Gaiman, Neil - Anansi Boys

[oyceter]

Fat Charlie's father would name things, and the names would stick. That's why Fat Charlie is Fat Charlie, and not Charles Nancy. But Fat Charlie's father has just died, leaving him to discover that his dad was a god -- not just any god, but Anansi the Trickster -- which may very well explain why he was so good at embarrassing Fat Charlie.

While discovering that he's the son of a god, Fat Charlie also finds a previously unknown brother, things about his employer that he probably didn't want to know, reasons why Hitchcock was right about birds, and the joys of karaoke. Or something of the sort.

I wasn't actually sure if I'd like this book to begin with, mostly because I wasn't too fond of American Gods (on the other hand, I may like American Gods better after a reread; I read it on an airplane, and that always messes up my reactions). But then I went to a Neil Gaiman signing, and he read bits out of chapter four, and it was really funny.

It feels a wee bit like Good Omens, where things keep going wrong for Fat Charlie, and then worse, and then even worse. And I found that I liked most of the characters, which I didn't in American Gods. I ended up really liking this book, although I didn't fall head-over-heels in love with it. It's wonderfully whimsical, and Gaiman weaves in Anansi stories and makes everything cohere.

I especially like how light it feels, which isn't something I'd think to say. It's frothy and fun and made me laugh a lot, and yet, there's a sense of underlying structure, so it's not just melt-away marshmallow fiction. Gaiman's spent time on the bones of the story; even under the humor and the fun, there are parallels and everything makes sense in the end in the cool "ah-ha!" way, not the ends-tied-up-much-too-neatly way.

And the best thing is that I suspect a reread will be even funnier.

Links:
- tenemet's review

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

How closely connected is it to American Gods ? I sort of liked some things about that and am vacillating on how much I want to read Anansi Boys.

[Fwiw American Gods I thought was an idea with a lot of potential, let down by some fundamental flaws, of which the summary of the summary is: a) leaving out a metaphysical basis for the ways in which Christianity and derived entities underpin the social structures of the US was a major weakness, b) the modern gods lacked the weight to stack up against the old ones [ which in an ideal world would probably involve having to use symbols such as Mickey Mouse and the Golden Arches and I can see the associated copyright problems, but it can be done well without that, as witness Sterling's Zeitgeist ] and c) Wotan as cheap trickster so does not work.

[fiveandfour.livejournal.com]

To answer your question on the relationship between the books, Neil put it this way at a signing I attended this week: he had the idea for the book about Anansi before he started American Gods and when writing Gods decided to have Anansi as a sort of "guest star". So while Anansi appears in both books, they are otherwise unrelated.

[oyceter]

I ditto fiveandfour's comment about the books sort of being related and this one not really being a sequel. The thing I liked much better about AB than AG was actually that it wasn't as ambitious -- I had a lot of the same problems with AG as you did, and I think AB didn't try to explain quite so much about the godness, which is why it worked a lot better for me.

Mostly it's just about Fat Charlie and the consequences of finding out that your father was Anansi.

[fiveandfour.livejournal.com]

I just finished this last night and I quite liked it. Of course I adored American Gods since I'm such a myth-geek, and I liked how Anansi Boys used the same kind of world-building as Gods, but was a unique story with a lot of laughs all its own. Some plot points could be seen from a mile away, but I didn't mind because while I knew where the story was going, I had no idea how it was going to get there.

[actoplasm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely enjoyed it, and enjoyed reading something new from Gaiman and found it a quaint little book, but I don't think it really compares to the magnitude and depth of American Gods or Neverwhere, and I have to say I prefer his deeper, darker stuff. Also, while I was reading it, I kept having this unignorable sense of deja vu, like I'd read the book or parts of it before. Real weird. Maybe it's just because Gaiman kept talking about it so much in his blog, like the part where the characters are in the Caribbean, and he actually went to the Caribbean to presumably write that part.

[fiveandfour.livejournal.com]

I kept having this unignorable sense of deja vu, like I'd read the book or parts of it before

I know what you mean by this. I noticed the same thing was happening for me with a couple of authors plus the U2 concert that's touring now. I found that when I actually got to experience book/show for myself it was a lot less fun than I expected since I went in knowing as much as I did. As a consequence, I'm now doing my best to reign myself in and stop delving too deeply until after I've seen the thing I'm so excited about.

[oyceter]

Hrm, that's interesting! American Gods and Neverwhere are actually my least favorite of his books because while I feel they're really ambitious, I feel like they fall a little short and are never quite as grand as they want to be. Er, or else it's because I keep comparing them to Sandman.

I think I actually skimmed over all the talk of Anansi Boys in his blog! I had no idea what the plot of the book was even going to be; I figured I'd get it because it was Gaiman, but the premise didn't really interest me at first.