Anansi Boys

[nny]

Hmm.

I confess, I wasn't hugely convinced by this book.

Neil Gaiman writes in a way that's kind of comforting, I suppose. It's not particularly taxing as far as readability goes, and it's very... familiar. I think he writes the way that my mental voice sounds, a lot of the time, so reading his books is always pleasant. Where he really comes into his own is with the stories, and the layers he puts into them - which is why, I think, I was faintly disappointed with this.

Usually Neil Gaiman characters, even the most incidental, give the impression of having a story behind them. It was impossible for me to read Neverwhere without gleefully pondering the various life histories of the characters, and I somehow knew that Neil knew what all of them were, too. Neverwhere made me want to write fanfic, or create an RP, or do something with all the possibilities that had been made available. Likewise with American Gods - I found it completely enthralling, and inspiring, and I love re-reading on the off chance I'll discover something I missed before.

His books are like worlds. Or... they have been, before.

Because Anansi Boys, while an interesting story with decent main characters, didn't make me want to look any further. It felt less like a world than a picture of one - canvas backing, two dimensional. I didn't feel involved in the story, to any great extent. There seemed to be vaguely loose ends, and there were resolutions that seemed too contrived, and it felt like it needed to be longer. I didn't have the time to really care about the characters, and as a result the end was somewhat anticlimatic. It left me, to be short, with a feeling of 'meh'. And for a writer as usually reliable as Neil Gaiman, that's a serious shame.

I'll re-read it, of course. I just don't know if there's any more to see.

Comments

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

It's not his best work, for certain. There were elements I loved, like the strong sense of the storyteller's art, but in the end it's nowhere near as good as its parent universe, American Gods.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

Anansi was really the only character I was hugely interested in, because of AG.

And it felt like... I enjoyed the stories, very much, but it was done with more variety and in a more interesting way in AG... and this story was just lacking. It felt like it should be more epic.

Ah well. Perhaps his next will be better.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I think it suffers from being a satellite story: satellite stories within universes where the epic has already happened, so to speak, have a hard time measuring up to the big bang that essentially led to their creation. It's not to say that it's uninteresting or invalid, but it's...a side-trip.

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite finished with it yet, which only goes to prove that I'm just not all that into it. The only characters that I'm really enjoying are the little old ladies in Florida. How sad is it that I can't even be bothered to remember the names of my favorite characters?

I'm hoping Thud! will perk me up, but I have to slog through this one still....

[lisechen.livejournal.com]

Thud! was wonderful. I seriously thought Pterry couldn't do more with the Watch. But he did. And well.

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that gives me hope.
Hooray!

[vimeslady.livejournal.com]

**sigh** I seem to be in a minority here. I enjoyed Anansi Boys more than anything Neil has written since GO. AG was way too mystical for me. I was, like, completely enthralled by the characters in AB, and longed to read Spider fanfic. I think this says something about what I like in books. I'm just not into complex. This probably makes me an immature reader or something, but I like what I like.

[parke-matru.livejournal.com]

Daisy's family intrigued me. Beyond that, I thought it was an enjoyable enough read. Not Gneil's best, but better than most of the stuff out there.

I did have the same problem as I did with Coroline -- that about halfway through, in what most would note only on a reread as 'oh, he did foreshadowing on the ending,' I knew with very little doubt precisely how the book would end.