So I finished
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Oh. My. God. Such an epic book. Have you read Neil Gaiman before? Because everyone should. He is such an amazing storyteller and it is so easy to get lost in his books.
So here's the basic summary of the novel. I didn't write this I borrowed it from Wikipedia because I am never good at explaining plots in a coherent and articulate way:
"The central concept is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them. Immigrants to the United States brought dwarves, elves, leprechauns, and other spirits and gods with them, but their power is diminished as people's beliefs wane. New gods have arisen, reflecting America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, and illegal drugs, among others."
I'm not going to go into detail, cause that would spoil it and a part of this blog is to encourage people to actually read books.
Gaiman has a way of making his characters so real and vivid, especially the gods, seeing as all of them have to survive in a human world where people don't believe in them anymore. His new "American gods", the ones about technology and media, are also especially terrifying: they can control our televisions, even at one point talking to the main character, Shadow, through the image of Lucy Ricardo on his hotel room television.
Because all of the gods feel so real in the book, I started thinking that they might
actually exist in our world. I mean it's entirely possible right? Gods from foreign lands were brought here and worshipped until people stopped believing one day, first because they were forced into other religions, such as Christianity, and then in favor of our new "gods": technology, science, media, celebrity, etc. We
do worship these things; I know I can't live without my precious iPhone and my celebrity obsession.
So if these new gods exist, that would make it entirely possible for the old ones to be walking among us, right?
