When I first read the thread title I assumed you were singing the praises of the book rhetorically. Now I see otherwise. I tried to listen to it on tape (generally not a good idea) and couldn’t believe how little had happened at just under the halfway point. I gave up on it. I’ve been through periods of finishing books “just because” and have found that rarely have I changed my opinion of a book after the halfway point and if I have it’s probably because cognitive dissonance required that I justify the wasted time.
Wow, this OP is really deja vu… different Gainmen book, though http://www.livejournal.com/community/50bookchallenge/269527.html
I read it without ever having heard of the book or the author. I absolutely love it and have re-read it a number of times. The only bits which dragged for me (upon rereading) were Mr Ibis’s little histories.
I suggest that you finish it simply because you’ve got so far through and it would be a shame to stop now. However, if you’re not loving it already then you’re probably not going to be moved to love it before the end.
Incidentally, after reading AG i decided to read Heroditus’ Histories that Shadow mentions, and that’s a pretty cool book as well.
I loved American Gods as well, and thought it was the best prose novel (not counting graphic novels) Gaiman had written until Coraline.
The thing of Gaiman, for me, is that he’s a great writer with amazing ideas and some really good tricks, but he’s still developing his skills as a novelist. It’s pretty clear that Good Omens was more Pratchett than Gaiman, Neverwhere worked better as a BBC miniseries than it did as a novel, and Stardust worked far better as a graphic novel than a prose novel. American Gods felt like the first book where he really came into his own. I read it before I read any of the hype, and I really enjoyed it a great deal.
Then Coraline came along and blew that right out of the water. That’s Gaiman’s best novel-length prose work to date, I’d say.
For me, Neil Gaiman is like boiled sweets; a little is good, too much cloys and either way there isn’t a huge amount of substance to it.
I loved the Sandman Series (and if lovin’ the Sandman Series is wrong…") but can’t recommend AMERICAN GODS. I thought it had a great premise but totally wasted it. Also, it never answered the questions “What happened to Zeus, Apollo, and the rest of the Greek pantheon?” and the obvious, “So where are Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc.?”.
The revelation of the secret behind the perfect town was good (I don’t think that warrants a spoiler since anytime there’s a perfect town in a gothic book you know there’s a secret) and there were some moments here and there throughout, but overall I’d give it a C-, if only because Gaiman’s had too many A+ moments to be coasting at his age.
A. I disagree about Neverwhere. Tis my favorite Gaiman novel. And in the miniseries, Richard is a Paul McCartney clone, the Marquis has this bizarre, mulletty haircut, and the Beast is a freakin’ COW. Also, I think the novel had much more detail and atmosphere of London Below.
B. Was Stardust ever a full-blown graphic novel? I have the illustrated version, which has many pictures, but it’s still definitely in novel form.
Obligatory Classics plug: Herodotus’ History is a great work that everyone should read. (Even more fun in the original Ionic Greek!)
Ah, how mistaken. There is more substance to most of Gaiman’s work than exists in 99% of other authors’ most intense dreams. He believes in archetypes, which ought to tell you that he’s plugged into the most basic and meaningful common traits of the human psyche.
See, that’s more or less my point. His use of archetypes: you can talk about meaningful and interesting it is, or you can just see it (as I do) as rather shallow, broad brushstroke characterisation.
Take Neverwhere. What does Hunter really do besides hunt and say curt, menacing things? Door, the Marquis, all the other characters; they’ve all got some shtick or quirk but none of them move outside that area of characterisation. Even Richard, who supposedly goes through life-changing experiences, is basically a cypher being pushed from point A to point B.
Personally, I also find Neil Gaiman’s style somewhat grating on my nerves. It has this nudge-nudge-wink-wink quality to it that I find just irritating.
Even the Sandman, which I admit deserves some of its hype, isn’t up there with From Hell, in my opinion. I think, because its tone meanders between rather arch playfulness and sudden, sometimes heavyhanded darkness, people assume it’s somehow profound. Also, honestly it’s not as creative as all that. How many times is the ‘apparantly innocuous lovable small girl is actually sinister/powerful!’ motif used? Consider the chaos-being in Seasons of Mist, the Cuckoo in A Game of You and let’s not forget Delirium.
You could say that this sort of thing is all this subtle theme that Gaiman brings in, about the destruction of the innocence of childhood and yadda yadda. Or you could say he hit upon a shock device and unconsciously reused it several times.
Now I’m criticising Neil Gaiman much more harshly than I would if he were just another author. But he’s Gaiman, he wins truckloads of awards, he has thousands of worshipful fans and (from the general impression I pick up in interviews) he’s pretty damn impressed with himself as well. And that annoys me, because personally I see him as basically a middling good author who’s simply pulled off a massive literary con-job.
No accounting for taste I guess…I liked American Gods very much, but I don’t care that much for other Gaiman I have read.
I’m enjoying it, but it’s very predictable, so far.
I’ve already figured out that the missing kids are being sacrificed with the clunker cars that they sink in the pond, and that’s why the town is so happy. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to find out, I put it together as soon as they mentioned the yearly ritual