After Two Years...

Give or take, I finally finished American Gods.

Still like Anansi Boys better - still not sold on AG.

I get what Gaiman was going for - I really do. And I admire the book for that reason. It's like when you eat somethingin a fancy restaurant and you APPRECIATE the craft, but you don't like the taste. Or when you see a play and you understand what went into it, but don't viscerally enjoy it.

Leaving the discussion of Art Appreciation aside, my first thought was that this would be a good "nursing book" to read. That is, the long hours spent trying to get Megan to sleep plus the Kindle App on the phone - that combination would be perfect for getting my teeth into AG.

Um, not a good idea. Emotionally fragile, moderately traumatized, completely exhausted and afraid are not good things to be when tackling a book like this. At least for me. So, I did the wise thing and set it aside.

Picked it up again a few months ago - January maybe? And have been reading it off and on, finally got to the point where finishing it became a matter of sheer bloodymindedness. I think... I think that one of my main objections to the book, to the themes (as I look across the classroom at the bookshelves laden with books on Classical Mythology, historiography, and history) was a sense of "yeah, I study this stuff, and?"

Much like Shadow navigating that 'tweener world of America - I mean, he's our Everyman, right? We have this splotchy knowledge of Things That Went Before of gods and demons etc that were worshipped by our ancestors. Heroditus? Really? And what's it all for here? As our knowledge gets more splotchy and faded, do we lose a sense of who we were and are? I mean, obviously that's one of the themes, I think. And ok, fine... I get it. But there's a but here. A big one, and I think I'm getting my frustration with the dying and the relative irrelevancy of my profession mixed up in all of this.

Which is another blog post. One that I'm not liable to make on the grounds that it will get WAY too ranty.

Things I did like were Shadow's longer view at the end - who Odin is and is not. I like the duality of that and I think Gaiman hit the nail on the head really well there. Could've done with a lot more of that, but then, I went into this trip knowing more than Shadow did. Also enjoyed the pettyness off the gods (pettiness?) So very, very in keeping with those traditions where gods are projections of oruselves and our foibles. Would've liked to see more development of that, too, I think.

Now, shall I do what I ought to do and find something good for my Latin IV class to work on? Or read that pile of scholarly articles on Christian Feminism and Mariological study that I dug out today in my quest for something good for my IV class to work on.

Decent problem to have, innit?