Anansi Boys – review
Neil Gaiman, for whatever reason, has become one of my more favorite authors. He hasn’t produced a lot of the stuff I like to read, meaning, he wrote a lot of comic books once upon a time and I don’t feel like acquiring them to read them; but his novel writing is some of the best in the business… well… for fantasy writing.
Some years ago, I was asked by Jack to go to a book signing where I was to have the author sign the copies of his books. At the time, Jack did not tell me he didn’t expect me to stay the many, many hours to have his books signed. He told me, later, that he actually expected me to abandon the task and head home before the books were signed. But, at the time, I was being paid and I probably wanted/needed the money, and I had little else to do except sleep; so, you know, I stood in line for four or five or more hours to get Jack’s books signed.
Because of the people around me, that day, I was not willing to explore Neil Gaiman as an author. Basically, the people around me were… uhm… rather freakish. It was the middle of summer. I was wearing as light a t-shirt as I could. And yet, there they were, all of them (a majority of them) in blacks and purples and other dark colors. It was… weird.
And then I moved to New Hampshire.
And then I needed something new to write.
And then I started flipping through, one day, Neverwhere.
And then I found what the attraction to Neil Gaiman was. I was hooked. I discovered the writing he’d done, up til then, and further discovered movies and other things he’d been working on. It was an awakening. (Of course, at the same time, I also discovered other writers and topics I’d avoided for a variety of good (in my head) reasons, so… New Hampshire was a change for me.)
Recently, though, I picked up a mass market paperback copy of his book Anansi Boys. The plot, basically, is the African trickster god, Anansi, is living in Florida and was married and had a son named Fat Charlie. Fat Charlie and his mother leave Florida for England and eventually, when Fat Charlie grows up, Anansi has a heart attack and dies. This leads to Charlie learning that he has a brother, Spider, and they are reunited.
In his normal life, Charlie works for a crooked talent agent, has a fiancé who is marrying him because her mother doesn’t want her to. Charlie has a life, but not really much of one. When he left his father, at the age of ten, his life became, intentionally, boring – just the way Fat Charlie likes it.
And then Spider enters the picture and Fat Charlie’s life takes on an entirely different hue. His boss feels it is time to, permanently, take care of Fat Charlie. His fiance’s mother feels it is time to actively convince Fat Charlie he would be better off not marrying her daughter. And then there is the police who have reason to believe that Charlie has broken some laws; Charlie’s penchant for singing; and Anansi who may, or may not be dead – along with a bunch of old women who seem to know about Charlie, Charlie’s father and family, and the magic that surrounds him than Charlie does and who he keeps having to go back to see again and again and again in order to get the right answer this time.
This book is a wild romp through magic, gods, more magic, sibling rivalry, love, and a lot of other things and is absolutely enjoyable. It follows, pretty nicely, in the vein of his previous novel American Gods which was a rather delightful romp through the various gods that were brought to the Americas.
If’n you’re looking for a good read, and you want something that touches into worlds that Gaiman has written in the past, then this is a good launching point for his work.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond