The old gods and the new
or, how Neil Gaiman predicted this year and probably forgot
The other day I finally finished reading American Gods, Neil Gaiman’s chungus of a fantasy novel in which a hapless ex-con known as Shadow gets swept up into a war between two supernatural camps. On one side are the “old gods” — manifestations of mythic figures such as Odin, Anansi and Thoth who have been dragged to America over the centuries by the immigrant peoples who believed in them. On the other are the “new gods,” figures who embody the contemporary idols that many Americans currently worship, and who have supplanted the old gods’ pride of place in the nation’s heart. These include aspects of media, technology, globalism and drugs.
For most of the novel, Shadow is ostensibly on the side of the old gods and the reader is made to sympathize with them. But hopefully I don’t spoil things too much by telling you that, eventually, things prove to not be so simple. Neither the old nor new gods can really be considered good guys, and the “war” between them may in fact be just a smokescreen for something else.
I found it a fun, thought-provoking read overall, albeit more interested in spectacle and ideas than characters or narrative, and sometimes unnecessarily lurid. In any case, it’s timely that I was reading this particular novel, concerned with these particular ideas, at this particular time. First published in 2001, American Gods is both a celebration of our country’s diversity and a critique of how we keep attempting to resolve that diversity through violence. Such themes seem more important now than ever before — yet I wonder to what extent Gaiman and his ilk are still considering them.
Judging from snippets of his Twitter feed, it seems clear that the British expatriate has planted his flag firmly on one side of America’s culture war, which is a little amusing to me since American Gods is basically a critique of culture wars in the most literal sense. But it’s also not surprising, considering a) the amount of time that has elapsed since he wrote the novel, and b) the fact that he is now a key figure among our pop-culture elite, and therefore more or less required to ideologically align himself in one direction. Namely, toward unquestioning affirmation of such credos as “we’re killing the planet,” “Orange Man bad,” and “if you care about people you’ll stay home and wear a mask.”
Not that I entirely disagree with any of those credos. But I don’t entirely agree with them either. And such a position is possible, I promise.
Herein lies the huge irony that’s troubling me: I wish our artists and literati were better at personally living out the values that they promote in their work. Values such as iconoclasm, independent thought, empathy and courage. I don’t speak so much of Gaiman in particular — with the exception of the aforementioned snippets, his Twitter feed (which I take as a microcosm of his public presentation overall) is relatively apolitical (though Twitter sets a very very low bar for that).
But regardless of how vocal he and other artists may be, declaring wholesale allegiance to one side or the other in our nation’s cold civil war puts those values in serious jeopardy. I want to see more both/and thinking from our cultural luminaries, and less either/or. But with each passing day there’s less and less of the former to be found.
In the novel’s climax (vague spoiler warning), it is revealed that both the old and new gods have been played by a third party, one that has turned both camps against each other for its own benefit. The underlying lesson here is so timeless, and yet so stubbornly ignored, that it makes me want to tear my hair out. When you find inflammatory messaging being persistently lobbed at you, and feel a corresponding rise in your blood pressure, ask yourself — who benefits from your anger? Not the people you’re angry at, most likely.
Although I’m sure Gaiman didn’t intend such a specific read on his broad parable, I can’t help but compare the old gods to our conservatives, and the new gods to our progressives. The former cling to the past, their darker impulses rising from greed and insecurity, while the latter are restless and hedonistic, constantly shifting their own goalposts out of terror of obsolescence. Together, they’re the twin engines of an anger generator powering a toxic and stubbornly undead version of America.
This is a country at war with itself, forever fixated on its wounds, and incapable of identifying as a whole without inflicting violence on some or all of its parts. Maybe that’s all statecraft is, at bottom: different methods of channeling violence. American Gods talks a lot about the nature of belief, and maybe that’s all belief is, at bottom: different methods of excising or suppressing those parts of the truth that we don’t want to deal with. I’d like to think it’s not, however. But I don’t think we’ll find a way out of this cycle if we always insist on planting flags and picking sides.
