Gaiman & Grumbling

Awhile ago I posted about how disappointed I was by Neil Gaiman's "American Gods".  I felt rather guilty about reviewing a book that I couldn't get past the first 100 pages of, but having never disliked any of Gaiman's work I felt compelled.  I now probably owe him half an apology.

This has been an odd summer.  The weather never got very warm or fine until about mid-July.  Seriously I didn't even pack away my cashmere cardigans this year.  Then my landlord got pregnant and I had to move house. Then I wasn't sure when I'd have to move house, or when I'd be moving into the new place I found, or how I would be able to coordinate everything.  I will never move house in August or September ever again.


I had to force myself to read it.  I forced myself to read it sitting in a comfortable chair, in the bath, on the sofa, at the table, in bed - as much as possible. And then I came to a realisation.  It wasn't half bad.  It's just what I do for a living has made me kind of hate books.

I kept wondering how it compared to the neater, shorter, award-winning editor's version.  I kept cutting and trying to rewrite sentences in my mind. I couldn't help but to think if the book had been the edited version rather than this long rambling one I would have been able to turn my instinct off.


But of course I still need to move...

Now things won't really quiet down until the New Year, not really, but I think I'm doing the right thing. Trimming down my expenses.  I'm going to force myself to write.  No more waiting for the Muses to show up.

The truth is making myself read American Gods helped me. While I should know that authors need a lot of help between the page and the store shelf, sometimes I'm just so in awe of them that I put them up on a pedestal and fling myself downwards from the highest towers.  How dare I think of myself as worthy to be among them, but in reality, will I ever know my rightful place unless I reach for the stars?

This morning I woke up still swaddled by the fog of a dream. I recently watched Bukowski's interview on the French show Apostrophe, to give you an idea of what the set looked liked.  Jaime Oliver was asking me to list 5 books I wish I'd written.  Unfortunately my dog whacked me in the face with her tail good morning before I could finish my list.

In my dream:

1. William Gaddis' The Recognitions
2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude

When I woke up the first three books I thought of that I wish I had written:

3. JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit
4. W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge
5. ?

Then I decided that deep down the only book I wish I had written is the ones I have yet to write.

It's a sad thing to pack up my writing stuff.  All my notebooks, my outlines, my stapled and clipped pages of something that turned out to be nothing. My extra old laptop that I write on because I like the keyboard more than the keyboard on the other laptop.  My two typewriters, my framed picture of Victor Hugo, and a hundred books that will have to live in a box because I can't be without them.

I was wondering if I could list these books.  The ones I decided I needed around.  I should list them. Perhaps I will. I do love a good list of books, but be warned, some might not make sense, but no house would be a home without The Chronicles of Narnia to me.

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Neil Gaiman & American Gods

If you don't know by now I'm a huge fan of author Neil Gaiman (and I love his wife Amanda Palmer too). I've read all of Gaiman's Sandman, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Stardust, and Anasi Boys. Recently a friend of mine who borrowed my copy of The Graveyard Book passed me a copy of American Gods.

I have the UK edition published by Headline Review (ISBN 978-0-7472-6374-6), which starts with an introduction on this version of the book, which is different from the previously published version.

"...My editor was concerned that the book was slightly too big and too meandering (she didn't mind it being too odd), and she wanted me to trim it, and I did..."

Gaiman goes on to say the instincts of his editor were spot on because the book won a lot of prestigious awards (Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and the Bram Stoker award).  So short story long (?) when Headline wanted to reissue Gaiman's novels he had a whole book that he wanted people to read.  This edition of American Gods is 12,000 words longer than the one that won the awards, and it's the version of which Gaiman is "the most proud".

Here is the blurb from the book for those of you who haven't read it:

IS NOTHING SACRED?

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash.  Numbly, he makes his way back home.  On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break....


Now I'm going to be slightly mean here, but please don't hold it against me. As I stated previously I am a huge fan of Gaiman's work, just not this one.  I so wanted to like it, but I couldn't read it.  First I couldn't read it without thinking it was a very poor imitation of a Haruki Murakami novel (let's be honest as great as Gaiman is he is no Murakami) and then I simply couldn't read it at all.

Every writer ends up writing a book which is a vanity project. I think American Gods is Gaiman's vanity project book, something he wrote more for himself than anything else, and as the reader you either like it or you don't.

Also I hated the name Mr Wednesday. Maybe this is nitpicking but to me Wednesday as a name should only ever refer to Wednesday Addams (of the Addams Family). To say he was Mr Wednesday but not Thursday is a Chesterton reference someone of Gaiman's stature should not have made. Anyone who reads Gaiman has to be aware that he at one point or another read a fair amount of GK Chesterton and really liked it. Why he felt the need is beyond me, but it detracts from my being able to immerse myself in the story.

And with an "odd book" (Gaiman's words, not mine), one thing that is absolutely essential is that the reader lose themselves in the writing.  Nothing should feel out of place or unusual unless that is the writer's intention. Especially with some of the fantasy/magical surrealism sort of things Gaiman is trying to pull off in American Gods. The quotes, which are disappointingly from real people who wrote real books as opposed to Borges quotes from imaginary people and imaginary books, don't do anything for the story.

I suppose I will try to read it again sometime because I remain shocked by my dislike of it, but for now I'm going to move on to something else. Gaiman has a new book coming out soonish (The Ocean at the End of the Lane) and I've managed to beg myself an advanced reading copy from a friend at HarperCollins, so hopefully it will be better and I'll be able to get the bad taste out of my mouth, but sadly for this blog I've promised not to review it until it's released (I think in June?).

But fingers crossed. Considering the last book of Gaiman's I read was The Graveyard Book and how much I loved that, well, maybe my hopes and my faith in Gaiman's consistency of output were unrealistic.

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