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IS NOTHING SACRED?

#68: May - July 2009 (Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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I saw Mary's shout in the Shoutbox so I'll add Robert Tulip as the Book Discussion Leader. Thanks Robert. :smile:

We should make threads that the search engines will understand. This thread was labeled "Nothing." Google won't bring new people to this thread with such a name. We're competing with 900,000,000 other pages and sites labeled as "Nothing." I noticed that the intention of this thread is to discuss the back cover question, "IS NOTHING SACRED?" so I've relabeled the thread as such.
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Robert Tulip

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Chris OConnor wrote:I saw Mary's shout in the Shoutbox so I'll add Robert Tulip as the Book Discussion Leader. Thanks Robert. :smile:

We should make threads that the search engines will understand. This thread was labeled "Nothing." Google won't bring new people to this thread with such a name. We're competing with 900,000,000 other pages and sites labeled as "Nothing." I noticed that the intention of this thread is to discuss the back cover question, "IS NOTHING SACRED?" so I've relabeled the thread as such.
Nothing would please me more.

:D
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Interbane

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So much for trying to catch up, I'll have to join this one. I've gone through a lot of books from past discussions. I'm on "On Being Certain" right now.
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Robert Tulip

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Interbane wrote:So much for trying to catch up, I'll have to join this one. I've gone through a lot of books from past discussions. I'm on "On Being Certain" right now.
Hi Interbane. Great that you will read American Gods. This 'Is Nothing Sacred' line points to the ambiguity in the language we use to discuss mythology. By anthropomorphising the Gods in modern fiction, Gaiman opens a path to interpretation of who they really are, in a twilight between something and nothing. His argument is that the Gods live in people's hearts and die after people forget them. However, this does not make Gods merely subjective, because only those Gods who resonate with perceived needs are remembered. The problem is that the perception of need may not align with actuality, that our Gods may lead us blindly on a path with no future. Gaiman suggests that the wired world has made new Gods, through electronic technology, which are very shallow in their purchase on reality, whereas the older Gods have a deeper resonance with actual longstanding human needs. Did no one get my joke?
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xtremeskiier114
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Robert,
You say that "Only those Gods who resonate with perceived needs are remembered". Is Gaiman is trying to show that only the "modern, electronic technology Gods" are remembered by "modern era people"? While only the older Gods with connections to longstanding human needs are remembered by "older & wiser" people in the story?
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Robert Tulip

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xtremeskiier114 wrote:Robert,
You say that "Only those Gods who resonate with perceived needs are remembered". Is Gaiman is trying to show that only the "modern, electronic technology Gods" are remembered by "modern era people"? While only the older Gods with connections to longstanding human needs are remembered by "older & wiser" people in the story?
Hi skiier, welcome to Booktalk. Your summary is close to the mark. A main theme of American Gods is that there is a gathering storm regarding the weakness and inadequacy of the new Gods. The good guys in the book are the old pagan Gods and their friends. Christianity is implicitly seen as responsible for humanity falling out of the sacred, and for setting the scene for modern era America where people have no idea of deep roots but are satisfied with a superficial understanding. It is not that the book features 'older and wiser' people, but that the Gods themselves are characters, preparing for battle against the modern world.

The modern perception is that old Gods are not needed. Gaiman seeks to depict the shallow emptiness that results from the modern effort to deny any relevance for ancient tales. He thinks that drawing from all the mythology of the world provides a connection to a deeper original reality than our modern science alone can see. He argues the modern technological perception is deluded, and needs to be set in an ancient context to achieve wisdom. There are strong echoes of the film The Matrix in this portrayal of the technosphere as somehow alive and perhaps even malevolent.
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Suzanne

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your joke

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Robert Tulip wrote:
Did no one get my joke?
You are sacrificing your time to lead this discussion, that is very unusual in a god. But, I am glad you are easy to please!

Suzanne
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Suzanne

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Foreign gods

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I thought Wednesday discription of "Lady Liberty" interesting.

Wednesday says:
Like so many of the gods that Americans hold dear, a foreigner.
He continues:
Liberty, is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses.
Wednsday tells Shadow that he is quoting someone French, who would that be?

I think the gods Americans hold so dear are the ones fasioned into technology, we try very hard keeping up with Japan, we admire the technology of Japan. And if we do hold technology as god like, we through it away when the next model comes out. What do we hold sacred, the newest phone or computer? The newest phone or computer are out dated before it is bought, the next model is allready in production. America is such a consumer based country, do we see people who own the newest technology as god like? Then again, we often through people away too. We are such a disposable country, we only hold dear that which suits our purpose at the time.
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MaryLupin

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Re: Foreign gods

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Suzanne wrote:
Liberty, is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses.
Wednsday tells Shadow that he is quoting someone French, who would that be?
I am not sure of course, but the only thing that it reminds me of is “The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants” which was penned by Bertrand Barere (there should be an accent grave over the first "e" in Barere). Barere was appointed to the Committee of Public Safety and was in tight with Robspierre during the French Revolution.
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.
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Thomas Hood
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Re: Foreign gods

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Suzanne wrote:Wednsday tells Shadow that he is quoting someone French, who would that be?
Louis-Antoine St. Just
http://www.blakeneymanor.com/stjustbio.html
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