I read it twice "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman . remember that as I enter in reading, two thoughts were strengthened in my mind, linked to a the first sentence of the second rotating around a sobering finding .
The phrase, which is accorded to different events in the book, remembering the well-known as "all the gods were immortal."
Reflection was to think that if it is true that "history always repeats itself" is even more true that the divine world invented by man is always the same story, no matter the form, or the names of divine creatures: the source is unique, and it is always the same gear, to move the figures on stage, and actors are always the same.
"American Gods" is a novel whose plot is a weaving of stories and lives: human lives and divine, with those of the latter are often poorer than those of the most desperate among humans.
The first figure in which the reader encounters is Shadow, the protagonist, who will be the leitmotiv of quest'intricata history, met when they crossed the threshold of the prison to freedom, having served three years imprisonment for robbery. In the human happiness for the release is poisoned by the simultaneous news of the death of his beloved wife, a person occupying his thoughts, and filled his life. In the state of apathy
painful when Shadow falls, the encounter with the cantankerous, domineering and enigmatic Mr Wednesday be experienced former convict with ill-concealed impatience. Attitude that also characterize the next covenant with him, the discovery of human identity and the subsequent meetings. Everything is welcomed by Shadow with a fatality that has the taste of non-life.
The mysterious man is actually Odin, the Universal Father, Monocle, Grimnir, Gondlir, the Norse god known by a multitude of names. The ancient God decided to join others around her ancient gods, to wage a final and decisive war to new gods that walked the earth, worshiped by men with sacrifices and offerings: the god of Technology, the god of Highways, Television, Media, Information, CIA, FBI, Search Engine ... To move
Odin should contact their war, and persuaded to adhere to his cause the ancient gods, unruly, self-centered, individualistic and quirky, who live on Earth, confused men, they forget and then declining, bypassed and replaced in the imagination human from the new idols of the modern era.
Shadow and Wednesday will embark on a long journey through the roads of America, touching places and revealing the soul, a journey that echoes the magic of ' on the road with the sad desperation of the run of an old sense of a vivid time, to feel alive again, or try to be, at least once.
Gaiman is a writer, attentive to words, the hidden meaning in them, and the magic contained in this book is to discover completely involved in reading, what is hidden in shadow, the Thin Man, and Wednesday, Odin, the god ... but every reader will find out for themselves.
The magic of "American Gods" is also its being a story interwoven with so many single, unique stories, we will then follow with curiosity, including a chapter to another, the short stories that tell how to Gods Europeans, Africans, Asians have landed in America in tow, in the hearts and minds, of the conquerors, travelers, migrants, slaves and deported, and of how they also were soon forgotten and replaced with other idols. You'll find the same curiosity and then with the difficult survival of these ancient gods and the way they try to echo the ancient worship and sacrifice of life. We will encounter Chernobog in Anansi, in Easter, in Bilquis in Anubis, in Osiris, Horus in, in Thothy, Kali and many more and other fantastic creatures and legendary.
"American Gods" was preceded by the novels "Nessundove" and "Stardust", many stories and especially comic opera "Sandman" and it can be said that the novel presented here has the characteristics creation of a Mature, in which the narrative ability, the gift of storytelling, binds perfectly to the visionary imagination and language powerfully expressive of the cartoonist. In addition, the writer fills his writings with quotations and references that is a pleasure to discover!
Neil Gaiman in "American Gods" was able to weave together multiple stories, in addition to having the ability to direct the reader to three of them, playing with the reader's attention like a magician with his audience, distracting or captured, while maintaining high curiosity, then to fit it all perfectly ... without revealing all the secrets, without answering all the questions.
Characters are the other strong point of this novel, in which the gods compete with men in the ability to capture the interest and sympathies of the reader. You could say that it is a book in which all characters are significant players, although for understandable reasons, Shadow and Wednesday are distinguished in the crowd: and the Thin Man is the character that ultimately raises more questions.
"American Gods" is a novel addition to pleasantly entertain the reader's mind on the story told, calls for reflection. Back then the words written at the beginning of this "review". Meet, albeit fictional, some of the time and considered immortal beloved and see which have fallen into oblivion or contempt proceedings, which relegates them to fun primitive folklore, can only reinforce a certain view of "temporary, mild, moody" divine sense of general and therefore also the current one.
reading "American Gods" raises another obvious realization: the cannibal character, fagocitatorio, of religions, as a "belief" is often the result of evolution or transformation, often by a real theft of " think "before.
Finally, faced with the endless variety of gods who accompanied the old man, from ancient times until today, it is difficult not to regard the divine as a purely human creation, not a God the creator of man but the man of the Creator in His image and likeness, is constantly in ages. Take a more divine light and fatalistic, and it is not surprising that Gaiman is English.
This novel gives birth and may fuel interesting discussions, from which the voice, presence and influence of the writer is clearly absent, because the story is told the source of Mental fun that the reader will experience in solitude, in a pleasant story well told.
"The best way to describe a story is told. It 'clear? This describes, to themselves or the world, he says. Telling is a compensatory measure, a dream. The more detailed the map, the more it looks like the area. The map becomes the territory as accurately as possible, so perfectly detailed and fully redundant.
The story is that the map is the territory.
must not forget that. "
From the notebook of Mr. Ibis
[American Gods, p. 483.]
Neil Gaiman (2003), American Gods
(translation by Katia Bagnoli)
Piccola Biblioteca Oscar Mondadori, ISBN 88
-04-52083-3
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