“Anansi Boys” — 5
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman was influenced by African myth of the term ‘Anansi’ which is a spider god who created the universe in creating a fictional novel. In the story it is said that Charles Nancy’s , known to be “Fat Charlie”, father was an incarnation of Anansi and the reason Fat Charlie didn’t inherited the divine power was because it was past down to his brother, Spider. I could say that this story is basically a drama between the two brothers, but it surely was quite interesting since they involved different African mythological figures. My knowledge on mythologies are limited since there are lot of countries with their own myth and African myth definitely was something I have never knew of. Throughout the story, Fat Charlie faces difficulties and the relationship with his brother doesn’t really start off great, but as the adventure continues Fat Charlie slowly gains some peace in his life.
Charlie’s power was also very interesting since it was to alter reality by singing a story. When I think of ‘mythic fiction’ it always reminds of this one book The Lightning Thief and as a child I always thought mythical fiction involved props that were simply ‘badass’ like the pen that changes into a strange sword, but in Anansi Boys, there aren’t any badass weapons, rather a song that could change the reality. This surely did show me a complete new aspect of mythic fiction and how a story could be told with such subtle and peaceful ability of a character.
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