Neil Gaiman tells the story of Charles Nancy - known to everyone as Fat Charlie, thanks to his father. Fat Charlie is a perfectly normal guy, living somewhere in London, has a normal job, a normal fiancée and finds out by chance, that his father (a more or less friendly guy, always a little mischievous) has died. He flies to the US, where his father lived, and as if losing his father is not enough, he learns, that his father was a god, and that Fat Charlie has a brother - and what is really strange, if he wanted to get to know to him, he shall tell a spider to get and find him. Back in Europe, Fat Charlie does tell a spider to find his brother, the spider winks, and the next thing you know is, that the brother is there. The brother - Spider - and Fat Charlie go grieving about their late father in the necessary three stages: wine, lady, song.
When Fat Charlie awakes the next morning, he lies next to a naked lady, and has no idea, who she is, has overslept and his fiancées mother is on the front door. At the end of the next day, all of Fat Charlies live is completely changed: he gets money from his chef, and a plus of 2 weeks holidays, he has lost his fiancée to his brother and is no more able to get home... Things involve another trip to the States, a trip to the beginning of the world (mind you, not the end!), a murder, a ghost, a trip to the prison and (without telling too much) a happy end!
I do have my problem with Neil Gaiman's Godstories, I don't know why this is, but "American Gods" is not one of my favourites either. All the same... I did not like all of the story, but I really liked the last 50 pages or so. Everything turns in a nice way, everything comes to a good end, so a perfect happy ending!
I award 7 out of 10, for a story which could not really convince me, but which turned out to be very nice!
Next book to be reviewed is the much discussed (in amazon, anyway) Hiss of Death by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown.
No comments:
Post a Comment