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| Anansi Boys: A Novel (Alex Awards (Awards)) | 
 enlarge | Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $6.54
You Save: $20.41 (76%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  183 reviews
Sales Rank: 188874
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.6 x 1.3
ASIN: B000FIHZB4
Publication Date: September 20, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
One of fiction's most audaciously original talents, Neil Gaiman now gives us a mythology for a modern age -- complete with dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime. Anansi Boys
God is dead. Meet the kids. When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed -- before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life. Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie. Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself. Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times bestseller, American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny -- a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 178 more reviews...
 The web of our life is of a mingled yarn September 26, 2005
116 out of 126 found this review helpful
good and ill together. That line from Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well captures the essence of Neil Gaiman's latest creation, Anansi Boys.
Charlie Nancy is one of life's more passive characters. He is perpetually embarrassed by those around him. He grew up in Florida embarrassed by his father who had an eye for the ladies, never seemed to have a job, and who bestowed upon Charlie the nickname "Fat Charlie". It is a name that stuck to Charlie like glue and has followed him everywhere he goes, even to England where he now lives and works. More than anything else, Fat Charlie is embarrassed by himself. His life is an endless stream of self-conscious needless apologies for his life. As one would expect from a character like Charlie he is timid in front of his boss and can't seem to convince his fiance that there is nothing wrong with consummating their relationship prior to their marriage. The word perpetually frustrated comes to mind here.
As the story opens, Fat Charlie is back in Florida for the funeral of his father. Charlie no doubt hopes his dad's death, which occurred while singing a song in a Karaoke bar much to Charlie's embarrassment, will put an end to his own state of perpetual embarrassment. That is the closure Charlie seeks. But the old ladies who made up his Dad's circle of friends tell Fat Charlie that their father was something of a god, in fact a spider god. They also tell Fat Charlie he has a brother. Fat Charlie, of course, will have none of this nonsense and returns to England.
Of course, life is never so simple for any character drawn by Neil Gaiman. It turns out Fat Charlie does have a brother, Spider, who is everything Charlie is not. Spider is personable, charming, glib, and has the ability to charm the pants off just about anyone he desires. As the name Spider implies, Charlie is soon drawn into the parallel world inhabited by Spider a world of small gods and vengeful animals. Fat Charlie is introduced to a whole new universe of characters and his ability to distinguish between fact and fantasy grows increasingly thin.
Anansi Boys worked on two levels for me. First, I actually grew attached to the character of Fat Charlie. I was surprised that I developed such empathy for Fat Charlie. Generally, I do not find `passive' characters all that attractive, but, as the book wore on I felt myself rooting for him. Second, Anansi Boy is, at its heart a story about a dysfunctional (but very funny) family and explores how its members try to reach some accommodation with their past and their present relationships. This is not meant to imply that the book is weighed down with ponderous statements on the meaning of life or families; far from it. The great success of Gaiman's writing in my opinion is that he can handle a topic with both humor and sensitivity. The story does not bog down in `deep thoughts'. Gaiman spins his yarn and leaves it up to the reader to read between the laughs. I found the conclusion to be particularly well done.
Anansi Boys, like the spiders that form its conceptual heart, draws you inexorably into its web until you cannot get out. Fortunately, Gaiman has spun such a fine yarn that you don't mind being ensnared at all. This was a book worth reading.
Not quite Coyote Blue, but very close! September 26, 2005
39 out of 66 found this review helpful
If you enjoyed Christopher Moore's Coyote Blue, you should also
enjoy Anansi Boys. Both books are lighthearted and whimsical, and
both center on a trickster god--one of many gods: a spider god in
Gaiman, and a coyote god in Moore. Gaiman's American Gods is a
much darker novel. This is a milieu where humans and gods
interact--not an all-powerful God of the Bible, but less
powerful and more personal gods who you might go to lunch with,
or who might have you for lunch. In this milieu you might bump into
Hopi, Navajo, Norse, etc gods.
