Reflection's Edge

Book Review: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman

Reviewer: Romie Stott

Fat Charlie isn't fat, but his father's nicknames have a way of sticking around. It's not easy being the son of a charismatic trickster god, especially when you're ordinary - and happy to be that way. Fat Charlie has successfully left mischief behind and settled into a bland life in London when he's called back to the American South for his father's funeral...and the discovery that he has a brother. Soon Spider - debonair, amoral Spider - is seducing Fat Charlie's fiancée and getting on the wrong side of Fat Charlie's dangerous boss - all disguised as Fat Charlie. As Fat Charlie makes deals with gods and evades the machinations of a murderous lunatic, he starts to realize that perhaps he isn't so ordinary after all.

Anansi Boys is a spiritual successor to Gaiman's 2001 bestseller, American Gods. Both trade on the increasingly popular idea that the old pantheons of gods still walk among us, disguised as ordinary people; both have a particular love of trickster gods and the chaos they bring into overly settled lives. However, where American Gods was a book of huge and often incomplete ideas, Anansi Boys is a smaller, more intimate story. This is both its strength and its weakness.

Gaiman continues to mature as a writer; Anansi Boys is relaxed, confident, restrained. Although the book is filled with grandiose, whimsical humor, the comedy never runs away with itself. Likewise, no plot thread is introduced which is not later tied up; Anansi Boys is spare in its use of props, characters, and locations. It's a fast, easy read, and it is the funniest thing Gaiman's written since Good Omens.

Even Fat Charlie shows signs of progression in Gaiman's writing. Gaiman tends to embrace bland, stodgy main characters - the kind of bumbling straight man who is the lynch pin of many British television comedies, but whose humor does not translate to the page. Fat Charlie is, at first, no exception; he starts out boring and un-heroic, the sort of everyman that adventure-seeking genre fans have trouble liking or identifying with. The story doesn't really pick up until the introduction of Spider, the epitome of cool and cockiness. However, once Gaiman hits his stride, Fat Charlie's staid humor starts to come through, and it's finally apparent what Gaiman has been trying to accomplish with his main characters all these years.

Anansi Boys is a very human story; without being overbearing, it points out that the personality traits we despise in others and try to eradicate in ourselves are the ones we need, in small doses, to live full lives. Spider and Fat Charlie start out flat, mirrored, adamantly different, and gradually allow themselves to soften without losing their separate identities. It's a nuanced and illuminating look at both the beginning of full adulthood and the relationships between siblings.

And the book's funny. Let's not forget that. Mature, adult, and still hysterical.

Despite my enjoyment of Anansi Boys, I found myself wistful for the exuberance of a younger Gaiman. In both Neverwhere and American Gods, there was the sense that he'd deliberately bitten off more than he could chew - he introduced dozens of one-sentence characters, he careened into unfinished side stories as though he was discovering the plot along the way, and he built books around ideas so encompassing he didn't know how to resolve them. As exasperating and occasionally dull as this could be, there was still an overwhelming elation of excitement and discovery, as though Gaiman wrote to try to pin down something that was beyond him. Anansi Boys addresses its subject well, but it lacks the boisterous, inventive exploration of Gaiman's early books.

Instead, it feels like a mature artist looking back on his youthful efforts and trying to re-craft them - to smooth a jagged edge here and tone down a lurid color there. Playfulness is still present, but it's no longer daringly bordered in neon. Readers will recognize Gaiman staples throughout Anansi Boys - favorite situations and character archetypes. For some, this will feel derivative, but others will be interested to see what Gaiman chooses to revisit, what he still searches for the right way to express.

In the end, Anansi Boys is a solid, wise, funny book which will appeal to a broad spectrum of ages. It should be well received by fans of Coraline, Stardust, and Good Omens, but it may disappoint a few of the people who loved Neverwhere and American Gods. Anansi Boys doesn't have much to say that's new, but it does an excellent job of polishing and refining the old, and it will be a comfortable fit for both new and old fans.

To buy a copy of Anansi Boys, click here.

If you liked this book, you may also enjoy:

Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

Mirrormask, now in theaters - view clips, trailers, and production stills here



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