American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Book: American Gods

Author: Neil Gaiman

Rating: 3 out of 5 sacrifices

First Paragraph: Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-fuck-with me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.

Review: There were too many gods. Too much of them whining about how they weren't worshipped any more. Yes, we get it. You're proud and want to live like any good god should. And they envied men. You would think that their eventual death would make them happier.... I liked some of the new American Gods that he made, but I wanted to see others or understand what 'abstract' god they were.

I enjoyed reading about the 'temples' built across America in the form of roadside attractions. Makes me wonder about the largest ball of tinfoil. Did Gaiman write the nature of the gods well? Yes, but you might want to read up on all of your mythologies first. Preferably Norse and Eastern European if you want to have a better understanding of the major gods described in the book.

Then there is the whole question as to whether or not the main character is Jesus. The entire book he was just waiting to die, and his happiest moments were when he lived in a funeral parlor with the Egyptian gods of death, and when he eventually died. At the end of the book, he left America. Was it to get away from the dying gods or to keep himself from becoming one?

By the end of the story, I was almost wondering if all of the characters in the book weren't gods of some sort. One didn't seem like a god, but rather like an urban legend come true. The repeated theme of America not being a good land for gods kind of made me wonder whether or not this was a good book about gods. I loved the topic but thought that it could have dug a little deeper somehow. Delve more into the makings of the gods instead of just fleeting glances at them in their twilight.

'On Bullshit' by Harry G. Frankfurt

The first paragraph of 'On Bullshit' goes exactly like this:

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recongnize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not attracted much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry".

A "sustained inquiry" of the bullshit "phenomenon" constitutes, of course you fool, the rest of the book. Obviously, seeing such a naughty word not only in the title of a book, but used academically throughout, is quite funny. Not hilarious, but funny. Which is a good thing. If this book were a popular coffee table book released in late November and aimed specifically at the what-to-buy-your-relative-you-never-see-and-don't-even-like-
but-are-nevertheless-compelled-to-buy-a-present-for market, it would probably be called "The Complete Book of Bullshit", which wouldn't be at all funny. Which would of course mean the dust-jacket would be splattered with single-adjective quotes from newspaper reviews - "...unputdownable...", "...fantasicaludicrous..." and other meaningless superlatives.

Fortunately, not so. The book doesn't even have a dust-jacket. This is great, because I hate dust-jackets. They're pointless and I always bin them. Dust-jackets are to books what coasters are to coffee tables: a useless peripheral designed only to make you feel guilty and inadequate for doing exaclty what you're supposed to do with the object being "protected".

So that's two reasons to read this book, or perhaps three. There's no need to be precise, because the book itself has enough precision left over for you. It ventures repeatedly into the philosophy of language, politics, sociology and all kinds of stuff you're never going to have time to understand. But it's short (67 pages), small (about 3x2 inches) and a very relaxing shade of yellowy brown. It's more than likely I'll finish reading it before I die.

Recommendations

I am willing to take recommendations from the Internets. Whether or not I am able to read them depends upon the books availability and whether or not the pixie's with spears inside my head are taking a siesta. If you do recommend a book, then I promise to use your name as the person who recommended that book. Whether or not I curse you out like the wretched dog you are is another question entirely.

~C

Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire

Book: Mirror Mirror

Author: Gregory Maguire

Rating: 3 out of 5 apples

First Paragraph: From the arable river lands to the south, the approach to Montefiore appears a sequence of relaxed hills. In the late spring, when the puckers of red poppy blossom are scattered against the green of the season, it can look like so much washing, like mounds of Persian silk and Florentine brocade lightly tossed in heaps. Each successive rise takes on a new color, indefinably more fervent, an aspect of distance and time stained by the shadows of clouds, or bleached when the sun takes a certain position.


Review: I enjoyed Maguire's other books, but Mirror Mirror did not fulfill me as the others did. Maybe it was because I felt like his writing of the Borgias was mediocre at best. Maybe my expectations were too great. I felt like I could have gotten the same psyche of the evil family if I had just read a non-fiction book. What disappointed me most was how this book actually did read more like a fairy tale than anything. The cottage suddenly forming in the woods was way too fantasical as well as the men of stone taking place. If you are going to put real people in a book about a fantasy novel then keep the book in the real world. Was the house and its terrain supposed to be believed as so remote from reality that magic existed?

The dumb innocent girl. The protective father. The coniving older beauty queen. The crazy warlord. And then the seven stone men. Or, possibly eight if you count the dog. Why were they of the earth? Are we to believe that the land is so plentiful here that men pop out of the earth? I don't know. It sounds like a fairy tale to me.

Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

BOOK: Eye of the World, book one
of the Wheel of Time series

AUTHOR: Robert Jordan

RATING: 4 out of 5 toe socks

FIRST PARAGRAPH: The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

REVIEW: The best thing about this book was how the fantasy world was not romanticized. At all. Robert Jordan gives all of the dirty bits and pieces from uncomfortable hay stacks to the smell of manure in the streets. I enjoy the smell of manure in the streets. To me it means that the author has not forgotten the little details that puts the reader in the story, instead of just having them admire a nice picture of an obvious fantasy land that you have created in hopes of getting it made into a major motion picture.

It is definitely a first book in regards to character growth. At some point I plan on continuing to read the series and hope to see how much more these characters grow. After eight hundred and fourteen pages, I still felt like I was at the beginning of the book. So much had happened, there was a beginning and an end; yet so many questions left unanswered.

Jordan successfully set up a world of his own in the first book to the Wheel of Time series. It was not rushed and long, drawn-out stories and backgrounds were almost non-existant, unless it helped to further the plot. In all of the book there was only one overly drawn out story and it's telling served a purpose. Writing a cohesive novel is much like pruning a rose bush, you have to cut back all of the distracting bullshit in order to let your story grow.

~C