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| Anansi Boys: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy Used: $0.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  183 reviews
Sales Rank: 49016
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 006051518X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060515188
ASIN: 006051518X
Publication Date: September 20, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: The text is clean with some moderate exterior wear.
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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
118 out of 128 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).
One of the best Audio CD's April 2, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'm not reviewing the book, or the author but only the audio tape. I have not read this book, but have read other Neil Gaiman stories. I didn't think I would ever listen to anything better than Jim Dale's narrative of Harry Potter, but I was wrong. Lenny Henry is fabulous!! I can't say this is a good read since I've only listened. It is a wonderful audio tape. (assuming you enjoy fantasy) Lenny Henry should win a Grammy for this. I didn't put it away half way through the book, in fact I couldn't wait for the right moment to start listening again. This is not a heavy story like "American Gods" or Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings", it is more like "Stardust" with less mythology and more fantasy. I found it light hearted yet absorbing.
 Good, but not Gaiman's best May 10, 2006
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
The problem with reading Neil Gaiman books is that he has awfully big shoes to fill - namely, his own. I'm a squealing fangirl for Sandman, and I loved Neverwhere and American Gods, but was totally underwhelmed with Stardust and Coraline. Somewhere in the middle of those two emotions comes Anansi Boys.
For the first, oh, fifty to sixty percent, I felt like Anasi Boys was going to be a big letdown. Then somewhere along the line, I didn't want to stop reading. It wasn't that I loved it all of a sudden, but I really wanted to find out what happened next.
I have the feeling that if this book weren't written by Neil Gaiman, I'd have loved it a lot more. As it is - I enjoyed it, but I am still a bit disappointed. I think something about the characterization was just not deep enough to win my heart. And it's a shame, because I could see the shining pinnacle of story that this book wanted to be, but it just didn't reach it. It was like the skinny kid who is trying so darned hard to ring the bell at the carnival with a big hammer, but just can't get the oomph behind it.
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