Today I finished reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods for the second time, back to back, read and re-read. It’s one of only a handful of books that I’ve ever given that much of my life.

Many thanks to @HarperCollinsCa for offering me a copy of this book so that I could participate in the One Book, One Twitter movement this summer.

In case you missed #1b1t – Keep your eyes peeled for future reads! – here’s how it worked: Everyone on Twitter who was interested in a worldwide book club voted on a book to be read. Book choices were narrowed down and voted on, book chosen and reading schedule laid out, then hashtags for the book itself and each chapter in it were determined. People were to tweet and reply and have a book group type conversation using the main hashtag for general musings and the chapter tags for thoughts relevant to that chapter. Voila, instant filtering created to prevent spoilers, allowing everyone to read at their own pace. (It was a really awesome experience!)

I signed up without hesitation.  Beyond the appeal of using Twitter for a book club – genius! – Gaiman’s fantasy entertains like no other. It feels derivative of nothing and is only itself, totally new creative imaginings. The fantasy genre  has copycatting as an unfortunate and common flaw on its shelves. Everyone wants to be the next Tolkien.

But Gaiman is unique. For me, he has consistently made the hero’s journey from small town to the larger world and all the lessons that go along seem entirely new each time he puts pen to paper. Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book did so, one in underground London and the other in a New England graveyard

This time around, in American Gods, Gaiman impressed me by penning yet another amazing story but with even better amusement park thrills and taking his macabre style to the next level, writing a distinctly smart and adult fantasy novel.

American Gods is a literal road trip through small-town America – complete with constant weather updates that would make CNN proud and bank clocks alternately displaying the time then the local temperature – as well as a figurative one, illuminating the soul of a country and the fight over who shall rule it. And yet it is Shadow’s story, our narrator and main character, a young man with too much past for his age, whisked off onto that thing which at first seems innocent but is really larger than life. It is his defining moment.

“That was 1950. Seemed that year that the only way  that winter would end was is somebody hammered a stake through it’s heart.”

It really excites me to finally read a fantstical tale by a genre author that I know will one day be read as a classic in university programs. There must be so much more to look forward to, so much not yet written, if we’ve only just discovered the potential of fantasy. And yet, is it new… or something of the old world, a lesson forgotten and remembered again? Quite the common theme.

Hours and hours could be spend mulling over the mythology in this book. I wish I had known more before reading it as many of the innuendos, descriptions and hints were lost upon my half educated neurons, but the novel still works. And works so very well. What the reader does get and know and catch and connect is enough. The story is there and you feel triumphant for piecing together what you do know. The rest sits in memory and mystery with hope for later reveal. You won’t be disappointed. All manner of characters, the ghastly, grotesque and pitiful, become endearing friends that you will miss. Oh, and you will google the names of gods.

“Nobody ever believed in Paul Bunyan. He came staggering out of a New York ad agency in 1910 and filled the nation’s myth stomach with empty calories.”

It is a who-dunnit, an essay wrapped in an adventure about who Americans really worship, written with imagery that whips your hair as you breeze throught it’s pages.  Do me a favour and read this book slowly. Savour its lines. Heartbreakingly beautiful. So alive.

“…and the crash of the breakers on the beach of skulls was not loud enough to drown that whisper.”

I’m so glad I gave it a re-read. Picked up some essential points that I had missed because I read too fast, noticed lots of breadcrumbs leading to the conclusion if only you have the eyes to see, and – like Shadow – feel that it sunk in deeply. An experience I try to call forward as I know it’s in me but can’t catch the details the more I attempt to grasp for them. But it’s definitely a real part of me.

“Perhaps its a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That’s hows well they go together.”

ps. Sometime shortly after my first read-through, a HUGE blackbird landed on a low branch of the maple in my backyard. He looked like a raven, and I smiled, wanting so badly to re-enact the scene on page 158. Who, indeed, had come to visit?

p.s.s. Try the book for yourself. You can start reading it for free here!

I am the proud owner of a Tim Hortons Refill Mug!

liked the green
like the tree that you can’t see on the other side
REALLY like the idea of not adding to the garbage
every time a pick up a Timmies

ps. on a totally other topic, i’ve added a “poetry” category to my posts and moved all the poems i’ve ever posted into there. i was sad not to be able to find them in one click. much happier now. so far, i have two mary oliver’s. need to pick up a book of hers soon. enjoy loves!

