I finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman last Saturday, actually, because once I got within a hundred or a hundred twenty pages of the end, I had to finish. First, I have a review, with minimal spoilers; then I have some further discussion, because I think several of my friends have read the book. Warning: comments may include spoilers.
Dear Neil Gaiman:
You know that big break-up I had with you over Beowulf? Yeah, the movie really stank. But all is forgiven, honey! You just write more books like this, and we'll forget that little film ever existed, okay?
Love,
Ælf
I do recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it. It's fantasy rather than SF; I think I can safely say there's no science in here whatsoever. But I love it. It's my favorite book this year--and it has stiff competition! It's a typical Neil Gaiman sort of beginning. We meet our protagonist, Fat Charlie Nancy, who is living an ordinary life with an ordinary job and perhaps a better than ordinary fiancée. If we've read any Gaiman before, we know that my "And then it all went horribly wrong" icon would suit, but of course Fat Charlie doesn't know that. He doesn't even realize at which moment he has passed through the looking glass: no red or blue pills for our hero here.
I love the characters. I love the settings; Florida seems very real (although I did have to ask my husband, "They still give paper toll road tickets on the Turnpike?" He says yes). The less familiar places, however, seem equally real, or perhaps surreal, because it's Florida at its more surreal.
Another aspect that RaceFail made me note particularly: Neil Gaiman is a white author writing mostly black or mixed-race characters. He doesn't call attention to it. Indeed, I hope it's not a spoiler to say that I realized after a little bit that the default skin color is black: he doesn't generally note when people are black, but he does note some characters' color when they're white, which makes absolute sense for the main characters. I should note that in thinking about white privilege, I am white and privileged, so I don't have a whole lot of authority on the issue of cultural appropriation. I think Gaiman handles the issue with fair sensitivity. He's clearly incorporating his own experience living in London and in Florida, and probably at least visiting the Caribbean, but he's not afraid to do research and get into issues and people and places surely well outside his experience. It's the balance of research and creativity, sympathy for his characters without making a huge production of White Man Writing Non-White Characters!, that strikes me as what we ought to be aiming for, when we write outside our own experience (as most of us do, and indeed we ought to do). I could tell he'd done research, but I never felt bludgeoned with it. He used it to create a believable world, or worlds, or intersection of worlds.
I found the characters compelling. From the first few pages, with Fat Charlie's fear of and constant suffering of humiliation, I totally felt for Fat Charlie. I found that my sympathies expanded to characters I never expected, however--including one or two I'd really disliked. Not everyone is a good guy, by any means! The dialogue is wonderful.
The book is also full of lines that I had to read out loud to Brilliant Husband, though he'd finished it not long before I began reading it. When I was done, he said, "You see how good I was not to read anything revealing out to you!" He was good. He was very, very good.
Neil Gaiman has Douglas Adams's sense of the absurd with, if I may say so, more depth behind it. (Maybe if Adams had lived longer....) The novel keeps a light tone most of the time, but it deals with some big themes. I don't want to give them away, however, because it was a delight to find them emerging. By the end, they're fairly explicit, but not at the start.
I love this book. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
SPOILER SPACE
YOU KNOW NOT TO READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED, RIGHT?
SPOILER SPACE
This book really spoke to me. I've been saying how I mostly avoid darkfic, and I don't like character death, and I don't even like porn. That's not a judgment on those who read and write such things, and I want to say that upfront, in case what follows doesn't come out right.
One of the things I love about Anansi Boys is the idea that the stories we tell and hear not only come out of who we are but affect who we are. The point becomes quite explicit by the end, as I mentioned above. This story is a happy story, where the good people get what they deserve, even if they suffer along the way, and the bad people also get what they deserve. Maeve didn't deserve to die, but she gets to be with her beloved Morris again. Spider didn't deserve all the suffering he got, but he survives it. More than that, Spider, who never even wanted to be a good person before, comes to desire to be good, and learn to care about others and put others ahead of himself. Best of all, Charlie comes into his own, becoming a whole person--and a very gifted and loving person.
I feel like this book validated my own desires in reading and writing. I know people suffer, and I know they die. Sometimes I'm even willing to read about that. I don't want to be immersed in those kinds of stories, however, because I fear they will affect who I am. That may not be true for everyone: Stephen King writes stories about terrible people and things who inflict terrible and often undeserved suffering. I understand he's truly a lovely person. But I internalize too much; I can't read too much death and destruction, because it makes me feel too bad, and I fear it may ultimately change me. (Okay, I can't explain my aversion to reading graphic sex, but I don't think I need to. That's just not what I want. Out on the Internet, I feel like a freak! Of course, this gives me some sympathy for those who enjoy porn and are made to feel like freaks on and especially off the Internet.)
So I prefer to read and write about atonement, and learning to become a better person, and pulling good out of bad situations and experiences. I think even my darkest fic has those elements, and those are the ones I mostly want to read. Others can read and write about bad things that aren't resolved without being harmed; they may even find catharsis. I wish them luck. That's not me. I think I'll keep following my desires in reading and writing.
