American Gods

I feel like maybe if I'd read this in 2001, it would've blown me away. Now, it all seems familiar, probably because by now it's become a “famous” book. And because all of its core ideas about gods and faith and belief have been explored repeatedly in some of my favorite books, like Small Gods and Good Omens. It also seemed that there were several revelations that were supposed to surprise me throughout the book, but almost nothing was genuinely surprising.

There's probably a metaphor built in, about the “aura” around this book building up over the years and developing some kind of power on its own, beyond the quality of the book itself. I'm still a big fan of Gaiman's, and still consider Good Omens to be my favorite novel, but reading all the supplementary material in the 10th anniversary edition (which is already 8 years old at this point) has tempered that a little bit. A lot of the conversational writing that I found incredibly charming in the late 80s now comes across as affectation. I definitely liked American Gods, but I can't help feeling like it's gone past its read-by date.