Finished Reading: Anansi Boys
Yes, I’m the last of my friends and family, I think, to have read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. It wasn’t even on my to-be-read pile, but as PisecoDad read it, he’d use it to read me to sleep at night. Eventually the snippets of Fat Charlie Nancy became too enticing and I snatched the book up for my own.
The novel is a funny balance between the every day and dull – Fat Charlie’s life in England and his confusion and timidness – and the mystical and mythological – his father is the god Anansi, and his brother Spider seems to have inherited all the god-like abilities, and none of the confusion or timidness. Anansi stories (tales of the trickster) are woven into the plot, and the characters move between the everyday world of relationships and a little office fraud-and-murder, and the ever-shifting caves at the end (or, properly, the beginning) of the world.
Anansi Boys is light-hearted and peopled with fascinating characters. It was a fun read, and engaging enough even in the short sections I heard at bedtime to draw me in. Its mirthful mix of modern and mythological has me wanting to reread Good Omens again, too.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
This is high on my list of books I’ve loved in my life.
I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it.
March 1st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I bought this book because I’ve liked the other Neil Gaiman books I’ve read but kept putting off reading it. You make me want to grab and read it right now.
March 7th, 2009 at 7:57 am
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