AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman - Book Review

Rating: 3.5/5 - Great if you’re in the mood for it, only okay if you’re not.

Title: American Gods

Author: Neil Gaiman

Format: ebook

Published: 2002

Genre: contemporary, urban fantasy

Publisher:  HarperCollins

Landed in my hands: purchased myself




Summary:

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.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, AMERICAN GODS takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there...

Review:

I am unsure what to say in the wake of this book.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Do I think others will? It depends.

I know, I’m very helpful, aren’t I? (Heh.)

First off, I’m really glad I never read the blurb until I was about to write this review, because Laura’s death hooked me right away, and if I’d’ve known about it in advance, well, I’m not sure when this narrative would have grabbed me.

This is a book with layers; layers that you will either love or find annoying. I myself am vacillating between thinking it’s brilliant and pretentious. Neil Gaiman has been on my reading radar for years, and multiple times I was told to start with American Gods. So I did.

It kept me interested through the entire narrative—some plot lines were more interesting than others, but I wouldn’t say I was left unsatisfied upon finishing the book.

And I hesitate to call it urban fantasy, though it falls directly into the category. American Gods is larger than that, and sorrowful in a gritty, nostalgic way. Again: I enjoyed it.

But I wonder: if I didn’t have a bit of knowledge of world religions and pagan gods (and I’m not saying I’m some scholar of the category, only that I may be more familiar than the average reader), I wonder whether I would have understood some of the underlying themes of this book. I suspect it would leave the reader with a hunch that there was more going on, but likely without the drive to research exactly what that may be and therefore that same reader would be left an unsatisfying read overall.

This is why I’ve given it the rating I have: 3.5/5.

I suspect American Gods relies to heavily on the reader bringing much to the table in order to understand its layers in full; that knowledge of world religions, gods, and pagan rites will allow the reader to make natural leaps within the narrative, but without that same knowledge the reader will be left hanging. At the same time, I wouldn’t have Gaiman change it—I hate when an author is too blatant with their themes or condescends to their audience, but I can’t help but feel there’s a happy medium here that has been missed.

It’s why I think it’s pretentious: it’s written for those in the know. If you’re not cool enough to have an inkling about other religions, you’re going to miss out on all the awesome hanging in front of your face because you’re not cool enough to get it.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Do I think people will enjoy it universally? Well, I think I’ve already answered that.

Will I read more Gaiman? For sure. Suggestion time: where do you think I should start?

Environmentally speaking...

Remember the 80s? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Okay, I'll take the communal hit for the team here and say I remember the 80s.

In the 80s—or perhaps just in our household, as it occurs to me that my mother was a bit of an environmentalist freak—there was a lot of hubbub going on relating to renewable, reusable, recyclable resources, and the buzz words environmentally friendly.

Yes, that plus the eye-searingly-bright fluorescent colours, country hair bands, cassette tapes, dusty rose decor, My Little Pony (the original), scrunchie hair ties, and nasty jorts and you now have my childhood, erm, the 80s.

Mom spearheaded the Green Team at her school (she was a teacher), and let's put it simply and say she didn't leave work at work... even when it came to the extra curriculars.

Anyhow.

It's a mentality that was bred into me and I can't avoid. It would seem (to me, at least) that in the post-environmental-tipping-point* society, people have given up trying to be more environmentally economical. I used to shudder at single use items being hailed in commercials. It'd be a lie if I said cutting the stress of sitting through commercials for throwaway items wasn't a factor in cancelling our cable.

We don't buy paper towels here. Or Lysol wipes. Or any other sort of sanitary-insta-use-and-toss-'em items. We use rags. Lots of 'em.

We also don't buy napkins. We, I (because let's face it, Mr Lannis isn't prowling Dollarama) use white facecloths. When they get irreversibly dirty (read: the bleach and borax do shit-all to reclaim them from The Nasty) they join the rag bag.

I can't handle purchasing napkins to toss—even those sourced from recycled paper, and even though with the green bin composting/waste diversion program in our county it means these crumpled paper bits never meet a landfill.

We've acquired extra napkins from fast food joints here and there—they're usually kept in glove boxes in our vehicles for emergency use. So yes, they are around. But our little stock is rarely depleted or requires replenishing.

