Before there was rock, you only had god

Oh lookie here, I'm reviewing (or whatever you'd call theses posts) American Gods by Neil Gaiman! It was a really good book, but it slowly lost steam over time. You see, it starts out this man Shadow is just let out of prison but his wife has been killed. Having nothing to go back to, he heads off with a man named Wednesday who offers him a job. You find out pretty quickly that Wednesday is deeply in touch with the supernatural world, and he himself is a god, or part of one. Anyways, during the first three-quarters or half or something like that in the book, Wednesday and Shadow travel across America in an attempt to gather the 'old' gods that have moved there over the years. You know, Czernabog, the Norse gods, Mama-ji, Bastet, Anubis.... The reason why they were being gathered is to go in a final war to defeat the 'modern' gods--gods of television, of automobiles, of media, what people generally worship nowadays and sacrifice things to. "Time... Sometimes each other."

So, some notes before I start which probably don't matter to anyone but me. But I'm the one writing this blog so ahaha.
Low Key--I was so embarrassed I didn't get the pun until Shadow realizes it. I don't know that much about Norse mythology, true, but still I know the names, and gahhh it bothers me.
This relies heavily on Norse mythology so that was new and exciting, for the most part. I know about Yggdrasil and the dragon and the red squirrel (I've always imagined him to be more ill-tempered), so I got all excited when towards the end they tied Shadow up, but other than that, all I have is very rudimentary knowledge--you know, Loki's the trickster, Thor has a mighty hammer, the Valkyries and Valhalla but nothing really solid, like how I can snap out Greek or Egyptian mythology like I was raised on it.
Czernabog--Until the very last time he appeared in the book I couldn't figure out how to say his name, and therefore couldn't figure out who the hell he was, and it was driving me absolutely bonkers. It's pronounced Chernabog--Apparently he's Slavic in origin, but I know him from Disney's movie Fantasia. You know, 'A Night on Bald Mountain'? Ayup, that's him. After figuring it out, though, it was hard to imagine him as the old Yiddish-sounding man from the book. And, for those of you who haven't seen Fantasia, ever played the first Kingdom Hearts? Final boss before Ansem.
One thing I liked was, that although Bacchus is mentioned in passing, no Greek gods are really present. They're still pretty popular, I mean, we still learn about them in school. So arguably, while they're not being worshiped, they're at last being remembered.

"'Tell him that we have f*cking reprogrammed reality. Tell him that language is a virus and that religion is an operating system and that prayers are just so much f*cking spam.'" What a cool quote, disregarding the excessive swears. (Well, he was threatening death, and I guess when you threaten death you don't bleep a thing out...) I think William S Burroughs said something to the exact affect of "Language is a virus." Oh, here it is--"Language is a virus from outer space." I like that one.

"'Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.'" First, made me think of V for Vendetta, of course. Second, it's the truth. A dying god is spit upon and laughed at and chided, so obviously being false and unreal compared to the new god and the new ideals that are golden and shiny for another few thousand or hundred years... A dead god is the skeleton of what's left. Too old, too gross, too strange to be sympathized with or respected anymore.

"'Liberty,' boomed Wednesday, 'is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses.'" Evil and horrendous as it seems, as much as you'd like to avoid it or ignore it or tell yourself there's a better way (and there most likely is) blood is the most effective way to pay for anything; to get anything. Maybe you think I'm cold-hearted for that, but go on, think about some wars, and what they were for. And no, I don't know how to apply that to our current war. It's the difference between believing something is true and fully accepting it to the end--think Rorschach thinking the bombing of Hiroshima was a good thing as a child, and then the end of the book.

"'I read some books about brains,' she said... 'It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that people thought when the right lobe of the brain said anything it was the voice of god telling them what to do. It's just brains.' 'I like my theory better,' said Shadow. 'What's your theory?' 'That back then people used to run into gods from time to time.'" I like his better, too.

"A small boy sat inches away from the television set, a video of the Disney Hercules playing, an animated satyr stomping and shouting his way across the screen." It's got to be a little wink from Gaiman. I chuckled when I saw it. (The satyr in question is Phil, of course. What a good movie.)

Oh! And guess what! The mystery of Easter is explained. You know, how does coloring eggs and searching for them and bunnies and eating candy and stuff related to all the Biblical stuff? It's not! The name Easter derives from the German goddess Eostre, who was honored in the spring--for rebirth and life, like Jesus, but with her you get the candy and fun stuff. The coloring of eggs and bunny involvement, according to Wikipedia, are German customs. Sooo yeahhh. Not well known, I guess, because I have at least 9,000 mythology books and I've never heard of her.

