Resumo de American Gods

Neil Gaiman's best-selling American Gods is a dark fantasy novel about a man known only as Shadow. Shadow is an ex-inmate, released a few days early to attend the funeral of his wife. As Shadow travels home, the airplane is rocked by a tremendous storm -- and his seatmate, an overlarge, one-eyed fellow who introduced himself as Wednesday, tells him that a further storm is coming.

Sweeping as it does over questions of a metaphysical nature, journeying across North America, this novel has a remarkably broad scope. The plot twists and turns with incredible frequency; Shadow -- remarkably consistent and honourable -- tries to keep up, but most of the time, he doesn't understand why anything is happening. To be honest, he is a simple fellow; his goal was originally to get out of prison, go home to his wife, and spend the rest of his life staying out of trouble. Between the death of his wife and the arrival of Wednesday, his plan is completely destroyed; instead, he finds revelation, suffering, and wisdom-- all for a price, of course.

This book is, as the title indicates, about Gods -- and they play a large role in the story; America, great importer of people, Gaiman argues, must have a surplus of gods. People come to America, bringing the gods they worship with them -- and two generations later, it's rare indeed for their descendants to believe in the gods of their grandparents. Since gods are immortal -- not dying unless they are killed -- they hang around, deprived of worship, belief, prayer... all those things which gods require.

In Gaiman's novel, we get glimpses of every pantheon that has been truly followed, we get interesting philosophies on worship, and we also see his version of a conflict that many of us have sensed -- the battle between old traditions and newer beliefs. The 'storm' which Wednesday mentions is the storm of battle, the battle between the Old Gods and newer ones (like Media and The Technical Kid, amongst others). The point, when you get right down to it, is belief or faith -- for some reason, traditions tend not to last well in North America. Gaiman claims the land itself is bad for gods, and perhaps it is -- at least, all the scruffy god-forms he assembles in his novel show the signs of wear and disbelief -- and yet, it seems completely logical.

There are some things about the book which will doubtless disturb people -- Gaiman does not flinch from many scenes which are not ordinary fantasy fare -- but the story is well-worth it, if you can get beyond distaste or disgust. It is an amazingly well-written tale, full of rich imagery and powerful beyond anticipation. This is a story which repays the time invested sevenfold.

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