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12/25/2004
"'American Gods'"

It starts small. You're thinking, "yeah, just a few lines". You know, enough to help you nod off, fall asleep. It's habit, right?

But you've underestimated its hook. And as each line follows the next, you're engrossed, sucked into a vortex of words and colours and people that defy personal description, your emotions and mind pulled and pushed beyond the impossible and improbable. Six hours later, the sun has risen, and what was supposed to be a few lines to put you to sleep has become half or more of the entire thing. You don't want to put it down. You can't. But you force yourself to do so, if only because it's 10.15am and you're still up.

4 hours later, you're aware again. Where you left off is still fresh in your mind, the tracks and lines of thought and imagination (hallucination?) still warm and alive within you. The day passes like a hazy mist... you remember sunshine, remember that mug of coffee, but you're still consumed by it, in a race to finish it, to know, what next, what now, what then? That bowl of instant noodles sits on the coffee table, cold and forgotten, as you're immersed in another world and another time, of now but also then. You put the book down, the words too vivid, too scary, too crazy, and take a walk around the living room, make some more coffee, but against your will, you pick it up again, and force yourself to keep going, keep moving.

...10 hours and 588 pages later, you're hungry, and drained, yet strangely elated. There's a sense of accomplishment and knowledge grasped, the world seems a little fuzzy, and you're not quite sure which universe you've stepped off just yet. You stand outside for a few minutes, savouring the last few rays of sunshine, and a cat crosses your path, and you're not. quite. sure. if it's... something else.

Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods'.

Quite simply, one of the most awesome, page-turning, all-emcompassing, intellectually mindfucking novels I've had the pleasure to come across.

I can't even quote a line; I'd end up quoting the whole damn thing.

Replies: 2 peanuts

hey i wrote you at your gmail account! check it!

Posted by sharon @ 07/25/2004 10:38 AM GMT

i did, hehe. thanks woman.

Posted by t @ 07/28/2004 06:11 AM GMT