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not a good place for gods (not?)
Nov. 10th, 2006 10:59 amNot a Good Place for Gods
I come very late to the party that most of the readers of this blog began by attending. I was introduced to the novels of John Crowley in 1999 by the friend whom I had made aware of the books of Frances Yates and D. P. Walker two decades before that. I was introduced to the name of Neil Gaiman by Bill Doty’s little squib on American Gods in the Mythic Journeys newsletter last year. I had read about the Sandman phenomenon years earlier in the New York Times arts and culture section, but the name of the author didn’t stick with me. I filed the information away as evidence of the changing shape of American popular culture, alongside the establishment by Art Spiegelman’s Maus of the genre of respectable graphic novels for grown-ups.
So I have just now got round to reading American Gods, coming to it backwards via Fragile Things and then the Halloween story in the October 31 New York Times. Of course, I was moved to put in a library request for the book just two or three days before the New York Times book review section devoted a whole page to a reconsideration of the career of Neil Gaiman. I have to presume that while that was a coincidence, the close juxtaposition of the Halloween tale and the following Sunday’s review essay was not.
I presume, or prefer to presume, that the whole novel starts from Jorge Luis Borges’ elegant three or four paragraph (maybe even three or four sentence) story “The Gods,” in which, you will recall, the return of the gods is excitedly announced. On their arrival, they turn out to be much the worse for wear for their long exile. Seeing the gods’ present-day identity as petty criminals, the narrator says, “we took out revolvers and joyfully killed the gods.” (quoting from memory, of course, as usual)
[oh, heck, I had it so wrong that I am going to copy this text from Cyber Issue 11 of Exquisite Corpse, being as how my friend Jimmy Nolan is friends with Andrei Codrescu and he is unlikely to sue for not just posting a link: ( ”Borges” )</ lj-cut>
I come very late to the party that most of the readers of this blog began by attending. I was introduced to the novels of John Crowley in 1999 by the friend whom I had made aware of the books of Frances Yates and D. P. Walker two decades before that. I was introduced to the name of Neil Gaiman by Bill Doty’s little squib on American Gods in the Mythic Journeys newsletter last year. I had read about the Sandman phenomenon years earlier in the New York Times arts and culture section, but the name of the author didn’t stick with me. I filed the information away as evidence of the changing shape of American popular culture, alongside the establishment by Art Spiegelman’s Maus of the genre of respectable graphic novels for grown-ups.
So I have just now got round to reading American Gods, coming to it backwards via Fragile Things and then the Halloween story in the October 31 New York Times. Of course, I was moved to put in a library request for the book just two or three days before the New York Times book review section devoted a whole page to a reconsideration of the career of Neil Gaiman. I have to presume that while that was a coincidence, the close juxtaposition of the Halloween tale and the following Sunday’s review essay was not.
I presume, or prefer to presume, that the whole novel starts from Jorge Luis Borges’ elegant three or four paragraph (maybe even three or four sentence) story “The Gods,” in which, you will recall, the return of the gods is excitedly announced. On their arrival, they turn out to be much the worse for wear for their long exile. Seeing the gods’ present-day identity as petty criminals, the narrator says, “we took out revolvers and joyfully killed the gods.” (quoting from memory, of course, as usual)
[oh, heck, I had it so wrong that I am going to copy this text from Cyber Issue 11 of Exquisite Corpse, being as how my friend Jimmy Nolan is friends with Andrei Codrescu and he is unlikely to sue for not just posting a link: ( ”Borges” )</ lj-cut>
