Neil Gaiman www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com Neil's Other Works Anansi Boys Criticism for Anansi Boys
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IK: you 'posed to talk about limes in the lime thread. And it's Nilsson... (as a Swede m'sef, compelled to correct.)
But surely the limes of the world send thanks to their mighty champion--good work! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Taoist “Wooo-weeee!” The bosom that can be tamed is not a real bosom. Dammit babies, you've got to be kind! ~Kurt Vonnegut |
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It's like an Oreo cookie, only not Member  |
I thought Omar's post was so well ... expressed that I thought I'd post it again. I think he hit it right on the money. I have also read just about all of Gaiman that I could get my hands on. He IS predictable in hit writing, but it's also, admittednly, entertaining. There is always some kind of god/gods/goddesses running around, magic, circles, usually down and out male characters that have enough resolution by the end. Some kind of magic carpet ride in the middle bit that doesn't make a lot of sense. Dreams. All that nonsense. Like some people, I was slightly dissapointed, and YET, I STILL couldn't put it down. I'm getting rather tiered, to be honest, with the obsession he has with writing about magic and gods. I was overdoesed in american Gods, Anasani Boys, and Sandman. But, I'll still keep reading it, not sure why, but i will. ------------------------------  (Grrr.... YAHR!) "I remember when I used to be really into nostalgia."-Demetri Martin |
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"I'm getting rather tiered, to be honest, with the obsession he has with writing about magic and gods."
But the thing that makes it fascinating is that all these stories about gods and magic are about you and me and all the other naked apes running around on planet earth. We tell the stories and we people them with copies of ourselves. We are the gods of the myths, or they are we; it works either way you say it. All the tales are told by humans for humans and of humans. The narrators simply make the humans larger than life to make a point, usually a somewhat different point in each story if the stories are good. Neil Gaiman's stories are good ones and tell us things about ourselves that we tend to forget because we are so distracted by our daily lives that we forget we are immortals playing at mortal adventures. Or we are mortals playing games of eternal significance. It means the same either way and there's no way to decide which version is real, because you can't analyze a system from within the system and the universe as a whole is the ultimate system that includes mankind. If all this sounds a bit diffuse, sorry, but it's three o'clock in the morning here and now, and I can't take responsibility for coherence. N.B. The typo in the post "tiered" for "tired" works also. The themes, symbols and meanings in a good storied do fall into tiers of systems nesting one inside the next. That is why the best stories can be discussed and analyzed over and over with profit to the student. Bob aka Adastra, the Wizzard of Jacksonville |
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I don't think it's fair to say Gaiman has an obsession with gods and magic and that kind of thing. That's the theme of all his books - that's the kind of book he writes. It's like saying a sci-fi author has an obsession with spaceships or something.
Anyway. Anansi Boys is by far my least favourite thing by Neil. It's very good for what it is, but at heart it's a comedy, and I really wouldn't like to see him become purely a comedy writer. After the world-shaking genius of Sandman and American Gods (in particular, not just them though) it was very underwhelming to read something that could have been written by Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. ---------------------------------- Black Wings loves all of you, even though many of you are new since he vanished for a year. Boundless love for all! |
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Aw, c'mon. I can't let that go by: Pratchett is not a comedic writer but a satirist--the difference is that the deep goal is to skewer society in order to provoke change. He has many layers to his writing, addressing all kinds of themes like prejudices, ignorance, parenting, organizational psychology, politics, heroism, leadership, self-identity, religion, addiction, social posturing, marketing, economics, gender issues, the histories of film and journalism, postal versus telephone/electronic communications,and the security business--even the nature of reality itself. Read with attention, his work oughta make us question our own ways of thinking. (I got into NG's work via TP and Good Omens, btw.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Taoist “Wooo-weeee!” The bosom that can be tamed is not a real bosom. Dammit babies, you've got to be kind! ~Kurt Vonnegut |
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Oh don't get me wrong, I have enormous respect for Terry Pratchett. It's just that all those things you mentioned that he makes points about, can be addressed with serious fiction, and for me serious fiction (like American Gods) is ALWAYS more effective than comedy. For me, humour should be an aspect of a piece of fiction, not the whole point. And you have to admit, satire or not, the main purpose of Discworld is to make us laugh, right?
But I guess it just comes down to personal taste. In my eyes comedy always takes second place to serious fiction. Obviously not everyone's like that, and thank god or else we wouldn't have comedians. Oh also, my first encounter with Gaiman was also through Good Omens. And although it was full of Pratchett humour, it came across as a more serious story than most of Pratchett's books. It's years since I read it though. |
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Serious people tend to say serious things and are often ignored by the general public. Comedians, humorists often say true and serious things but do so in a way that are accepted by the general public. It's sneakier and often a whole lot more effective than serious fiction (or serious things). It's like loitering, but mean. -- Jon Stewart on lurking |
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Neil Gaiman www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com Neil's Other Works Anansi Boys Criticism for Anansi Boys
www.NeilgaimanBoard.com www.NeilgaimanBoard.com Neil's Other Works Anansi Boys Criticism for Anansi Boys© YourCopy 2001