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Loading... American Gods (original 2001; edition 2001)by Neil Gaiman, George Guidall (Narrator)
Work detailsAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman (2001)
Totally lost interest in this story. Don't know if it was me or the story. The first 1/4 of the story was riveting, but it seemed to have taken a turn for the worse after that. It lost me at the point when Shadow and Mr. Wednesday entered into a different dimension via a carousel and it was revealed that Mr. Wednesday is actually the Norse god Odin. Kind of just got weird from that point on. Just not my writing style I guess. Moving on. (  ) gdill | May 16, 2013 |  Certainly an interesting read. As usual, Mr. Gaiman astounds me with the depth of his imagination and the way he can so easily provoke reflection. Just be warned that the book is long enough to drag in a few places (and there are a couple of unanswered questions; for instance, who was going after Mad Sweeney about that coin?) and that unless you have a much better understanding of myths and legends than I do, you might want to keep a google search handy so you can look up what Shadow is dealing with. Overall, a good read if you're looking for philosophy and new ideas. (  ) Inkwind | May 16, 2013 | Neil Gaiman se embarca a escribir la Gran Novela Americana desde su estilo, plagado de grandes poderes, dioses antiguos y un torrente de erudición inagotable. La premisa es simple, los Dioses existen, y los inmigrantes de la Vieja Europa se los llevaron consigo a América, una tierra nueva por conquistar para ambos. Ahora tienen que competir contra las nuevas deidades del presente -el teléfono, las autopistas, la televisión- en una batalla que cambiará el paradigma para siempre. La novela recuerda a muchos trabajos anteriores de Gaiman, por encima de todos a The Sandman (las figuras de Odín o los dioses egipcios también se paseaban por las legendarias páginas del cómic de DC). No era fácil, el planteamiento es tan prometedor como ingobernable, y muchas veces corre el riesgo de decepcionar a sus lectores. Pero Gaiman sortea las dificultades que pueda haber por el camino y consigue la hazaña de darnos una novela muy amena, entretenida y en apariencia ligera, con muchas capas de profundidad en las que rascar, sorpresas inesperadas y muchos dioses que (re)descubrir. (  ) serranouaille | May 11, 2013 | Neil Gaiman se embarca a escribir la Gran Novela Americana desde su estilo, plagado de grandes poderes, dioses antiguos y un torrente de erudición inagotable. La premisa es simple, los Dioses existen, y los inmigrantes de la Vieja Europa se los llevaron consigo a América, una tierra nueva por conquistar para ambos. Ahora tienen que competir contra las nuevas deidades del presente -el teléfono, las autopistas, la televisión- en una batalla que cambiará el paradigma para siempre. La novela recuerda a muchos trabajos anteriores de Gaiman, por encima de todos a The Sandman (las figuras de Odín o los dioses egipcios también se paseaban por las legendarias páginas del cómic de DC). No era fácil, el planteamiento es tan prometedor como ingobernable, y muchas veces corre el riesgo de decepcionar a sus lectores. Pero Gaiman sortea las dificultades que pueda haber por el camino y consigue la hazaña de darnos una novela muy amena, entretenida y en apariencia ligera, con muchas capas de profundidad en las que rascar, sorpresas inesperadas y muchos dioses que (re)descubrir. ( ) serranouaille | May 11, 2013 | Excellent! (  ) cynrwiecko | May 3, 2013 |
 This might all sound like a bit much. But Gaiman -- who is best known as the creator of the respected DC Comics ''Sandman'' series -- has a deft hand with the mythologies he tinkers with here; even better, he's a fine, droll storyteller. This is a fantastic novel, as obsessed with the minutiae of life on the road as it is with a catalogue of doomed and half-forgotten deities. In the course of the protagonist Shadow's adventures as the bodyguard and fixer of the one-eyed Mr Wednesday, he visits a famous museum of junk and the motel at the centre of the US, as well as eating more sorts of good and bad diner food than one wants especially to think about. Part of the joy of American Gods is that its inventions all find a place in a well-organised structure. The book runs as precisely as clockwork, but reads as smoothly as silk or warm chocolate. Gaiman's stories are always overstuffed experiences, and ''American Gods'' has more than enough to earn its redemption, including a hero who deserves further adventures.  "American Gods" is a juicily original melding of archaic myth with the slangy, gritty, melancholy voice of one of America's great cultural inventions -- the hard-boiled detective; call it Wagnerian noir. The melting pot has produced stranger cocktails, but few that are as tasty. Is contained inInspired
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Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.
Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.
More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:45:49 -0500)
Just released from prison, Shadow encounters Mr. Wednesday, an enigmatic stranger who seems to know a lot about him, and when Mr. Wednesday offers him a job as his bodyguard, Shadow accepts and is plunged into a dark and perilous world.
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