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American Gods Chapter One: Shadow Meets Wednesday

#68: May - July 2009 (Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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American Gods Chapter One: Shadow Meets Wednesday

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Chapter One starts with Shadow, the protagonist and narrator, in jail, awaiting release. He discovers his wife Laura has been killed in a car accident, and meets Mr Wednesday, who is sitting next to him on the plane back to his home town Eagle Point. Wednesday mysteriously follows when Shadow flees the plane.

Characters introduced in Chapter One include

Low Key Lyesmith, a fellow prisoner described as a grifter from Minnesota. Low Key is a strange character. Fond of gallows humour, he introduces Shadow to Herodotus (p4-6), and the line 'Call no man happy until he is dead'. (I thought that was Solon?)

Sam Fetisher, who delivers the great line"Big storm coming. Keep your head down Shadow-boy. It's like ... Tectonic plates. It's like when they go riding, when North America goes skidding into South America, you don't want to be in the middle." (p11)

A buffalo man in a dream, who tells Shadow he is 'where the forgotten wait' and must 'believe everything'. (p19)

Wednesday, wearing a vanilla cream suit with a silver ash tree tiepin, drinking Jack Daniels, and offering Shadow a job. Wednesday tells Shadow "You have nothing waiting for you" at home (p23), an intriguing use of the term nothing, which Gaiman uses in a very ambiguous way, as in the question on the back cover - Is Nothing Sacred? Wednesday says Shadow could be the next King of America.

Gaiman says Shadow "did not believe in anything he could not see", and "Anything electronic seemed fundamentally magical to Shadow, and liable to evaporate at any moment. He liked things he could hold and touch." (p17) This is setting the scene for Shadow seeing some strange things.
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chapter one

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Hello Robert:

I'm about half way through "American Gods", I stopped and re read chapter one to get a better feel of Shadow. I found some interesting things. Gaiman certainly has a very deliberate writing style. I think the first chapter sets up the book very well and he is an excellent story teller.
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xtremeskiier114
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As I'm nearly finished with an English class about analyzing and interpretation of literature, I naturally, when reading chapter one, wonder why Shadow is described so dully, and, throughout the first few chapters, thinks very shallowly. Does he represent mainstream America that has forgotten about the gods like Odin? I'd find it interesting how Gaiman would make the protagonist someone like this
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xtremeskiier114 wrote:As I'm nearly finished with an English class about analyzing and interpretation of literature, I naturally, when reading chapter one, wonder why Shadow is described so dully, and, throughout the first few chapters, thinks very shallowly. Does he represent mainstream America that has forgotten about the gods like Odin? I'd find it interesting how Gaiman would make the protagonist someone like this
Hi skii (love that double i)
I don't find Shadow dull at all. Gaiman is at pains to set Shadow up with nothing, emerging from prison having lost his wife, his job and his sense of purpose in life. His response to the surreal events he encounters seems believable, because he is a normal person. As he comments in Chapter Two, (p67) Shadow wondered why a dream of a museum could leave him terrified yet he seemed to be coping with a walking corpse without fear. Yes he does represent mainstream views, notably that he does not believe anything he cannot see. Gaiman is suggesting there is a hidden reality which the mainstream ignores. Shadow's normality is important to open up an engagement between the visible and the invisible worlds.
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Shadow

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Hello xtremeskiier114:

So happy to see you again.

I wondered the same thing. Why would Shadow be choosen? What I find interesting is his crime. Gaiman touches on it lightly, he only says that Shadow served time in jail to spare Laura, and that three people were involved in the crime. Shadow payed for the crimes of others. Shadow is sacrificied to save others from their sins. This sounds a bit familiar. What do you think Robert?
Patrick Kilgallon
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American Gods: A Novel- by Neil Gaiman

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I read this book and I really like how Gaiman borrows from traditional Anglo-Saxon stories and mythology. It is a very masculine book with action hero types of scenes and snappy dialogues. Well picked.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Shadow

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Suzanne wrote:Hello xtremeskiier114: So happy to see you again. I wondered the same thing. Why would Shadow be choosen? What I find interesting is his crime. Gaiman touches on it lightly, he only says that Shadow served time in jail to spare Laura, and that three people were involved in the crime. Shadow payed for the crimes of others. Shadow is sacrificied to save others from their sins. This sounds a bit familiar. What do you think Robert?
Hi Suzanne, hope your ankle isn't too bad. Were you reading the high protein homework edition? :)

Yes, the veneer of normality regarding the characterisation of Shadow conceals a persona that grows steadily more complex as the plot develops. This theme you note of sacrifice of the innocent to expiate the sins of others directly fits Shadow's involvement in a crime for which he was not an instigator but for which he took all the rap. This could of course be read as an allusion to Jesus Christ, who did just that in the Gospel story, although Gaiman is at pains to ignore the Judeo-Christian Gods. We may need to look into Norse myth to find other examples, but lets leave that until we discuss later chapters when Shadow is fleshed out more.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: American Gods: A Novel- by Neil Gaiman

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Patrick Kilgallon wrote:I read this book and I really like how Gaiman borrows from traditional Anglo-Saxon stories and mythology. It is a very masculine book with action hero types of scenes and snappy dialogues. Well picked.
Hi Patrick, thanks and welcome to Booktalk. I will be interested to hear your thoughts on American Gods. No question, Wednesday is a cool dude, and the action is gripping and well paced. I liked Wednesday's comment that charm can be learned, as it still gives me hope! He really is the ladies man. There is also a strong feminine side to this book, for example Bilquis the Queen of Sheba illustrates a raw female energy which is contemptuous of misogynist losers, and all the main characters have more depth than is usual in action novels. Goddesses such as Kali insert a more complex vision of gender into the action plot, with Gaiman seeming to lay blame for the forgetting of the Gods at the feet of modern patriarchal culture.
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Thank you. I look forward to when you all reach the scene in which Wednesday displayed his cool wit when taken for a ride in the limo with a small type villian. Will be dipping into that when you started discussing that chapter.
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Shadow

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Quote by Suzanne: Shadow payed for the crimes of others. Shadow is sacrificied to save others from their sins. This sounds a bit familiar. (Don't know how to box it).

I agree with Suzanne that Shadow, the only redeeming person in the book as far as I am concerned, is a depressed masochist and has been sacrificed to save others and with Robert that Shadow may be a symbol for the good benevolent Jesus Christ, who becomes the modern God for Christians (if you believe like I do).

I have read about 150 pages of this book, and am having a hard time getting through it. It is so sinister and violent in places; I cannot say that I like it. People and animals are treated disrespectfully, as though life has no meaning.

I see a theme of good versus evil running through this book, and I think that good will win. In my opinion, Wednesday is the symbol of evil and Shadow is the symbol of good, although Shadow certainly is not perfect (drives the get away car for the bank heist but does not rob the bank).

Could the old evil Gods and their requirement for sacrifice be the result of the way man thought back then? What I mean is, that perhaps during evolution, man changed his way of thinking (became civilized) and therefore the evil Odin ( God of death and war) who had to be appeased by the ultimate sacrifices (human and animal life) has evolved into our modern benevolent God who is satisfied with worship (or not).
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