Anansi Boys

Neil Gaiman

Rating 3.5/5

You know those times when a friend asks you, “What are you reading?”, and then probes further on what it is about. That is the moment you wish you were not reading Anansi Boys — because saying that the book you are reading is about “a spider king’s sons who are locked in a battle with birds and the mighty tiger because they stole the latter’s stories” does not really make you look all that good.

Yet, it is the charm of Gaiman’s writing that holds your attention through a rather ridiculous plot. There are points in the book where the sequence of events gets so bizarre that one wonders if they lost the thread of the plot. However, Gaiman successfully conjures, from within this absurdity, a sense of excitement and some really witty humour.

Gaiman pieces together the story’s modern day setting and the background of folk animal tales pretty well. This book reminded me of a book of Russian stories that I had as a child which told stories about “how the leopard got its spots” and “why does a kangaroo have a pouch” — almost like a western panchtantra.

To be fair, though, there are parts where the story gets too convoluted and tedious for the reader to follow completely. The book could have been shorter and tighter in its storytelling.

I came out of it smiling though. And it is a good Gaiman book to start because from what I have heard, this isn’t close to his best writings. So one can look forward to reading superlative stuff from him in the future.