Anansi Boys

I have been reading Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys for two weeks now. I finally found the time to finish the book in the early hours of today. Since I was having a 24 hour guard duty yesterday I had all the time in the world to read.

I must say that this is of the most bizarre books I have ever read. Although I read almost all genre its not often I come across a book which is set in a dreamlike world of reality and circumstance.

Anansi Boys is not a big, solid, serious book. But it is laugh-out-loud funny and scary as a spider on your arm. So when birds begin pecking out the hero's eyes in Anansi Boys, it comes as a surprise when you start to laugh.

Gaiman's a very daring writer, who goes for broke from the first page. But he does so in such a witty, matter of fact manner that the reader can't help but be charmed. As Charlie finds out about his father, he also meets the brother he never knew. The whole family magic thing is a bit more intense in Charlie's world, because his father is Anansi, the Trickster god. And his brother Spider got all the magic.

Gaiman cleverly complicates matters with crime fiction, slapstick comedy, supernatural plotting and mythic storytelling styles.

The miracle is that he does so effortlessly, with a light hand so sure that he can slip from a tale of corporate misdeeds to a Caribbean romance via ghosts and gods. It sounds complicated, but it's really simple.

Charlie has a family as screwed up as any you've ever met, and certainly as screwed up as yours. He'd like to simply get married to the girl he loves and live a relatively normal life. But his brother, his father, and family friends don’t make that an easy task.

Gaiman demonstrates the full range of his skills as a writer with 'Anansi Boys'. He's constantly, remarkably entertaining and humorous, even when he's taking on subjects as serious as the father-son dynamics and the permeation of ancient mythologies into the modern world. The plot here is quite complex, yet it seems utterly transparent.

Gaiman's plot engine runs on a financial scam, on a ghost story, and on several love stories. But he lays them out with such clarity and logic that the novel streams from one scene to the next. Only in retrospect, thinking back on the novel, and you will think back on it - does 'Anansi Boys' seem as complex as it really is.

Gaiman masterfully weaves in a variety of narrative styles in a manner so seamless as to make the novel almost absurdly easy to read. The character arcs are complicated but clear. There are so many of them it almost seems a bit crowded, but every character, major and minor, gets precisely the right amount of attention and detail. Gaiman juggles everything in his pocket universe with precision and a big old goofy smile on his face. No, wait, that smile is on your face.

When an author loves everything in the book as much as Gaiman clearly does, readers will find the whole complicated concoction seems a lot simpler than it is. This is the only potential problem for Gaiman with 'Anansi Boys'. It functions so smoothly that many readers may never realize that it's remarkably sophisticated.

Of course, this is the sort of problem that writers should dream about. 'Anansi Boys' tells us so much about ourselves in so many witty and imaginative ways that it seems positively bursting. And yet it also seems nicely confined, honed in on a single story, a single family, and a man who at least starts out the novel as single. Anansi Boys is more intimate, picking apart the fears that lock families together.

In this world of petty gods ruining the lives of desperate men, Gaiman is pitiless and arch. He often sacrifices narrative for wordplay and improvisation. You can almost hear his writer's voice shouting.

In the end it’s Gaiman's mastery of language that carries the reader through to a satisfying conclusion.

So till my next post ya, its bye from Ganz.

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