I’ve recently finished reading “American Gods”. Gotta say, one of the longest books I’ve read. Not specifically in terms of (electronic) pages, but just how long it took. You know what I mean: a short book can go really slowly, while you can be sprinting right along through a tome. For instance, “1984″ is going by very quickly. I’ve just started on it and already I’m about half-way through. But, back to the matter at hand.
I’ve said before that “American Gods” was a great book. And, at that time, it was. But toward the end I realized that, while it was still great, there was just too damn much of it. You know how that is: you like ice cream, but a whole pint of it is just pushing it. Same thing here. “American Gods” could have been half as long and still have been just as good. The prose was excellent, the descriptions wonderful, the conversation snappy, the gods… somewhat boring. The thing was that Gaiman spent so much time describing the gods, in their original locales or here-now, that I simply got bored. There was no action whatsoever, and considering that the subject was a war between the new and the old gods, I was expecting, well, something! Generally speaking, the energy level never rose above a 6 (out of 10) and almost constantly hovered at 4. There just wasn’t a lot to get excited about. Gaiman managed to bore the crap out of me at even the most lively parts of the book, nevermind the long periods of recounting step-by-step the events of Shadow’s mundane existence in a small Wisconsin town.
But, anyway, now that the pitiful excuse for a book review is done with, I can get down to the mini-rant for the evening.
How come all the cool gods have been forgotten while the wimps remained? The old gods were something cool, something I could even get behind. Not in the way of believing in them, of course. But something like having a drink to thank Ares for a good head-shot in ‘Halo’, that’d be interesting. Of course the attribution in this case is done purely for the hell of it, for fun: I know that I made that head-shot, I know that there are no all-powerful gods on Mount Olympus who give a rat’s ass of how I do in a game. Or that there is a Christian god who deems one baseball team more deserving to win another silly game. Just saying, those are equivalent.
So, how come we lost the cool gods, gods who like a bit of sacrifice here, a little feast there, only to be replaced by gods who deem it necessary for people to be boring and mundane? Why did gods change to desire passive sheep as followers? Did this change happen because the religious following has increased with time? Certainly it seems that streamlining worship to one god would increase “efficiency” (read: brain-washing), while a more passive audience is easier to control. But these are just theories, I’m not sure what the truth is.
#1 by heraldoffreeenterprise on 2007/11/04 - 2.40 AM
Hi FuzzyGamer.
I know what you mean about book lengths – there’s quite a few writers besides Gaiman who use up too many words on descriptions of characters. I don’t give a toss, I just want to see what they do.
As to your mini-rant, I don’t think the gods changed – society did. The 21st century (and the 20th, come to that) decided that people had to be nice to each other, help each other, and act “civilised.” That meant that things like sacrifices and feasts, which DID take place for the Christian god (read the old testament – lots of blood and war) had to go, cos the powers that be decided they were “uncivilised”.
Even when the Christian bible gets to Jesus, he’s not the touchy-feely guy that they’d have you believe. I mean, he goes nuts in a temple, throwing tables over and generally having a strop, he bollocks his followers for falling asleep in a dark garden. He commands us to take “bread and wine” – basically food and drink – as a remembrance feast. It’s just that that’s been “civilised” into the sacrament of communion.
Like you, I don’t think any god really gives a toss how I do in my pathetic little life, or how a sports team performs. But I think people make too much of a big deal as to how there ISN’T a god for that to be true. And I think the “passive sheep” thing wasn’t a desire, but a product of most people’s blind acceptance that authority figures (priests, etc.) know what they’re talking about, and it’s so much easier just to sit there, nod politely, thank the bloke at the end and fo back to your passive life following your parents, your boss, the government.
I’ve seen proactive churches that encourage free thought, I’ve seen people change things by intellectual challenges. I’m like you – I don’t know the truth. I don’t think anyone does. But if there is an afterlife, I hope we get to ask questions like these.
#2 by FuzzyGamer on 2007/11/04 - 11.56 AM
Thanks for your comments, heraldoffreeenterprise (is any part of that name supposed to be capitalized?)
Yeah, at some point, I simply wanted to know what was going to happen next, what Shadow would going to do. I guess that the reason I like to stick with sci-fi: most of it gets right down to the action, skipping exposition and the veritable multitude of adjectives that makes great literature (as my sister would claim it).
Being an atheist, I meant that gods “changed” in the sense that people altered what they believed in, moved some facts around, forgot others and invented new ones to suit the modern environment.
So I agree with some of your analysis, but not with the part where you claim that society of the 20th and 21st centuries decided to be nice to each other. I think the sudden population explosion forced society to adopt laws to protect the populace, and some of these ended up contradicting or challenging the religions: it’s hard to go through with human sacrifices when the law doesn’t back you up anymore. As you said, the Old Testament is quite bloody, but the reason that it has been “toned down” in recent times seems to be the fact that its followers live in more secular societies.
I don’t think any god cares about me or my life, but that’s because I don’t think there are any gods out there.
And here’s the part where we disagree.
In response to “people make too much of a big deal as to how there ISN’T a god for that to be true”, I’d like to point out that the burden of proof lies with those who would have us believe that there is a god, or gods.
I don’t claim to know everything, but from what I do know right now, I cannot accept the idea of one or more deities as anything but fiction and tradition built on ancient superstitions. I don’t think there’s an afterlife either. It doesn’t exactly fit in with the whole concept of evolution or, hell, I’ll say it, science in general.