In Which My Heart Fluttered For Brilliance

     As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have taking to reading at a faster pace than is usual for me. Soon after Manto's collected short stories (You can find a review here) I picked up Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. I was acquainted with his work through a few short stories, American Gods and mostly, his blog and tweets and facebook posts. With Anansi Boys, I have truly, madly and fallen in much deep love with him and his work.
     Anansi Boys is the story of what happens when God dies and his sons are left behind. Anansi here being the god, it is left to Fat Charlie, his clumsy, very un-godly son, to reclaim the godliness and retain it for his father. Gaiman's biggest strength is the ability to compress realities and philosophies in a paragraph or two, packaged in goofy characters and gentle, embarassing yet a breeze-of-a-read humour.
    Gaiman's worlds start at the skies of heavens and dissolves into a friendly neighbourhood with one step, in his stories magic comes alive and it all makes perfect sense. He thinks like no one else, and that is a rarity with so many people and so many writers doing the rounds.
     So, excuse my fangirl gushing - Anansi dies and Fat Charlie, who has never had the best relationship with his colorful, swag of a father, finds out he is a god himself but the god-like part of him went to his brother, who was at some point a part of him. It all begins at his father's funeral where he meets his childhood neighbour Mrs. Higgler and she tells him to contact his brother, which he does.
     This brother turns out to have every bit of a magical persona that he lacks - he can get people to believe anything, trick his way in and out of life with equal parts luck and genetics. Spider, as he is called, makes life a living hell for our Charlie and Charlie asks Mrs. Higgler to make him go away, who in turn asks Mrs. Dunwiddy (think Old Nan from ASOIAF), who sends Charlie to the beginning of the world where he meets half-humans and half-gods and all of them complete animals. What ensues is an epic chase, where Tiger (who was god before Anansi) sets to reclaim his title. Don't think too much, just go read the book. Meanwhile, here is something else that happens -
     Parallel to these events, runs the very evil trickery of Grahame Coats, Charlies employer who frames Charlie in an embezzlement scheme which has just been discovered and then does everything to escape to an island.  Like it happens in stories with Gods, everything must end well. Fat Charlie shrugs off his nickname and reclaims his God-genes, finds love and makes peace with his father.
     Ghosts and Gods, Earth and Above, Evil and Good, Mischief and Anger - Gaiman leaves no emotion unfelt as you move along. It is a fast, fast read. Things happens quickly and you want to read them faster than they happen. In the process, you will think about family and love, about inheritance and about fear of control and factors of influence. His books make you think, but unlike most scholarly works, they make you smile as you think. It is a rare combination, a must-have for every child. If nothing, it is a good story. A warm, fuzzy, bed-time story. The story that a god wrote.