Right now, I desire to read more Gaiman! But I have a few other things I want to read, too....
Dear Neil Gaiman:
You know that big break-up I had with you over Beowulf? Yeah, the movie really stank. But all is forgiven, honey! You just write more books like this, and we'll forget that little film ever existed, okay?
Love,
Ælf
I do recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it. It's fantasy rather than SF; I think I can safely say there's no science in here whatsoever. But I love it. It's my favorite book this year--and it has stiff competition! It's a typical Neil Gaiman sort of beginning. We meet our protagonist, Fat Charlie Nancy, who is living an ordinary life with an ordinary job and perhaps a better than ordinary fiancée. If we've read any Gaiman before, we know that my "And then it all went horribly wrong" icon would suit, but of course Fat Charlie doesn't know that. He doesn't even realize at which moment he has passed through the looking glass: no red or blue pills for our hero here.
I love the characters. I love the settings; Florida seems very real (although I did have to ask my husband, "They still give paper toll road tickets on the Turnpike?" He says yes). The less familiar places, however, seem equally real, or perhaps surreal, because it's Florida at its more surreal.
Another aspect that RaceFail made me note particularly: Neil Gaiman is a white author writing mostly black or mixed-race characters. He doesn't call attention to it. Indeed, I hope it's not a spoiler to say that I realized after a little bit that the default skin color is black: he doesn't generally note when people are black, but he does note some characters' color when they're white, which makes absolute sense for the main characters. I should note that in thinking about white privilege, I am white and privileged, so I don't have a whole lot of authority on the issue of cultural appropriation. I think Gaiman handles the issue with fair sensitivity. He's clearly incorporating his own experience living in London and in Florida, and probably at least visiting the Caribbean, but he's not afraid to do research and get into issues and people and places surely well outside his experience. It's the balance of research and creativity, sympathy for his characters without making a huge production of White Man Writing Non-White Characters!, that strikes me as what we ought to be aiming for, when we write outside our own experience (as most of us do, and indeed we ought to do). I could tell he'd done research, but I never felt bludgeoned with it. He used it to create a believable world, or worlds, or intersection of worlds.
I found the characters compelling. From the first few pages, with Fat Charlie's fear of and constant suffering of humiliation, I totally felt for Fat Charlie. I found that my sympathies expanded to characters I never expected, however--including one or two I'd really disliked. Not everyone is a good guy, by any means! The dialogue is wonderful.
The book is also full of lines that I had to read out loud to Brilliant Husband, though he'd finished it not long before I began reading it. When I was done, he said, "You see how good I was not to read anything revealing out to you!" He was good. He was very, very good.
Neil Gaiman has Douglas Adams's sense of the absurd with, if I may say so, more depth behind it. (Maybe if Adams had lived longer....) The novel keeps a light tone most of the time, but it deals with some big themes. I don't want to give them away, however, because it was a delight to find them emerging. By the end, they're fairly explicit, but not at the start.
I love this book. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
SPOILER SPACE
YOU KNOW NOT TO READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED, RIGHT?
SPOILER SPACE
This book really spoke to me. I've been saying how I mostly avoid darkfic, and I don't like character death, and I don't even like porn. That's not a judgment on those who read and write such things, and I want to say that upfront, in case what follows doesn't come out right.
One of the things I love about Anansi Boys is the idea that the stories we tell and hear not only come out of who we are but affect who we are. The point becomes quite explicit by the end, as I mentioned above. This story is a happy story, where the good people get what they deserve, even if they suffer along the way, and the bad people also get what they deserve. Maeve didn't deserve to die, but she gets to be with her beloved Morris again. Spider didn't deserve all the suffering he got, but he survives it. More than that, Spider, who never even wanted to be a good person before, comes to desire to be good, and learn to care about others and put others ahead of himself. Best of all, Charlie comes into his own, becoming a whole person--and a very gifted and loving person.
I feel like this book validated my own desires in reading and writing. I know people suffer, and I know they die. Sometimes I'm even willing to read about that. I don't want to be immersed in those kinds of stories, however, because I fear they will affect who I am. That may not be true for everyone: Stephen King writes stories about terrible people and things who inflict terrible and often undeserved suffering. I understand he's truly a lovely person. But I internalize too much; I can't read too much death and destruction, because it makes me feel too bad, and I fear it may ultimately change me. (Okay, I can't explain my aversion to reading graphic sex, but I don't think I need to. That's just not what I want. Out on the Internet, I feel like a freak! Of course, this gives me some sympathy for those who enjoy porn and are made to feel like freaks on and especially off the Internet.)
So I prefer to read and write about atonement, and learning to become a better person, and pulling good out of bad situations and experiences. I think even my darkest fic has those elements, and those are the ones I mostly want to read. Others can read and write about bad things that aren't resolved without being harmed; they may even find catharsis. I wish them luck. That's not me. I think I'll keep following my desires in reading and writing.
Right now, I desire to read more Gaiman! But I have a few other things I want to read, too....
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