American Gods vs. American Gods.
- Chynna Williams
- Aug 5, 2017
- 6 min read
Hello everybody, it's Chynna here, and welcome to my new blog. I am very excited to get this thing going, because I've been wanting to re-start a blog for a while now. Two years ago I started a blog, to keep my family and friends updated on my travels throughout Europe, while I was living in Italy for a semester. I loved writing about my experiences, and wanted to get back into writing again. So, here it is. This blog will be dedicated to all the things that I love talking about; my favorite television shows, books, and recipes. For my first post, I will be doing a comparison on a novel I just read, American Gods by Neil Gaiman vs. the new Starz television show, American Gods. I hope that all of you or most of you, enjoy my new blog-site titled, the Caffeinated Foodie. Without further ado, here is my review!
American Gods Novel written by Neil Gaiman
Recently, I just finished reading the Tenth Anniversary Edition version of American Gods, written by Neil Gaiman. I borrowed this copy from my good friend, Madeleine Salem, because I've been wanting to watch the show for a while. Mostly, because one of the main actors in the show, played a character who we all knew and loved in one of my other favorite shows, Lincoln cough from The 100 cough cough.
A part from that, I always like to read the novels first, before watching the television adaption of the book. Because most of the time, the television adaption's love to take out and change a lot of what was in the book. I love getting the full back story before watching the show, and to see why this specific novel out of all the novels was able to get a television adaption.
American Gods is set in modern day America, where we follow the character Shadow Moon. He is recently released from jail early, because his wife, Laura Moon, had just passed away under unusual circumstances. As he flies back home he meets an eccentric character who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, because that was the day Shadow Moon met him. Later in the book we figure out who he really is, a certain Norse God that we're all too familiar with (that's all I'll say about that, because I don't want to spoil too much). Mr. Wednesday offers Shadow Moon a job, to be his errand boy, as he travels across the country to do some recruiting. Shadow is hesitant at first, but Mr. Wednesday is very persuasive, and Shadow is thrust into a world he never even believed could exist.
Through this trek across America, we find out that there is a war going on between the Old Gods and the New Gods. Mr. Wednesday is traveling across America to recruit members of Old to defeat these New Gods, who are all about bringing technology, media, love and drugs to the forefront of society. Throughout the novel we meet some very interesting characters, including some old gods who are very well-known in Mythology and the Bible. Getting some back stories and flashbacks of these old gods, throughout Mr. Wednesday and Shadow's trek across America. If you want my full review on American Gods the novel, you can click this goodreads link to check it out. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1960284254?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
American Gods, Starz Television Show
All in all I thought Starz did a very good job at adapting the novel into a television show. I couldn’t tell you if I liked the novel or the television show better, because there were some issues I had with both. Of course, you aren't going to get everything that was in the 600+page book, into the television show, especially with it only being an eight episode season. But, I was very disappointed in the things they took out and changed, when they added in a lot more that I didn't think was necessary.
Dislikes
A character that's probably focused in the book in only a few chapters, was delved in more deeply throughout the show. This was with the character and mythological God, Bilquis, the mother goddess of love and the Biblical Queen of Sheba.
While she was an interesting character to get to know throughout the show, she was hardly mentioned in the book. For some reason, I got the feeling that they focused more on her, because she was a very sexual character. This novel did have its few sexy and steamy moments, but it wasn't the primary focus of the story. I felt like the show added more sexual moments, when they didn't need to, in order to get more viewers. Which is a sad thing to say, but that's my opinion after reading the book that wasn't so much focused on this sexual character. This was one of the main plot points that I didn't like about the show, after reading the novel.
The main reason, why I didn't like that they focused so much on Bilquis, was because it took away from one of my favorite scenes of the book. That's when Shadow Moon stays in a town called Lakeside, as Mr. Wednesday does some more recruiting in San Francisco. This was one of my favorite sections of the novel, that they missed in the show. I loved this section because we got to see Shadow Moon live his life in a relatively normal town, after being dragged along this war between gods. I believe if they didn't focus so much on Bilquis, they could've added this part in. Those were basically the only issues I had to complain about the show, because it was a very well done adaption.
Likes
The writing was pretty much spot on with the writing of the book, which I enjoyed greatly. I love it whenever they bring in the authors as Executive Producer's for the television shows, because I think it helps the network to be able stay true to the novel. For example, when they brought in Brian McGreevy who wrote Hemlock Grove, to be the Executive Producer for the Netflix adaption. The first season of Hemlock Grove was pretty much spot on with the book.
I thought the actors did a wonderful job portraying the very wicked and eccentric characters of this novel. These characters were certainly extremely creative and different from most characters in books that I've ever read before. So, I was curious as to how the actors were going to do. My favorite characters were obviously Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) and Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane). But, I also really enjoyed Mad Sweeny (Pablo Schreiber)… even though he has quite a different end in the novel, and Media (Gillian Anderson) was good for some comic relief. Some minor roles I enjoyed were Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones), Mr. Ibis (Demore Barnes), and the Zorya sisters. One character who I was surprised to like in the show, because I did not like her AT ALL in the book, was Laura Moon played by Emily Browning. I thought Emily Browning was a standout in this show, and should receive some recognition for her portrayal of a not so well-liked character. The way she captured the character of Laura Moon, I thought was brilliant, making me like Laura a little bit more. With that being said, that was another story of the television show I really enjoyed, because we got to see more of her character's background story. When we didn't really get that in the book, except for whenever Laura was speaking with Shadow. Here is a link to see the cast of the show, and some images of the cast of characters.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Two more aspects I thoroughly enjoyed of this television adaption, were the Cinematography and the reenactments of the Coming to America sections. In the novel, we get these flashbacks of the Gods, which are titled Coming to America. I thought these reenactments were some of the most creative and beautiful aspects of the show. They were filmed in such a way that I've never really seen before. It made for a beautiful looking show, which I greatly appreciated, and was very impressed with. I thought Starz did a stunning job of capturing Neil Gaiman's world of American Gods. Here are some beautiful images I was able to find online.
Conclusion
All in all, I thought American Gods was a very interesting and different book from anything else I have ever read before. I thought Starz did a very good job at adapting it into a television show, even though there were some changes I didn't appreciate. I couldn't tell you if I liked one over the other, but that they were both equally good. I am very curious as to where they will go with the second season of the television show, once the "war" is over. Anyways, I hope all of you enjoyed my extensive comparison of American Gods vs. American Gods. I had a lot of fun writing this blog post, and hope to do some more comparisons in the future! T.T.F.N!
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