AMERICAN GODS

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Limba engl

American Gods' by Neil Gaiman is a true page turner of surprising literary quality. Gaiman's not uncommon concept, that the gods of pre-monotheistic mythology are real and require worship to thrive.
The GK Chesterton inspired conversation with the Hippy Girl in San Francisco is amusing, and Gaiman's mythological gods fulfill Chesterton's maxim that "Oh, if these new pagans would only be old pagans, they would be a little wiser! The old pagans knew that mere naked Nature-worship must have a cruel side. They knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and blind.": With slight deviations like Eostre, Mammaji and Ganesha the deities are accurately portrayed as epic narcissists who devour humans (in a most unusual way in the case of Bilquis). All these fantasy elements-gods, goddesses, culture heroes are set in the real world of small town America with occasional visits to Las Vegas, Chicago and New York. Setting the book in the real world and mixing everyday life charges `American Gods' with a sense of immediacy that it would have lacked had it been set in a magical world. The visit by Shadow and Mr Wednesday to Czernborg and the Zoryas at their run down house in Chicago worked well and could have been repeated with deities from other pantheons, perhaps the Middle Eastern pantheon in Detroit, Aztec in Los Angeles, Asian in Honolulu or San Francisco and the Irish pantheon in Boston. Indeed the various mythological gods were more interesting than the anticlimactic battle between new gods and old. It would've been interesting to see more of the various gods and goddesses such as Ashoreth or Kubera who were only mentioned briefly. I found the Hinzelmann subplot intriguing and wish this had been expanded.
The revelation that America incompatible with the gods of mythology, was not well argued. Shadow and Laura were drawn in such a way as to be insufficiently interesting.
`American Gods' is nevertheless interesting and well worth a read.