Anansi Boys

I read Neil Geiman's Anansi Boys this week. This is the third Geiman book I've read and I enjoyed it much more than the other two (Stardust and American Gods). I enjoyed his writing and found it a pretty funny read; it reminded me a bit of Obert Skye's writing in Leven Thumps which I loved.

I especially liked Spider throughout the whole thing despite the fact that in the beginning he was a complete jerk. Though he lies and is a storyteller like Lyra from Golden Compass, I guess the reason I like Spider but didn't like Lyra is that Spider lies with purpose. He usually has something he wants to get out of it and does it to enjoy the lie (even if its a jerkish reason, its still a reason), where as Lyra did so simply because she could and really for no reason at all. Plus unlike Lyra, Spider does not always lie - he realizes he doesn't want to lie to Rosie for instance, and with her he learns to be honest. He learns to be more considerate of others a bit where as Lyra never changed.

Anyway, Spider was my favorite and his interactions with Charlie were especially great. Charlie was a bit dull in the beginning, but after Spider comes into the picture, he becomes and acts a lot more interesting [which is appropriate, all things considered]. Rosie and Daisy's roles in the story felt a lot more subtler, but I don't want to say that they were any less important.

Geiman always has a way of writing about gods in creative ways and his characters are always fantastic and unique. Really my only complaint with the book at all is that I always feel the climax of his stories are, well, anticlimactic. I don't remember well enough of Stardust to recall if I felt the same with that one, but with American Gods this summer I most certainly did. I was hoping it wouldn't be the same with Anasi Boys, but it ended up being so.

In both Anansi Boys and American Gods, there is time spent with the tension and interest building and I come to expect some kind of grand resolution. But in American Gods, Shadow pretty much just tells everyone "You were tricked! Go home!" and that's the end of that. It felt especially terrible there when most of that book had been spent building towards a great war between gods that was supposed to occur, but didn't, not even really a little. In Anansi Boys Charlie sings and changes' Tiger's fate - trapping into the story in his song - and that's that. It's over in two pages. It didn't feel as much of a letdown as the other, but still a bit disappointing nonetheless. The resolutions between the characters was good and an adequate conclusion, but still...its called the climax for a reason. It's supposed to be the highest point of tension in the story. Yet in both of those books the tension felt much lower than it should have. Again, anticlimatic.

Well, the good news is that its restored my faith in Gaimen. After being unimpressed with Stardust and let down by American Gods, I almost didn't want to read another of his books. But I really did enjoy Anansi Boys so perhaps I'll read more of his books in the future [in hopes they are just as enjoyable with not so let downing climaxes].