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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 30, 2008 13:11:07 GMT -5
(from the '69 thread)
Deb said: i'll bring american gods with me. damn awesome book, but the ending? lacked.
See, I was satisfied with it. Gods go on and on, not so much either ending or beginning as simply becoming different examples of themselves, depending on where and when they touch on their believers' realities. Makes sense by the framework of the novel.
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Post by debster on Jan 30, 2008 15:26:06 GMT -5
true. i don't think i was hoping for some dramatic finale. the gods should have gone on. but the battle was a little anti-climatic and it seemed as though he was searching for an ending but just settled. and i guess i think there should've been a little more emphasis to the whole "you are my son luke" path with wednesday rather than the dream sequence. don't get me wrong, the basis of the story was interesting, hell fascinating, and it was a great read all the way through. just the ending left me a little wanting. all in all, thumbs up. i enjoyed the hell out of it. some of the characters really tickled me. i totally saw scatman crothers as the mr. jones character. haha! and i love the names. mr world, mr town...
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 30, 2008 15:53:15 GMT -5
Mr. Door, Mr. Car.
Well, you know, Shadow was based on the myths of Baldr, Odin's son (second son, maybe?), and a lot of the dream voyage and so on is just a reworking of that. I used to be heavy into the Norse gods when I was a kid - all that thunder and trickery - so it made perfect sense to me that way. He was killed, mostly by Loki's doing, only to be reborn for the final battle among the gods. And so on.
Man, I love that shit.
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Post by debster on Jan 30, 2008 16:06:04 GMT -5
okay, never got into the norse gods. but then again there were a lot of gods from different cultures mentioned in the book that i wasn't familiar with. sueji went on a 10 minute rant about the hoodoo, voodoo and misc gods from santaria she's familiar with and wanted to know if they were mentioned. and my mom used to tell stories of the buffalo gods when we were kids, but i really don't remember their names. hell, i don't think i could even recount one of the stories now. something i need to do a refresher course on. never realized how many gods i have to recount as an atheist.
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 30, 2008 16:29:59 GMT -5
When you study someone's gods, you find out everything you need to know about their fears and needs. It's fascinating to me.
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Post by debster on Jan 30, 2008 16:59:31 GMT -5
what, were you dating a norse chick at the time? har har har...*cough, choke* okay... i really do enjoy learning things about other religions and cultural beliefs. i'm just now at a time in my life when i actually have the time to devote to that. i mean, i don't see my views changing, i'm far too old a dog for that, but i'm very interested in studying different beliefs. and not so that i can bash others beliefs. i just find it interesting. even if i'm curious how many virgins could be in my future.
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 30, 2008 17:07:48 GMT -5
Nah, I was maybe 6 or 7 when I first got into the Norse gods. Basically, I love the shit for the stories and for what it tells us about the culture.
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Post by debster on Jan 31, 2008 10:59:49 GMT -5
you were an extrordinary lil' tyke. i was playing with barbie dolls while you were studying norse gods. i want a redo.
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 31, 2008 11:04:00 GMT -5
I was playing with my sister's Barbie's at that age, too.
If by "playing" you mean "cutting all their hair off and putting them in boats made out of egg cartons and pushing them down stream."
I just happened to be an early reader.
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Post by debster on Jan 31, 2008 11:37:08 GMT -5
haha! yepper buddy, all of my barbies were skinheads too. and those teeny-tiny high-heeled shoes that came with her usually ended up in the vacuum cleaner so she normally stomped around in my brothers g.i. joes boots. go figure.
seems like most of the stuff i read as a kid were older siblings text books or religious/political books. neither of my parents were very big readers so we didn't have a wealth of books lying about. unfortunately, it wasn't an encouraged past time in our home. ~sniff~ i never got the bedtime stories. sad, huh?
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 31, 2008 13:36:21 GMT -5
That actually is really sad. My mom reads about a book a day and books are all over the house, so I actually do not remember a time before I could read. We're not a well educated bunch, but we are well read. It's cheap and entertaining - I didn't have cable growing up, but I sure had a library card.
A lot of my childhood games were along the lines of "pretend we have a town and I am the mayor" or "pretend that we are homesteading here on this island" or "pretend this is a ship and I am the captain."
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Post by debster on Jan 31, 2008 14:47:26 GMT -5
oh HELLS no, a trip to the library with her children would've cut into her drinking time. "there are libraries in your school." it was much easier to call the cable man. and honestly, in her defense, taking 5 young children to the public library would be a little stressful. and she was not a person that dealt with stress well. at all! sometimes i wonder how different i would be if i had been more influenced in much more positive directions. eh, life is full of "what ifs" though, isn't it?
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 31, 2008 14:57:09 GMT -5
Oh sure, it's all what-ifs. If my mom and dad had been college grads, would I have been pushed harder to excel in school? If we'd gone to church, would I be in a mainstream religion now? If they hadn't taken me to so many bars to listen to live music from such a young age, would I be a barhound and noncorporate music fan?
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Post by debster on Jan 31, 2008 15:22:49 GMT -5
heh heh... it's hard to picture you sitting in a pew waiting to get out of church so you can pop in that new britney cd you got last week. but do you think it's the culture more than the economic state that we're raised in that affects who we become? or the peers we choose? or mostly paternal?
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Post by sharpie marker on Jan 31, 2008 15:31:54 GMT -5
Well, your economic state is usually a major factor in what culture you're raised in. I mean, very few working class folks are raised with private schools, Daddies who can get them out of trouble, and house servants, you know? But individual family stuff is the other half of that - in my case, my folks both like to read, so I got all the books I wanted, and a wider world view because of it.
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