In the sunset years of the Empire
Simon Winder's book The Man Who Saved Britain, which caught my attention back before Thanksgiving last year, will be a disappointment to hardcore Bond fans and a frustration to dedicated historians of postwar England. That's all right, though, because Winder admits right from the start that the book is sure to disappoint both types of readers. So what's the point of reading it, then?
( Perspective, old chap. Perspective. )
Anansi Boys, on the other hand - wow. It's a screwball comedy all right, where the fast-living, terribly attractive Spider comes into his brother Fat Charlie's life and turns it upside down and inside out, but this being Gaiman, the horror and the magic comes along soon enough as Fat Charlie tries to get Spider back out of his life. Comparing this to American Gods doesn't really work, since that's an epic book in both its scale and its action, while Anansi Boys is more of a BBC sitcom sort of thing; sure, they're both about magic and horror and ordinary people getting swept up in much bigger things, but even in the darkest parts of the novel you have the firm conviction that Spider and Fat Charlie are going to come out of their troubles all right and go home with the girls at the end. I liked it a lot, and recommend it highly. Makes a good, if strange, combination with the Winder book; between those two and The Root of All Evil, I was dreaming some strange dreams last night before the Gospel music woke me shortly after 0600.
( Perspective, old chap. Perspective. )
Anansi Boys, on the other hand - wow. It's a screwball comedy all right, where the fast-living, terribly attractive Spider comes into his brother Fat Charlie's life and turns it upside down and inside out, but this being Gaiman, the horror and the magic comes along soon enough as Fat Charlie tries to get Spider back out of his life. Comparing this to American Gods doesn't really work, since that's an epic book in both its scale and its action, while Anansi Boys is more of a BBC sitcom sort of thing; sure, they're both about magic and horror and ordinary people getting swept up in much bigger things, but even in the darkest parts of the novel you have the firm conviction that Spider and Fat Charlie are going to come out of their troubles all right and go home with the girls at the end. I liked it a lot, and recommend it highly. Makes a good, if strange, combination with the Winder book; between those two and The Root of All Evil, I was dreaming some strange dreams last night before the Gospel music woke me shortly after 0600.