Colin P. Dalton

Breathless, breakneck narration ruins pacing

Revisado: 05-12-17

As I'd read Neverwhere & American Gods before starting this audiobook, I knew exactly what to expect of Gaiman's writing going into "Anansi Boys." He has a peculiar aptitude for describing the general awfulness & awkwardness of the human condition, while never losing sight of the sublime Beyond of our mental otherworlds, whence gods & myths originated (and have lately ceased to do so, mostly due to self-serving Boomer trademark law extensions preventing renowned cultural figures from passing into the broader public discourse).

Sadly, the overall production quality, or lack thereof, in this audiobook rendition mashes Gaiman's willful bifurcation of mundane & magickal into one another, and we end up with an iridescent beige soup of contradictions & contraindications. Lenny Henry reads at a mile-a-minute, breakneck pace that would make the Micro Machines guy proud, sacrificing mood, nuanced inflection, pauses for effect, and any breathing room between sentences or paragraphs whatsoever - this audiobook is the polar opposite of Richard Poe's brilliant performance of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian."

Henry has a more-than-decent character range, but his working-class English diction & pronunciation means that certain words & phonemes get slurred into sloppy mush. The fact that pronunciation is a constant, niggling issue for the English should surprise nobody besides the English themselves, though - my main gripe with Henry is that he was either pressured or consciously chose to blow through the reading as quickly as he possibly could, as I said before. I'm sure he's an entirely decent fellow, though.

On top of this lack of proper restfulness where the text demands, the publisher has chosen to insert the most banal, generic Caribbeanesque elevator music in between chapters - the same stock audio that was used in the audiobook version of Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle." Gaiman is certainly no stock writer, nor does he lend himself (at least figuratively) to stock music - compare/contrast Harlan Ellison's numerous audiobook stories, specifically his reading of "On the Downhill Side," whose musical afterword is very particularly bespoke, in true Ellison fashion.

These nuisances combine to detract from an otherwise well-crafted, mythological & anthropological history-spanning narrative, and tarnish the overall experience as a result - too many publishers treat audiobooks as an afterthought, and since Gaiman is not as adamantly uncompromising as Ellison (though from a glance, he seems kinder), he's not one to go kicking doors down when his artistic vision undergoes any meddling by the tone-deaf.

Skip the audiobook; get "Anansi Boys" in hardcover.

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A bunker buster that demolishes H1B apologists

Revisado: 02-08-17

Though occasionally seeming mean-spirited, this book brilliantly uncovers the horrific patchwork of modern immigration law.

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A simulation of profundity, disguising emptiness.

Revisado: 10-18-16

As is the prevailing Hollywood tendency in these depleted days, this obviously pseudonymous vanity project of Penn's conflates actual significance - which is conferred by readers & broader societal recognition upon artwork judged historically worthy - with the self-conscious imitation thereof by a narcissistic Creator figure.

The book's writing pretends to significance in flighty, knowingly-ostentatious prose that flits between matter-of-fact clinicality, effeminate fourth-wall breaks & hand-me-down hippie psychedelia, none of which retains any of the enchantment of the better authors Penn/"Pariah" pantomimes.

Bob faces no genuine consequence or existential threat throughout the book: even when he is supposedly gravely injured, his wounds are immediately brushed off in the next paragraph as minor, even superficial.

There is no reason for the reader to care about Bob, about any of the shambling sacks of quirks - ripped straight from Screenwriting 101 C-students' regurgitations of (far better) roles of yore - that pass for secondary characters. They are memes made manifest: weak, unfulfilled notions of a small, self-absorbed mind incapable of comprehending the true content of a man's character beyond mere surface qualia. And while America may be plagued with superficiality, reducing (for example) not only a busybody neighbor, but her entire family tree to comically racist, paranoiac bunker-mentality basket cases isn't just dumb or mean-spirited, it's lazy writing.

The sum of the book appears to be little more than a vehicle to deliver its esteemed author catharsis - a release valve from both the shrill PC-police crowd of the vapid modern American left, the inherent statelessness & anomie of the so-called "Millennial" generation (among which I peripherally number), and the crawling xenophobia of the disenfranchised right wing. As Penn himself ages closer to dotage, the elderly - not as people, but as the abstract concept of listlessness & existential liminality they represent - are slaughtered en masse, lambs upon the altar of his mortal insecurities, but whose blood gives no succor from the inevitability of death.

In short, even though I got this book for free, I still feel like Penn should pay me a therapist's fee for the time I've spent obliging his insecurities.

P.S.: The Englishwoman did a fine job narrating her part, though I despair that the plague of Vocal Fry has found passage across the pond. And before anyone starts with trite accusations of sexism, I resent it in men just as well.

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