Wednesday, February 25, 2004

American Gods

Terminei hoje. Devo ter investido umas 12 horas lendo. O enredo é excelente, seguindo um tema em que o Gaiman fica bem à vontade: O personagem principal, Shadow, começa a trabalhar para o Sr. Wednesday, e a partir daí entra em contato com todo tipo de deuses: desde os "clássicos" nórdicos e egípcios até os "modernos" deuses da mídia, da Internet e dos cartões de crédito. A cada uma dessas experiências, Shadow amadurece (e se torna cada vez mais cínico), ao mesmo tempo que a "tempestade" se aproxima. Entre alguns capítulos aparecem algumas histórias independentes (tão independentes quanto histórias do Gaiman podem ser...) contando a história de como alguns desses deuses chegaram à América.

Outra característica do livro (e essa é marca registrada do Gaiman) são os "pré-requisitos". Há várias referências a mitologias e curiosidades históricas, que são mais interessantes pra quem as conhece. Felizmente meu "Os Vikings - Mitos e Lendas" (um livro meio infantil sobre mitologia nórdica que eu li uns 7 anos atrás) e minhas tardes de Wikipedia me ajudaram nesse ponto.

Agora alguns zelotes enfurecidos vão me queimar: O ponto fraco do livro é que, apesar do autor ter um estilo único em seus quadrinhos, e mesmo em sua história curta Dream Hunters, neste romance o [não] estilo da escrita é bem claro: frases curtas, alguns palavrões, algumas mudanças de ponto de vista ("o velho tinha certeza: sorvete faz computadores funcionarem melhor"), algumas cenas bem "gráficas" de sexo. Quem conhece Stephen King ou Clive Barker sabe exatamente do que estou falando. Em certos pontos nos primeiros capítulos isso ficou tão claro que eu comecei a ter Deja Vus de trechos dos "Livros de Sangue". Mais pro final do livro, quando já estava "ambientado" com a história, essa sensação diminuiu.

Como "trecho obrigatório" dessa resenha, eu deixo o discurso da Samantha Black Crow sobre o que ela acredita:
"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done in properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a women's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

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