Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
Oct. 9th, 2005 12:14 pmThankfully my flight got cancelled on Thursday, and I got to spend six hours in Dublin Airport.
Thankfully, because I'd picked up Anansi Boys the day before, and got to read it while I was waiting, Gaiman name-checks PG Wodehouse and Tex Avery in his forward, and there are traces of their influence, but I also caught welcome echoes of Terry Pratchett and Roger Zelazny.
No time to do an in-depth review just now, but enough to say that this was a pleasant, light read, with occasional diversions into a kind of comedy-horror that seems to be Gaimans own.
It's unusual, too, in seeming to be colour blind - the narrator is of African descent, and the myths, gods and witches come via the Caribean, but no big thing is made of this - it just seems assumed that this culture is part of the human culture, and needs no special explanation.
Good fun, you'll come away refreshed, and not overly challenged.
Thankfully, because I'd picked up Anansi Boys the day before, and got to read it while I was waiting, Gaiman name-checks PG Wodehouse and Tex Avery in his forward, and there are traces of their influence, but I also caught welcome echoes of Terry Pratchett and Roger Zelazny.
No time to do an in-depth review just now, but enough to say that this was a pleasant, light read, with occasional diversions into a kind of comedy-horror that seems to be Gaimans own.
It's unusual, too, in seeming to be colour blind - the narrator is of African descent, and the myths, gods and witches come via the Caribean, but no big thing is made of this - it just seems assumed that this culture is part of the human culture, and needs no special explanation.
Good fun, you'll come away refreshed, and not overly challenged.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 08:48 pm (UTC)What was funny about Dublin was that the bar was mobbed at 6.30 a.m. and empty by 9.00...