"Many things prove to me that the gods take part in the affairs of man." - Herodotus



In Gaiman’s story, the converse is equally true: the very existence of the gods depends on the affairs of mankind, specifically, that people believe in them. Like mortals, they need to be loved.



Gods from cultures around the world travelled to the US in the minds of immigrants. The indigenous people already had their own gods, and now (2001) there are new gods as well: internet, capitalism, media etc. In a mater

" - HerodotusIn Gaiman’s story, the converse is equally true: the very existence of the gods depends on the affairs of mankind, specifically, that people believe in them. Like mortals, they need to be loved.Gods from cultures around the world travelled to the US in the minds of immigrants. The indigenous people already had their own gods, and now (2001) there are new gods as well: internet, capitalism, media etc. In a material, synaptic, digital world, the immaterial, synoptic, analog beings struggle to survive.This fantastic concept is wrapped up in a disorienting road trip through the wonders of small town USA. Shadow, a young man recently released from prison, is taken on as driver and assistant for the mysterious Wednesday. They go to places on the cusp of the corporeal world, where they meet strange characters with stranger histories, as a growing sense of something ominous looms. Towards the end, there’s a series of forked paths, difficult choices: “Hard truths” or “fine lies”? Be wise, whole, or dead?It blurs dreams and reality; gods and mortals; the living, the dead, and the inbetween. The main narrative is interspersed with chapters about historical settlers and the gods they brought. The second half is infused with ideas about identity, faith, mortality, and reality. But overall, I was slightly disappointed – though 3* isn’t bad.Gaiman is a Brit who has lived in the US for many years. Britain is often portrayed as a nation of eccentrics, and Gaiman is drawn to the eccentricities of his new homeland. In an interview at the back, he says the chief difference between England and the US is that “England has history and America has geography”, but his story credits the US with both.He fondly caricatures the bizarre and often anticlimactic roadside attractions, built at mystical sites where previous civilisations would have built stone circles or temples, and he paints the idyllic town of Lakeside with hues of Stepford and Twin Peaks. He points out that the signs for small towns always state the population and usually have an obscure claim to fame, often sport-related, such as the town’s Under 14s team was the third runner-up in the interstate Hundred-Yard Sprint.A couple of weeks after reading this, we did an eclipse road trip in the US (which I blogged, with photos, in a GR review HERE ). I looked out for strange signs: the printed (the smallest population I’ve seen previously is 79), the primordial, supernatural kind - and roadside attractions. On the crest of a hill in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, you can spot Stonehenge. It's a supposedly full-scale model (it's between half and 2/3), built as a memorial to US troops who died in WW1. The idea came from a man who visited the original at a time when it was thought to have been used for pagan human sacrifice. WW1 was a different, more worthy, type of human sacrifice.” - HerodotusBut as Shadow points out, that doesn't mean the dead are happy, but rather, that “you can’t judge the shape of someone’s life until it’s over and done”.Gods abound, from a variety of times and places, including Norse, Ancient Egyptian, Hindu, central African, Asian, Irish, and central European. But the monotheistic God of the Abrahamic traditions does not feature. Not directly. There are strong parallels with the New Testament, though.And the goddess, Easter, has a central role.This idea of the living not being fully alive is also a recurring theme, but in a very different, non-spiritual sense, in, which I recently reviewed HERE ”- which, of course, arevery alike when you really look.Like most writers of fantasy, Gaiman venerates the power of stories: ancient myths, but also the quotidian lives of ordinary folk. That’s the driving force here, and the life force for the gods. I guess it’s also the driving force of my reading, reviewing, and inner life.It’s also why people respond to the recent tragic story of an individual like Charlie Gard , while ignoring larger scale tragedies, even if the latter are more solvable than the former. It’s not mere hypocrisy, but a specific sort of compassion fatigue, as Brian Resnick explains HERE . Anecdote isn’t evidence, but it is a powerful force.But mostly, we prefer to protect ourselves from true but tragic stories. Gaiman claims Donne was wrong: weislands, and therefore “we are insulated... from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories”. Thus “we build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit... This is how we walk and talk and function... immune to others' pain and loss.”Perhaps this passage subconsciously prompted me to read Steinbeck’s(which I reviewed HERE ) immediately after this, though I only noticed the connection when writing this review - days after writing up The Pearl.Personally, I think Donne and Gaiman both have pearls of truth: we are islands, but we have bridges and rescue boats at our disposal.* “To be a god... means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something that lives forever in people's minds... You barely have your own identity any more. Instead, you're a thousand aspects of what people need you to be... Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable.”* “His smiles were strange things… They contained no shred of humor, no happiness, no mirth… Like he had learned to smile from a manual.”* “Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.”* “Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine.”* “The moonlight drained colors into ghosts of themselves.”* “Eyes, the dangerous blue of a sky when a storm is coming.”* “American history… is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for the children, or the easily bored… The American colonies were was much a dumping ground as an escape.”* “Like banana peel, only with bad taste and irony thrown in.” (A condom on the sidewalk.)* “It’s easier to kill people when you’re dead yourself… You're Not prejudiced any more.”* “Ice sheathed the winter-black bushes and trees as if they’d been insulated, made into dreams.”* “It smelled of people who had gone away to live other lives, and of all they had eaten and dreamed.”* “His anger seemed to have dissipated, or perhaps to have been invested for the future.”* “There were stars overhead hanging like frozen spears of light, stabbing the night sky.”* “Kansas was the cheerless gray of lonesome clouds, empty windows, and lost hearts.”* “People gamble to lose money. It’s a sacrifice of sorts.” Coin tricks rely on cupidity and greed, thus, it’s harder to scam an honest man.* “Since her death, Laura had not thought in metaphors; things were or they were not.”* “All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers you can never unlearn them.”* “No longer scared of what tomorrow might bring because yesterday had brought it.”* “Not only are there no happy endings… There aren’t even any endings.”This was my first encounter with a proper Gaiman novel. I loved his collaboration with Terry Pratchett,(which I reviewed HERE ), and his children’s novella,(which I reviewed HERE ). In comparison, I felt this was lacking:* It was too long before anything obviously significant happens, or there are meaty ideas. The first half was both vague and detailed, thus confusing. But after that, as the strands came together, I started to appreciate it more. It needed to be shorter and taughter, imo.* Misdirection, especially coin tricks, is an entertaining constant. I thought following the coins would be key. They mattered, but the plot is disappointingly straightforward. There’s a huge cast, but few big surprises.* A detailed confession being accidentally overheard near the end is an easy cliché.* It's like Good Omens without the jokes.* The whole premise is that the gods will perish unless people believe in them, but:** If the gods travelled to the US, presumably versions stayed behind, so why is their survival in the US so crucial?** Towards the end, there is a neat exception: “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t believe in us… We believed in you.”With hindsight (and discussion in comments on other people's reviews), I realise I probably didn't pay enough attention to some of the historical chapters of people and gods coming to America, in part because I was frustrated with the vagueness of the first half. It's slightly like Atwood's(which I reviewed HERE ): with that, I was too focused on the main narrative, so didn't give quite enough attention and admiration to the fictional story within the overall fiction.