Anansi Boys

by Neil Gaiman

Ebook, 2005

Library's rating

Description

Fiction. HTML: When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, 20 years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed-before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life. Because Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun. And all of a sudden, things start getting very interesting for Fat Charlie. Exciting, scary, and deeply funny, Anansi Boys is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth, a wild adventure, as Neil Gaiman shows us where gods come from, and how to survive your family..… (more)

Media reviews

Keskisuomalainen

Gaiman kutoo tapansa mukaan sujuvan ja houkuttelevan kertomuksen, joka ammentaa tarinoiden ja myyttien maailmasta. Sujuvan lukukokemuksen viimeistelee onnistunut suomennos. Gaimaniin mieltyneille Hämähäkkijumala on puolipakollinen kirjahyllyn täyte ja kevytfantasiaa hakeville ihan yhtä hyvä

tutustumiskirja kuin mikä tahansa varhaisempi romaani. Vaikka kirjan juoni ei juuri yllätäkään, Gaiman esittelee tarinankertojan lahjaansa: kykyä tehdä mahdottomasta todenmakuista.

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Boston Globe

And Charlie, who has become a successful singer and fathered a son, has come to terms with the powers and responsibilities of ''a boy who was half a god," having learned what Gaiman knows better, and communicates more forcefully, than any other contemporary writer: Stories and poems, songs and

myths, represent us, sustain and complete us, and survive us, while also ensuring that all that's best in us survives with them.

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PopMatters

The focus on Anansi and tricksters, I think, goes a long way towards explaining the tone of this novel. It really feels more like some of the established "funny" sci-fi/fantasy authors (like Gaiman's Good Omens co-author Terry Pratchett) than "classic" Neil.

New York Times

The problem in "Anansi Boys" is the type of fantasy Gaiman has chosen. The tales of Anansi outwitting his foes leave you feeling you've eaten something heavy and sugary. There's an Uncle Remus folksiness to the stories that sends the airy blitheness of the farce plummeting down to earth. There is

also, I regret to say, the warm hand of instruction lying uneasily on this tale. Charlie works through his ineffectualness and his family issues to find happiness, contentment and - ugh - acceptance. It leaves you with the uncomfortable feeling that for Gaiman, farce by itself would simply have been too frivolous, that he feels the need to impart a lesson.

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The A.V. Club

Anansi Boys contains a couple of traditional-style Anansi fables, and the book itself takes a similar ambling but wry, pointed tone; like any good Anansi story, it's about cleverness, appetite, and comeuppance, and it's funny in a smart, inclusive way. And like any good Gaiman book, it's about the

places where the normal world and a fantastic one intersect, and all the insightful things they have to say about each other.

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The Independent

This book being a product of Gaiman's eat-all-the-soft-centres-at-once mind, Anansi Boys keeps flitting magically around the world. The brothers do riffs on African stories, play farcical games, and make funny observations.

Salon.com

"Anansi Boys" is a hybrid of folk tale and farce that freely partakes of the comic wealth in each, slipping effortlessly back and forth between them.

Washington Post

With Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman's delightful, funny and affecting new novel, the bestselling author has scored the literary equivalent of a hole in one, employing the kind of self-assured storytelling that makes it all look so easy.

USA Today

It isn't quite Gaiman Lite, but if Mark Twain could be channeled through an Englishman's prism, it might very well emerge as this singsong reverie, narrated by some karaoke-induced Huckleberry Finn.

Entertainment Weekly

It's a giddy but somewhat unsatisfying ride. Whenever Gaiman runs into a narrative jam, he veers off in an exhilarating new direction, a diversionary tactic that starts to feel like a cheat. In his gravity-free fictional universe, nothing he has to say seems to carry any weight.

SF Site

However, having said all that, it's still Neil Gaiman, it's yet another enchanting bit of word-wizardry by one of the premier wordsmiths of our times, and it's still a damned fine read. It's just that, for this reader, it feels a little like having walked out of the ocean that was American Gods and

somehow finding myself cooling my toes in a paddling pool.

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AudioFile Magazine

Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS presented a modern look at ancient gods that left fans wanting more about the characters. Gaiman's ANANSI BOYS focuses on the ancient African spider-god Anansi the Trickster. Narrator Lenny Henry has one of those great British voices that is always interesting. His

perfect use of Caribbean accents and strange animalistic human voices is a joy. The story of the sons of Anansi, one with god-like powers and the other human, is compelling. Gaiman offers a twist that alone makes the story worthwhile. One amusing aspect is that one of Henry's characters, a bird-woman, sounds exactly like Yoda from STAR WARS.

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