Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Fat Charlie discovers after his father's death that he's the child of the trickster god, oh and he has a brother.

Aaaand I'm back to being unimpressed by Gaiman. After I enjoyed The Graveyard Book so much, too.

The problem with this book rests at a pretty high level of abstraction. At the most basic level it's a perfectly acceptable story, full of self-discovery and false arrest and a horrifying mother-in-law. And there are a few beats and turns of phrase that are just perfect. Which is why the three stars, by the way.

But thematically, this book is a real mess. See, the problem with trickster god stories is that half the time the trickster god is a hilarious guided missile of chaos – the sort of guy you invite to your party because if he's there, it'll make a mess, but it'll be awesome. And the other half of the time the trickster god is a worthless date raping son-of-a-bitch. Gaiman knew that, and he set up this pair of brothers to talk about that duality, and some others . . . and then there was just this big, splattered thematic mess and a date rapist I was supposed to, I don't know, actually like. Whatever.

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