Neil Gaiman is evil
Nov. 7th, 2006 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akashiverAnd you heard it in this review first:
"This is the worst, most depressing piece of fiction I have ever read. There is no real protoganist and not one singular character worthy of admiration--and after a while, their actions just become inexplicable. The author's soul must truly be an ugly one to have devoted so much time and energy to using his mind to generate so many casual acts of evil throughout the book. It starts out promising but by the time you get to about halfway through the book or so you get a nagging sense that your very own soul might be sucked out of you and permanently stolen by the heart of Neil Gaiman's darkness or one of his minions. Additionally, the characters' motivations change like the shifting sands, nothing they do makes any real sense except some inexplicable movement towards doing greater and more evil en masse like some sort of coagulating bacteria or disease. What is so creepy about this book is the casualness of it all. Unlike some of Stephen King's work (ie: The Stand), there is absolutely no redeeming thread here--no rallying or marshalling the troops to combat the emerging evil. It's evil in evil vs. evil surrounded by evil. All I can say is that this book is ugly, ugly, ugly. At least writers like Joyce Carol Oats and Joseph Conrad's intentions when writing about such things is to effectively demonstrate the ill effects of such darkness, but to make heroes of characters one should avoid is unconscionable. The choices the supposed protoganist makes make no sense--and you do root for him in the very beginning but you find he is just like one of them after all. I suspended my doubt and disbelief as long as I could but finally became so incensed by the audacity of both the literary critics and the author to pass this off as excellence, I literally stopped mid-sentence and chose to never read this author's work again. It's a shame too because he has allied himself in other incarnations with a truly gifted artist, Dave McKean, who maybe hasn't completely gone over to the dark side like Neil has. His association with Dave McKean is the only reason I even opened-up the book--and maybe a little because the title intrigued me. But it's unfortunate that the industry rewards "clever" works such as Mr. Gaiman's with undue praise. I've never so strongly disliked a book. Have you ever found yourself getting angry because you felt robbed or duped by a book? Well, don't believe the hype, this is the one to throw in the trash or disintegrate with X-men eyeball laserbeams before all your humanity is sucked out of you.
But really, how do you feel?
All of which is to say that I taught the first part of American Gods to my students today, which means we had a lot of conversations about the notorious Ch 1 sex scene.
"This is the worst, most depressing piece of fiction I have ever read. There is no real protoganist and not one singular character worthy of admiration--and after a while, their actions just become inexplicable. The author's soul must truly be an ugly one to have devoted so much time and energy to using his mind to generate so many casual acts of evil throughout the book. It starts out promising but by the time you get to about halfway through the book or so you get a nagging sense that your very own soul might be sucked out of you and permanently stolen by the heart of Neil Gaiman's darkness or one of his minions. Additionally, the characters' motivations change like the shifting sands, nothing they do makes any real sense except some inexplicable movement towards doing greater and more evil en masse like some sort of coagulating bacteria or disease. What is so creepy about this book is the casualness of it all. Unlike some of Stephen King's work (ie: The Stand), there is absolutely no redeeming thread here--no rallying or marshalling the troops to combat the emerging evil. It's evil in evil vs. evil surrounded by evil. All I can say is that this book is ugly, ugly, ugly. At least writers like Joyce Carol Oats and Joseph Conrad's intentions when writing about such things is to effectively demonstrate the ill effects of such darkness, but to make heroes of characters one should avoid is unconscionable. The choices the supposed protoganist makes make no sense--and you do root for him in the very beginning but you find he is just like one of them after all. I suspended my doubt and disbelief as long as I could but finally became so incensed by the audacity of both the literary critics and the author to pass this off as excellence, I literally stopped mid-sentence and chose to never read this author's work again. It's a shame too because he has allied himself in other incarnations with a truly gifted artist, Dave McKean, who maybe hasn't completely gone over to the dark side like Neil has. His association with Dave McKean is the only reason I even opened-up the book--and maybe a little because the title intrigued me. But it's unfortunate that the industry rewards "clever" works such as Mr. Gaiman's with undue praise. I've never so strongly disliked a book. Have you ever found yourself getting angry because you felt robbed or duped by a book? Well, don't believe the hype, this is the one to throw in the trash or disintegrate with X-men eyeball laserbeams before all your humanity is sucked out of you.
But really, how do you feel?
All of which is to say that I taught the first part of American Gods to my students today, which means we had a lot of conversations about the notorious Ch 1 sex scene.
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Date: 2006-11-07 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 09:59 pm (UTC)Ah well. We can't all be sane.
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Date: 2006-11-07 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 12:17 am (UTC)He spelled Joyce Carol Oates wrong.
Bastard.
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Date: 2006-11-08 01:35 am (UTC)good thing he's never seen the sandman spinoff 'lucifer' (or presumably any sandman at all).
favorite part of american gods was the 'i believe' speech from the native american girl. it really kinda sums up americans... (this guy included, i think).
"``Who did kill those men?'' she asked.
``You wouldn't believe me if I told you.''
``I would.'' She sounded angry now. He wondered if bringing the wine to the dinner had been a wise idea. Life was certainly not a cabernet right now.
``It's not easy to believe.''
``I,'' she told him, ``can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.''
``Really?''
``I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen--I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative..."
http://rna.berkeley.edu/~drsteve/believe.html
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Date: 2006-11-08 04:43 am (UTC)Annie: What do you believe in then?
Crash: Well, I believe in the soul. The cock. The pussy. The small of a woman's back. The hanging curveball. High fiber. Good scotch. That the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a Constitution Amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve. And I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days...Goodnight. [He exits]
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Date: 2006-11-08 02:23 pm (UTC)Now THAT's religion. ;)