I’ve been giggling ever since I heard this story.

One of our local radio talk shows was commenting and taking phone calls about NBC’s recent enormous error in confusing Michael J. Fox for Terry Fox, one of Canada’s legends remembered yearly with The Terry Fox Run.

The theme to the whole conversation was easy to find: do the Americans really know so little about Canada?

And then a Texan got on the phone and confirmed all our worst fears.

He married a Canadian – like me – and moved to the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario – like me – and thought Canadians lived in igloos before his move – I wasn’t that bad, was I? – but was pleasantly surprised to find that they had an actual house upon arriving, that Canada was advanced enough to boast a Burger King and McDonalds and that the country had actual cities.

See, he knew way back in ‘88 that Canada had one city and it was called Calgary. Now, he joked, the Americans must surely surmise that Canada is growing as it seems to have sprouted yet another city, for a grand total of two, called Vancouver.

Wish I could share this talk via actual video, but the best I can do is share the feed. Rabbi Harold Kushner visited Toronto at the end of last year to give a talk based around his latest book, Conquering Fear, Living Boldly in an Uncertain World. I really enjoyed the depth and breadth of his insight and spirituality. He covers many topics, though he starts with fear, but does not ever seem to be wandering. What he says regarding fundamentalism, fear, not being intimidated, God vs. nature and what God has in store for our lives all struck me deeply. I’ve yet to read his books, but his name keeps popping up lately and the quality of message in this talk makes me think long and hard about doing so soon.

The Rabbi’s talk was aired on a Canadian television show called Big Ideas. From their website,

“BIG IDEAS is a showcase of ideas that shape our public debates. At their best the lectures featured on the program expose us to the differing ways of defining what matters and how that affects our understanding of the world as it is and as it is likely to be… Each age has a set of questions by which it defines itself. If, 50 years from now, someone came across a list of BIG IDEAS shows, they would have a pretty good idea of what people thought about and debated in the early 2000s.”

From this link to the Big Ideas website, you can see the video or listen to the audio. We get the show in podcast form via iTunes each week. Expand your world view and have a listen. It certainly did for me.

Having recently finished President Obama’s The Audacity of Hope and had the flames of love rekindled in hope for the future of my home country, True Patriot Love was a welcome and introspective look at the national identity of my other home. Mr. Michael Ignatieff looks back through four generations of his family at the role each played in shaping the Canadian identity.

“Family traditions are more than arguments with the dead, more than collections of family letters you try to decipher. A tradition is also a channel of memory through which fierce and unrequited longings surge, longings that define and shape a whole life. “

If you are reading this from America, you might be asking yourself “What Canadian identity?” with an incredulous look on your face. My answer to that would be “Exactly!” Ever since stepping foot in this expansive land, I have known deeply that something about it was fundamentally different than the US. But you have to look deeply to find it. Because for all exterior purposes, Canadians look just like Americans and the few minor differences have become cliches and frequent targets of comedians, eh?

With a swift pace that carries you along willingly, his retelling is filled with historical detail and the romantic imaginings of the bigger picture he is trying to paint. The theme of the book is carried very well throughout. The Canada that was always undescribable to me is, after this reading, much more at my fingertips. And political situations that used to make me scratch my head have suddenly come into the light.

“Because we remain a land of hope and opportunity, and new Canadians see in our unfinished destiny an image of their own unfinished destines.”

I particularly admire his humility upon what he calls “The Inheritance” of all these generations upon himself and what he feels is his responsibility to go forward for the good of Canada. The last chapter bears this same name and where every other chapter has drawn each ancestor in a larger than life fashion, Mr. Ignatieff chooses not to detail the accomplishments of his own years. Rather he looks forward to what he believes are the next hurdles for Canada as a nation.

Excellent and inspirational. I really liked it.

“The next morning… Grant awoke, rubbed his eyes and stepped out into bright sunshine. They had broken through the forest cover and he was standing on the edge of the Prairies.

‘I found myself in Paradise,’ Grant scribbled excitedly into his diary.

A vast whispering ocean of green grass, waist high, sprinkled with wildflowers, yellow, lilac and white, stretched to the horizon, perfectly flat, under a vast blue sky. The elemental stillness was broken only by the whispering grass and snatches of birdsong. There was not a building, not a fence, not a column of smoke in sight.”