cool book!
Oct. 19th, 2005 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keryxI just finished Neil Gaiman's latest, Anansi Boys, and, hey, cool.
He actually went a good 50 pages or so into the book without making any kind of hey, everyone in this book is black statement (he never really did it that obviously, either). It made for an interesting counterpoint to even the stuff that like Suzan-Lori Parks writes; seeing black characters' race be not talked about the same way white characters' race usually isn't.
It's uncommon, in my experience. And I liked it. I want to read more books like that; it highlights how that's so not true in life.
That said, the book was quite good all around - it wasn't as surprising as American Gods, in that it didn't so much build a world as illustrate a family. But I feel the love, as I pretty much always do for Gaiman. Oh, yeah, the women weren't overwroughtly stereotyped, either, but I've come to expect slightly better from Gaiman on that front than from other popular fantastical fiction writers.
We could talk about it in the bookclub that I haven't started.
He actually went a good 50 pages or so into the book without making any kind of hey, everyone in this book is black statement (he never really did it that obviously, either). It made for an interesting counterpoint to even the stuff that like Suzan-Lori Parks writes; seeing black characters' race be not talked about the same way white characters' race usually isn't.
It's uncommon, in my experience. And I liked it. I want to read more books like that; it highlights how that's so not true in life.
That said, the book was quite good all around - it wasn't as surprising as American Gods, in that it didn't so much build a world as illustrate a family. But I feel the love, as I pretty much always do for Gaiman. Oh, yeah, the women weren't overwroughtly stereotyped, either, but I've come to expect slightly better from Gaiman on that front than from other popular fantastical fiction writers.
We could talk about it in the bookclub that I haven't started.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 08:24 pm (UTC)I often wonder about this. I mean, on the one hand, black characters in tv/movies/books are generally *black* whereas white characters just *are*. (The one exception that comes quickly to mind is the Cosby Show). That whole *black* thing seems contrived for white audiences.
On the other hand, I think that minority status really is probably part of the identity of minorities. People still ask me from time to time (it happened a lot more 10 years ago) what it's like to be gay. I used to say "it's an awful lot like being straight, just with girls." But really, it isn't. When we're alone together, I don't notice it and it's natural and normal and we just *are* -- it's not something that I'd even think about talking about. But in society at large, and even around our friends, I'm very concious of it. I *feel* gay and it's part of my identity. I feel different -- accepted and approved of, but still different. Like maybe it's something to be talked about. Like I'm *gay*
Y'know?
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Date: 2005-10-20 07:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
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