The balance of the last package of napkins we bought for camping two years ago are still in the cupboard. And napkins can go in the green bin, so it's not the landfill I'm protecting but the resources required to make those napkins.

I wash cloth. We reuse cloth. It's what we do.

And the argument that I am wasting resources to wash these bad boys doesn't hold with me. Regardless of whether we have two cloths or twenty in the load of whites, I'd still be washing a load of whites on hot with my front loading energy efficient dryer. And twenty cloths barely have an impact on the size of the load—these guys just don't take up any room... uh, unless you're talking about the laundry line (they have been known to stretch a good half of one of our triple-lines... so about 15 feet of line, heh).

I even have designated cloths for removing nail polish, which get more colourful with each use (heh), and once laundered returns to the cupboard with the nail polish. Bonus: the nap of the cloth is a great texture to help scrub off old polish.

Anyhow. Lack-of-napkins. It's a quirk, I can't help it.

So. Any non-environmentally sound practices kicking around lately that put a bug in your bonnet? Or is it just me?



* If you believe in that mythical beast. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I am saying that some people use any convenient excuse to keep from being accountable. Meh.

Rainy Day Cookies

[Note: This post what originally published on The Mrs on November 19, 2011. Yes, we still eat these cookies. Pro Tip: if you freeze them, they last longer, because kids have difficulty opening the heavy freezer drawer...]

Some days it pays to look at the world through your kids’ eyes.

This particular, craptacular day, I picked up my kids from school. It was dreary and cold, and as soon as the bell rang, the skies opened up and rained all over us in that way that sinks into your core, cold settling in your spine.

Ugh.

Once we were home, the boys raided the cookie jar (with permission). It was empty.

This is where I was surprised by my almost-six-year old, when he said confidently, “That’s okay. Can you bake us some, please, Mom?”

Pardon, cowboy?

Bake them?

This is not to say that I am not a baker. I bake. Not too often, but me in my apron is not an unknown sight to my children.

What I realized, at this moment, was that my kids considered me to be the kind of mom who was perfectly capable of producing cookies on demand to brighten a rainy day.

Wow.

What I realized, immediately thereafter, was that barring having the proper ingredients on hand, there was no reason why I couldn’t produce the requested cookies.

I dug through the pantry. Lo and behold, I had the needed items. Only enough shortening to do a half batch, but that would certainly satisfy my rugrats.

Not long after, I had this —

 
In part because of this —

Pay no attention to what’s behind that bag of chocolate bigger than my child’s head. It might be an antique radio. It might have a tape deck. Maybe. Maybe dual tape decks, because we’re just that cool and up-to-date on techno-gear! You’re jealous, I can tell. And not just of the giant bag of chocolate chips, I know. (Wink.)

Anyhow. Also to blame for those cookies is this, the holy grail of cookbooks —

And more specifically, this recipe for chocolate chip cookies. (To which we’ve deleted chopped nuts and added raisins and dried cranberries — yum!)

2/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla (I always add a touch more)
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (at least — but it’s your boat you’re floating!)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Heat oven to 375F. Mix thoroughly shortening, butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla (this cookbook apparently doesn’t believe in the Oxford Comma. We NEED the Oxford Comma. Hmff. Hereby abandoning “official” write up out of disgust.).

Toss in other ingredients and mix until your arm’s sore. Or it’s a sticky cookie-dough mess. Your call.

Use a teaspoon to dish cookie-sized lumps onto your ungreased baking sheet. Sometimes I line mine with parchment paper, which, despite Mr Lannis’ insistence, will not spontaneously ignite into flame in the oven unless it touches the element. Trust. (I’ve had plenty of parchment paper in the oven and nothing’s ever happened, except for that one time, hence I know about the element...)

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are light brown. They need a few seconds to set before you move them, and they taste much better when cooled — that’s not just burnt mouth talking.

According to the book, this recipe makes about seven dozen cookies, but apparently a hell of a lot fewer than that if you like big cookies or are prone to eating raw cookie dough. (Just assuming, here.)

Quick to make, quick to bake, and quick to eat, too, unless they’re also magical vanishing cookies...

Hm. Maybe it’ll rain today, too.