In Anansi Boys the hero, Fat Charlie Nancy, learns that his
father Anansi was the spider god, and that his brother (who he
never knew he had) inherited some of their father's powers.
As with Coyote Blue, this god enjoys a good joke, although
Coyote's tastes tended to be more prurient. In both novels,
hanging out with a god presents some problems, and this is what
makes both novels particularly enjoyable.
As with Coyote Blue, Anansi Boys is--to be blunt--a lot of fun.
As with Coyote Blue, after about 30-40 pages, you know that you
are going to hang onto the book and enjoy reading it again in
a year or so.
 I really wanted to like this... September 29, 2005
11 out of 30 found this review helpful
Neil is my favorite author, so I read this twice to make sure I wasn't missing something the first time around. This book has none of the mystery+humor that makes his other books worth reading. The plot reads like it was conceived as it was written (or like a Dean Koonz novel, you pick which is worse).
 Light but satisfying September 20, 2005
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Anansi Boys, the latest from author Neil Gaiman, is a surprisingly intimate story of two brothers, reunited after their father passes away. It just so happens that their father is Anansi, the African god of stories who is both a spider and a man (depending on the story), and who has spent most of his life embarrassing one son (Fat Charlie) and virtually ignoring the other (tellingly named Spider). A night of drink and song and remembrance later, Spider is after Fat Charlie's fiancee and Charlie is exploring a world he didn't quite realize existed. And to top it off, some of Anansi's compatriots carry a grudge, and are more than happy to take it out on his next of kin.
Though a pseudo-sequel to his Bram Stoker-award-winning opus American Gods, Gaiman's latest is more in tone with the book Good Omens, which he wrote with friend Terry Pratchett some years ago. Boys is quiet where Gods would bellow; Boys is light-hearted where Gods would be shrouded in mystery. There is an energy to Boys that its predecessor lacks: the formers prose was brooding and thoughtful, whereas Boys is more boisterous. Unfortunately, this lightness can get in the way of the story - a subplot involving an embezzling boss who would do anything to keep his timetable to riches and freedom is played more for laughs than as a threat. The plot is thinner than one expects from Gaiman and, most disheartening, Shadow (American God's fascinating protagonist) is nowhere to be seen.
It is unfair, however, to make a comparison when so little of the first book is presented. The novel stands on its own, supported by the emotional linchpin of Spider and Fat Charlie's relationship. Watching these two brothers discover themselves is the heart of the story, and it works in spite of - or perhaps due to - the web of story that contains them.
While not disappointing, Anansi Boys isn't Gaiman's best fair. A wonderful storyteller known for rich, fulfilling fables has delivered something altogether different. Then again, all stories are Anansi's. Even this one.
Dreadful October 5, 2005
10 out of 26 found this review helpful
In a huge departure from his last novel, Gaiman writes a book about the son of a minor god.
Unlike the rest of the reviewers and critics here, I remember when Gaiman was good--Neverwhere, Sandman, etc., but with the exception of Coraline (which was perfect) everything he's produced in the past few years has been crap. American Gods was long-winded and boring, but at least it had a plot. This book has nothing.
Boring characters (Rosie, for God's sake! Fat Charlie! Spider! What inspired names!), a meandering plot, a complete lack of suspense or mystery, and no investment whatsoever in the story makes this among Gaiman's worse efforts. I can't figure out why he wrote this book--if you read Neverwhere or Coraline you can see the time and effort, the craft, the imagination in the characters. There are characters to fall in love with in those books. Everything here is made of cardboard.
Gaiman is not a bad writer, even if he has lost his touch, so there are funny bits in the book. I saw him at a signing and he read the Anansi story about tiger and Anansi's grandmother, and he did a very good job. That's one of the good parts in the book, and there are some funny bits of dialogue, but overall it's a three hour read and if you're honest with yourself by the end of it you'll wish you hadn't bothered.
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