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Anansi Boys
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 First edition cover |
|
| Author | Neil Gaiman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Richard Aquan (1st printing hardcover edition); general design, Shubhani Sarkar; image collage credited to Getty Images |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins; William Morris imprint |
| Released | September 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 336 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-06-051518-X |
| Preceded by | American Gods |
Anansi Boys is a novel by Neil Gaiman. It is a companion to Gaiman's earlier novel American Gods. In Anansi Boys we discover that 'Mr. Nancy' (Anansi) from American Gods has two sons, and the two sons in turn discover each other. The novel follows their adventures as they explore their common heritage.
Anansi Boys was published on September 20, 2005 and was released in paperback on October 1, 2006. The book made number one on the New York Times bestseller list.[1]
Contents |
The title Anansi Boys is apparently a play on the expression "Nancy Boys".[citation needed]
Anansi Boys is the story of Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, a timid Londoner devoid of ambition, whose unenthusiastic wedding preparations are disrupted when he learns of his father's death in Florida. The flamboyant Mr Nancy, in whose shadow Fat Charlie has always lived, passed away in a typically embarrassing manner, suffering a fatal heart attack while womanising in a karaoke bar.
Fat Charlie is forced take time off from the talent agency where he works and travel to Florida for the funeral. There, he learns that the late Mr. Nancy was actually an incarnation of the West African spider god Anansi, who left behind another son.
After the funeral, while discussing the disposal of Anansi's estate, Mrs. Higgler (a very old family friend) reveals to Fat Charlie the reason his father led such a lazy existence was because he was a god and so could easily acquire whatever money he needed to enjoy himself. The reason Charlie had not apparently inherited any divine powers was because they had been passed down to his hitherto unknown brother (who, she mentions, can be contacted by simply asking a spider to tell him to drop Charlie a line). Of course, Charlie is skeptical, and on his return to England, largely forgets what Mrs. Higgler had told him, until one night he drunkenly whispers to a spider that it would be nice if his brother stopped by for a visit.
The next morning, the cool and well-dressed "Spider" visits Charlie. They begin discussing their mother's funeral when Spider is shocked to learn that their father had died. Immediately Spider steps through a picture to their childhood home. Charlie goes off to work rather puzzled by Spider and his sudden disappearance.
Spider returns that night stricken with grief that Anansi had died and that he had been thoughtless enough that he had not even known. The two get uproariously drunk, wining and wenching much of the night. Whilst Charlie had not done much of the wenching or singing, but he had done more than his fair share of the wining, and gotten drunk enough to put him out almost to noon the next day. Spider covers for Charlie's absence at the office with his powers, incidentally discovering Coats's long-standing financial malfeasance and embezzlement from his clients, and also stealing the heart of Rosie, Charlie's fiancée, and eventually even her virginity. Further, Coats's reaction to "Charlie"'s discovery of his misdeeds is to begin framing him for the crime and go to the police. These cuts are the unkindest, and drive Charlie back across the Atlantic Ocean to ask the four ladies how to force Spider to leave. They are themselves powerless in this matter, but they can send him to "the beginning of the world" where all the old gods, like Monkey or Tiger or Hyena live. There he finds no one willing to trade anything with him except Bird-woman. Bird-woman trades Charlie one of her feathers in exchange for "Anansi's bloodline for my own".
While Charlie is treating with ancient archetypal and occult powers, Spider is enjoying life as Charlie, and is busy falling in love with Rosie. Preoccupied with her, he neglects his brother's duties at the agency; insufficiently cossetted and hand-held, Maeve Livingston, one of the clients discovers just how much money Coates had stolen from her and her deceased husband. She confronts him. He agrees to make full restitution and more, pointing out accurately that her taking him to court could well not work. She agrees and is examining the proffered goods when he assaults and kills her with a hammer. Her body is hidden in his secret safe.
Charlie has no sooner left the beginning of the world and returned to England than events begin happening in quick succession: Charlie quarrels with and engages in fisticuffs with Spider; Charlie is arrested by the police for financial fraud; Spider reveals the truth to Rosie, who slaps and breaks up with him; a flock of flamingos attack (the second such time a flock has attacked) Spider; Coates decamps English for his estate and bank accounts in the Caribbean island of Saint Andrews, while Maeve Livingston's ghost begins hunting her murderer.
After the flamingo attack, Spider realizes that something Charlie did was causing these attacks, and that he was in mortal peril. He breaks Charlie out of prison. They discuss matters and Charlie returns to prison. He is eventually freed when he mentions the hidden room in Coats's office and the police find Livingston's body, which makes clear that Charlie is innocent.
Their next meeting does not go well for Spider, who is swept away in a storm of birds. Bird-woman delivers Spider to Tiger, staked down and his tongue ripped out to neutralize his story-telling power. Spider manages to form a little spider out of clay, instructing it to go for help to the spider kingdom Anansi and his descendants command. Though not as effective a hunter as Tiger, Spider can still beat him off for a little while; Tiger is pleased to draw out the hunt - he is savoring his long hoped for revenge on Anansi and his brood.
Rosie and her mother have taken a cruise to the Caribbean, where against all odds they run into Coats; they had not heard of events in England, and so unsuspectingly walk into his trap and are locked in his basement.
Charlie has gone back to the beginning of the world, and forced Bird-woman to give back "Anansi's bloodline" to him when he returned her feather (the exchange being a trade, not a sale). Spider is doing well; Tiger had grown overconfident and when he moved in to make his final strike, the little clay spider's reinforcements took care of Tiger. At that point, in full possession of his power to alter reality by singing a tale, Charlie rescues Spider and gives him back his tongue.
Tiger did not stick at this however; he possesses Coats and uses his bloodlust to turn him into a quasi ghost tiger, intending to get revenge on Spider indirectly through killing Rosie and her mother. As a partial ghost, Coats is now vulnerable to another vengeful ghost: Maeve Livingston had been waiting for this moment after finding Coats with the aid of the dead Anansi. Livingston eliminates Coats in the real world, and goes to her eternal reward.
Back at the beginning of the world, Charlie recounted the long tale of all that had gone before, humiliating Tiger to the point he retreated to his cave. Spider quietly collapsed the cave entrance, sealing Tiger and Coats into the cave; Charlie wove this event into his song, reinforcing it with his powers, such that Tiger was now well and truly trapped with Coats as company.
In the end, Spider opens a restaurant and marries Rosie. Charlie begins a successful career as a singer and marries Daisy and has a child.
It won the Mythopoeic Awards for Best Novel 2006, the 2006 YALSA ALEX Award[2] and the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award 2006.[3] Despite garnering enough votes for a Hugo nomination, Gaiman declined it.[4][5]
- Anansiho chlapci (Czech), ISBN 80-7332-079-7
- I ragazzi di Anansi (Italian), ISBN 88-04-55701-X
- Bney Anansi (Hebrew)
- Os Filhos de Anansi (Portuguese), ISBN 972-23-3592-8
- Дети Ананси (Russian), ISBN 5-17-037493-3
- Chłopaki Anansiego (Polish), ISBN 83-7480-020-8
- Băieţii lui Anansi (Romanian), ISBN 973-733-103-6
- ^ http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/09/theres-first-time-for-everything.asp
- ^ http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/alexawards/alex06.htm
- ^ http://www.britishfantasysociety.org.uk/info/bfsawards.htm
- ^ http://cluebytwelve.net/Hugos2006/nominees.txt
- ^ http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/08/hugo-words.html