Read: American Gods

what neil gaiman does in AMERICAN GODS is point out what traditions mean in the new world, and what happens when we try and establish new ones - or ideas of traditions without understanding the power they hold, the meaning they carry over the centuries. shadow, ever us, not understanding the reasons why he must do the things he does, comes to the conclusion that in the same way american cares not for the old gods, the old gods don't care very much for us. but it's not necessarily a toxic relationship, not so much that pure belief in them is a bad thing, but there ought to always be a questioning of their word.

AMERICAN GODS is also about the old world relinquishing its grasp on our daily existence. it's not about forsaking your history - a mighty sacrilege - but rather recognizing that time moves and so we must adapt to it. it's about the stubbornness of the old guard to realize that the old ways, simply, undeniably have no more the value they used to other than decoration, and it is also about how the young willingly make sin and call it 'new'. they revere the perverse ostentatious and maligned and cancerous like an odd badge of rebellion while not seeing that it isn't rebellion but conformity.

lastly, AMERICAN GODS is about a man who made several mistakes in his life, and who has to live with them. it is about the woman who loved him and whom he loved, and about being unable to make things right. neither one of them can. so what else is there to do? live or be dead. the latter thinks she wants to be alive again, and the former chooses death to live.

thematically, AMERICAN GODS could be the much older brother of cormac mccarthy's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD ME.

[cross-posted on facebook.]