"'You used to make jokes,' said Shadow. 'You don't anymore.' 'It's hard to find the jokes these days. Wednesday's dead.'" Sounds like a certain line from a certain comic book that Neil Gaiman allegedly had a hand in, hmm?

"'I offered you the world,' she said. 'When you're dying in a gutter, you remember that.'" / "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul?" I want to say one of those apostles said that. Man, I need to just go through my Bible and highlight all the cool stuff so I actually can find these things. I want to say it's in Matthew, but I wouldn't take that without a grain of salt. Anyways, just pointing out the closeness, because at this point, you still think the 'new' gods are evil.

"'It's not what I'd want at my funeral,' said Mr. Nancy. 'When I die, I just want them to plant me somewhere warm. And when pretty women walk over my grave I would grab their ankles, like in that movie.'" I practically died laughing when I read this. He's talking about Carrie. X D

Poor Horus. In the book, you know, he can transform between a hawk and a man like the other Egyptian gods, and he transforms when all the gods are gathering for the final showdown--and he is described as acting awkwardly, having trouble speaking, focusing his eyes, even walking and standing. The goddess who sees him says or thinks something like "he spent too much time as a bird. He's forgotten how to be a man." Of course, you know who that made me think of. Poor Tobias, from Animorphs. He morphed as a hawk and got stuck in morph because he passed the two-hour time limit. Eventually he acquires himself(it's easier to just read the book than have me explain this), but he forgets how to make facial expressions, if he gets startled he jumps backwards frantically, flapping his arms, and much more. Poor Tobias, I love him.

I didn't quite get the Czernabog/Bielebog thing. I thought it meant Czernabog was kind of an Abraxas sort of god, capable of both good and evil, but Czernabog saw his different side as a whole different persona. A schizophrenic god, if you will. I don't like Wikipedia's explanation, that he 'changes with the seasons'. What? No shut up, that's dumb, and really weird. I don't see how it got to that conclusion.

So, I liked the book, but like I said, I was more into meeting the gods. It kind of started losing steam around (SPOILER) when Wednesday was killed, and by the time the fat kid turned out to be a robot I was just like THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE ANYMORE NEIL. ROBOTS CAN'T BRUISE. It didn't help that I was imaging the fat kid from Watchmen the whole time, haha. And then, flipping the plot around... The way he writes it, you never think, why can't these gods coexist? You just automatically think the new gods are the ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY. And when you realize at the end, when that's not the case, I think he actually handled it well. Any other author and I think I would've tossed the book out the window, but I was like ohh, the two-man deal. I like that Neil, I like that. So, 4/5? 3.5/5? Something like that. The one thing I didn't get was when Shadow meets the 'real' Odin. What I'm theorizing is maybe only a shred of him went to America with some of his followers--of course, not all of his followers went to the new world. But I'm not sure.

I was expecting Stardust to be your average child's fairy tale, right up to page 26, when a faerie and the main character's father have a one-night stand. So much for that... But. The rest of the book was simpler, and aside from that one sex scene, it would be your average OT book, or maybe even a middle school level book. Well, I guess I can't judge that well, since I read my first Stephen King and Michael Crichton books at age eleven. (7th grade.) But, all in all, it was a cute and mystical fairytale, nothing confusing and dramatic about it. Everything fit together, and although at some times the pieces felt awkward and rushed, they all formed a perfectly complete picture in the end. Though the end kind of annoyed me, when the Faerie girl's curse is broken--she turned out to be kind of a bitch. You think the curse would've softened her, or something. And the end end made me sad. But it's a good, quick read if you want to avoid a book with a twisting plot and you having to remember a million things so you can even pretend to know what's going on... well, here you go.

"'I am the most miserable person who ever lived'... 'You are young, and in love,' said Primus. 'Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.'"

"Have been unavoidably detained by the world." Neil Gaiman=awesome. I love this line. Love it.

Let's see, I started rereading Desperation and War of the Worlds, but they'll be put on hold till I finish Anthem by Ayn Rand, which Marky Mark demands I finish by Wednesday. (Which will hardly be any trouble at all.) And, tomorrow I'll be watching Catch-22, so look forward to that. Oh, and I rented 1408. Let's rollll.