myths, outside of Native American imagery, so to journey with a few, and see how they could immigrate along with the people who worshipped them helped to put into perspective the idea of the book, which, the basic plot, was a good one.
The not-war, and how it all became just another ‘grift’ from Wednesday, just didn’t feel like a completion to the tale, and the last bits of loose-end-tying where suddenly it was a murder mystery back at the clunker on the ice, were a little tacked-on and rushed (still lumbering), but the final interaction with Czernoborg was alright, if not a little cheesy.
Finally, there is one little bit I did appreciate – because, whether he meant it or not, I think Gaiman touches on an idea of religion that is important. When in Iceland, Shadow runs into Odin, again; in another embodiment, whether a truer form, or not, but he is nearly opposite of the previous. He says, in effect, “He was me, but I am not him,” regarding Wednesday’s conniving and scheming. To me this is the essence of the problem with religion, it is up for interpretation and while the God may have at a time represented one idea, in the hands of the mortal man, after years of word-of-mouth storytelling, trade, conquest, plague and drought – it can mean to one man, something so different.
“We draw lines around these moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.” Gaiman, American Gods
This is by far the only part of the book that really reckoned with me; I stopped, re-read the lines, and grabbed another post-it note to mark the place in the book where I finally felt something resonate from the text. The image I see: watery, slippery colors – conflicting and never mixing – a pulsating nucleus that glows a little less or more with each drop, but remains – basically, the same, unchanged.
I don’t need to interpret it; I think it’s an interpretation of its own, a commentary of the story it is within. This is what religion does for us, it gives us an alternate purpose than existing, and this purpose we draw up like a blanket to keep the pain of living out, so that inside – where things matter – where beliefs seed, blossom – it can stay safe and our souls are relatively unchanged, believing, knowing there is something else going on “behind the scenes.”
