Irritation with American Gods

MaryLupin · Sat May 16, 2009 12:15 pm

I've started American Gods and while there is much to be loved about Gaiman's book, there are a few irksome things. The one that prompted this topic comes from the end of chapter 4 when "Cousin Jack," speaking with Essie Tregowan, says "...it was you that brought me here, and a few like you, into this land with no time for magic and no place for piskies and such folk."

Apart from my general irritation with gods who wallow in self-pity (I mean this is a fellow who can pull gold out of the sky, I am quite sure with a little work he can drum up some new support), there is the fact of the statement's inaccuracy. OK so it is a story and by definition "fiction." I get that. But any story posits a world where there are inherent rules, even post-modern fiction which often posits a rule that there are no rules. But Jack's whinging about "this land with no time for magic" breaks the rule of the book - that the gods still worshipped by the people are real and vital presences in the land where the people do the worshipping. Even if the gods are unfamiliar with each other - as in the case of the old versus the new gods. So what the piske Jack should have found when he followed Essie, was a land very, very full of gods of the people who already lived here when Essie and her kind arrived.

Now I get this a European novel concentrating on the European gods, but the novel brings in the battles between Euros and the Indigenous with the Viking landing. And it is the novel that posits the reality of the gods so I do think I have a right to expect consistency.

Like I said - I am irritated. I mean how am I supposed to read that? That the indigenous didn't have gods? That they do but those gods are invisible to the Euro gods? If so what kind of god is that?

I could rant for a while so I am signing off - Irritated.

But before I go,

do you have spots that "irritate" you too?

Robert Tulip · Sat May 16, 2009 5:18 pm


	MaryLupin wrote: Jack's whinging about "this land with no time for magic" breaks the rule of the book - that the gods still worshipped by the people are real and vital presences in the land where the people do the worshipping. ... how am I supposed to read that? That the indigenous didn't have gods? That they do but those gods are invisible to the Euro gods? If so what kind of god is that?

The portrayal of the USA is as a place that has lost touch with the sacred. The ease with which the European invasion seemingly destroyed the indigenous frameworks of the New World led the invaders to worship their own technology as all-powerful. A key element of this modern technological power is its denial of potency and respect to mere ideas, such as indigenous Gods. The Euro Gods hitched a ride with America's colonists, and never achieved the acknowledgement they had in their lands of birth. Gaiman is implying that the 'real and vital presences' you mention are a very rare thing. Instead, true worship is somehow subterranean, invisible to the dominant society.

MaryLupin · Sat May 16, 2009 6:24 pm

Robert Tulip wrote:


	MaryLupin wrote: The portrayal of the USA is as a place that has lost touch with the sacred. The ease with which the European invasion seemingly destroyed the indigenous frameworks of the New World led the invaders to worship their own technology as all-powerful.

I agree that based on what I have read so far that this portrayal is what Gaiman is saying. It's just that it's deeply wrong for much of America. It's my background, I guess. I am an atheist but I have spent a lot of time in a variety of ceremonial situations where the gods are considered very real and very present. These people freak (for example) when they see dimes scattered on the floor that they cannot explain because it is a sign of the "little people." Others pour "libations" all the time, leave offerings, sing songs to the spirits and other such practices. Many people in the Americas live in the many-gods-mindset.

So I don't agree that the indigenous frameworks were destroyed - well the economic ones were, but the belief systems have modified but they are still deeply present. They just aren't talked about. History books are written as if Native people simply vanished after a certain point in Colonial history. It just irritates me when an author of Gaiman's caliber falls into this basic stereotype.

What has really fallen is the belief in the efficacy of a one-god belief system. This started long ago with the cultural and mercantile values that developed along with Protestantism so that now the current one-god religions seem to be more about political power and economic individualism than they are about the world in general as are the many-gods systems still operating. The one-god systems in losing touch with the non-political and non-economic natural world, has allowed other systems to vie for control over those bits of human experience simply not dealt with by one-god systems. This is what Gaiman's book is really about I think. But by doing that, he has left out a really big piece of human experience. One-god-system believers, their antecedents and their descendants are not the only game in town. I just wish Gaiman hadn't forgotten that.

Robert Tulip · Sat May 16, 2009 7:22 pm


	MaryLupin wrote: ...Many people in the Americas live in the many-gods-mindset. So I don't agree that the indigenous frameworks were destroyed - well the economic ones were, but the belief systems have modified but they are still deeply present. They just aren't talked about. History books are written as if Native people simply vanished after a certain point in Colonial history. It just irritates me when an author of Gaiman's caliber falls into this basic stereotype.... One-god-system believers, their antecedents and their descendants are not the only game in town. I just wish Gaiman hadn't forgotten that.

Gaiman is not saying indigenous systems were destroyed, only that they seemed to be destroyed from the perspective of the invading victor in the wars of American establishment. Hence his cosmic battle is between the forces of paganism and monotheism, with indigenous Gods ranged on the pagan side. The Buffalo Dream Man, and the amazing story of the first settlers in Virginia in 13000 BC, bringing their mammoth God which died after a few generations, show the sympathy Gaiman has for indigenous spirituality.

MaryLupin · Sat May 16, 2009 9:16 pm


	Robert Tulip wrote: The Buffalo Dream Man, and the amazing story of the first settlers in Virginia in 13000 BC, bringing their mammoth God which died after a few generations, show the sympathy Gaiman has for indigenous spirituality.

OK. I haven't got to that bit yet so I will keep reading and see if my irritation lifts. But if it's the mammoth god, wouldn't that be Buffalo Woman now? I let you know once I get to the mammoth god. I bet Coyote makes an appearance.

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