Anansi Boys

Anansi Boys is a sequel of sorts to American Gods. It shares the premise that the Gods of ancient religions are still on Earth, indistinguishable from regular humans to the unobservant. They are portrayed as having magical powers but usually limiting their use to just getting by without actually having to hold down a job. Anansi is a trickster spider god of the Yoruba people, but ubiquitous amongst peoples both in Africa and from Africa, who has all the stories worth telling in his repertoire. He appears in American Gods as Mr. Nancy, or Anansi, an intriguing character but part of the supporting cast.Anansi Boys is better written than American Gods, more polished, much funnier, but lacking the enlightened darker edge that sets its predecessor apart from most other fiction in the magical realism genre. As with American Gods, Anansi Boys is peopled with well-drawn characters, that keep the story believable even when the author is having them perform unbelievable feats. Anansi Boy's plot is more carefully constructed than AG's with fewer blind alleys and strings that fade out and are never explained. The plot of American Gods had several mismatched elements grafted together with coarse stitches.Also, Fat Charlie Nancy, Mr. Anansi's son, is better drawn than Shadow, AG's main character, but both men struggle and largely fail to be as interesting as the characters in the supporting casts, though both redeem themselves by the end. Fat Charlie's redemption is more gradual and therefore easier for the reader to buy into than Shadow's.So are they worth your time? The answer is a wholehearted Yes! No other writer of fiction understands the workings of Archaic religion and its offspring, world mythology, as well as Gaiman, who clearly perceives how those ancient nature-based beliefs still animate our lives and affect our values, our judgement, and help with our frustrating amnesia about a world beyond the veil of rational material reality.Re-reading this, I sound overly critical. That's what happens when a writer flirts with greatness. Both books become obsessions until the last page is turned and leave the reader craving Gaiman's next creation.

I like to call the kind of fantasy that Gaiman writes "archetypal fantasy." As opposed to many excellent writers in this genre, Gaiman doesn't create his own fantasy universe, nor does he overlay a wholly new fantastic structure onto our current universe. Instead, he takes our world and our oldest legends and weaves them together into a seamless whole. In Gaiman's worlds, you have Spider fighting an eternal fight against Tiger. You have Odin seeking to regain some of his old strength against the new gods of Technology and Entertainment. In reading Gaiman's work, I often feel as though I am somehow being incorporated into the larger pantheon of Storytelling as it has existed since the time of per-historical cave-painting. In his work, the gods first created by the earliest stories (or, perhaps, first recognized by the earliest stories) still exist, still walk among us, and still shape us and our experience of the world. It's hard to put a finger on it, but I find that this resonates deeply for me, and turns what many might consider to be light fiction (it is fantasy, after all) into a richer experience.Gaiman has said that he owes much to Harlan Ellison, and you can see his influence. Ellison's Deathbird Stories isn't as explicit about its gods as Anansi Boys is (and American Gods was far more clear about who its gods are than AB), instead filling these roles with unnamed chthonic forces. If nothing else, Ellison's world is certainly far darker. They both, however, posit that the world in which we live has more to it than meets the eye. That there are dark and powerful forces at work that we knowingly or unknowingly tap into for our strength, inspiration, and at times darkness. That we in turn are tapped into and as a whole provide, though our actions and our worship, the life force that these gods need to exist.While American Gods is a relatively serious (in tone) exploration of this, Anansi Boys is a much more lighthearted approach. In short, Charles Nancy (Fat Charlie) is a young Londoner who has always been embarrassed by his father, and to the world, appears somewhat weak, with a soft underbelly. He allows himself to be pushed around, and for the most part, tries to simply get by and live under the radar. He probably has more in common with many of us than we would like to admit. In Florida for his father's funeral, he learns that his father is actually the god Anansi, and that he has a brother named Spider. When he gets home, he lightheartedly summons his brother by talking to a spider, as he was instructed by an old Caribbean family friend. When Spider turns up, Fat Charlie finds his life turned upside down. His virgin fiancée sleeps with Spider, he is thrown in prison, and finds himself not only out of a job, but framed by his crook boss. Spider, of course, won't leave. He likes being in (taking over) Charlie's life. Needing help, Charlie flies back to Florida, and with the aid of a witch who used to live in his old neighborhood, is transported to the place at the beginning of the world, where he seeks assistance in removing his brother from his life. It would be easy to say that while there, he made a deal with the devil, but in Gaiman's world, there isn't so much a devil as there are many gods with conflicting desires and natures. Charlie's deal is with the Bird Woman.Of course, the whole thing backfires, and in the end draws Spider and Charlie closer together. It should surprise no one that Charlie finds within himself deep reserves of strength and miracle (not magic - Charlie is the son of a god) that he uses to undo the mess he's made, forge himself a new life and identity, and in the end, really, because this is what 90% of fiction seems to be about on one level or another, grow into a man. I probably enjoy Gaiman's work (this book included) too much to really write any sort of objective review or opinion. Simply put, this book is very satisfying, and very funny. It's hard to explain in a review or essay why something is funny, but take for example the following situation. Charlie and Spider are being pursued by Bird Woman, and Spider wants to know what's going on. Charlie begins to tell his story, and in the end concludes:"She offered to make you go away. And, um. Well, I took her up on it.""That," said Spider, with a movie-star smile, "was really stupid.""I didn't tell her to hurt you.""What did you think she was going to do to get rid of me? Write me a stiff letter?""I don't know. I didn't think. I was upset.""Great. Well, if she has her way, you'll be upset, and I'll be dead. You could have simply asked me to leave, you know.""I did!""Er. What did I say?""That you liked it in my house and you weren't going anywhere."Like much good British humor, it's not so much laugh out loud humor, but rather a general tone that pervades the entirety of the book. It makes you smile, and it makes you sympathetic to the characters. In the end though, although I'd recommend it to anyone, Anansi Boys is not as good as American Gods, and is one of Gaiman's weaker works. There's too much cliché. I think he knows it, and maybe it's a part of a larger joke missed by yours truly. I can't get over the schlubby character in the wrong relationship who stumbles on true love, partial deity, and lifelong satisfaction and happiness. It's fun, but it's not powerful in the same way as Gaiman's other works.