The Annotated American Gods

 

Yesterday (January 4) fresh on the heels of The Annotated Gulliver’s Travels I got another book in the mail, The Annotated American Gods (2020) by Neil Gaiman, with notes by Leslie S. Klinger. This is the third iteration of the book I own; the first was an edited paperback, the second was a Tenth Anniversary edition with the author’s preferred text, and now I have this annotated edition of that preferred text, which includes a previously wandering episode where Shadow (the protagonist) meets Jesus (or at least a version of him), which makes this the most complete version yet.

The notes by Klinger are of course what makes this version unique; they not only identify the many mythological beings referred to in the book, the actual locations that are visited, and the historical events alluded to in passing, but include illustrations, old photos, and even color stills from the “American Gods” mini-series. Klinger benefits greatly from working closely with Gaiman, but notes details that seem to baffle the author himself at this late date.

There are many notes (and they are in a sense the least compelling and most technical points) that record the edits that Gaiman made in the first publication and then restored in the preferred text. But they, and notes made in the original manuscript while Gaiman was writing, give an interesting insight into the author’s creative process.

Klinger has had much experience with working on annotations, including works by Lovecraft, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, areas which in my younger days were Leonard Wolf and William Baring-Gould territory.

I spent yesterday and today reading the book with relish, finally finishing it once more about 8 PM this evening. I found it as compelling as ever, almost compulsively so, and somehow a different experience in this edition in a way that is hard to define. It might have something to do with the dimensions of the book (10 inches tall by 8 ½ inches wide); the episodes seem to have more room to breathe and so move quicker. But that might just be me.

This is a lovely book. I am now left with the quandary of whether to place it with my Neil Gaiman books or with my other annotated editions. The sturdiness, beauty, and completeness of the volume inspired a strange thought as I finished reading, the thought that it would go on long after I was no longer in the picture, either passing to some member of my family or a stranger if it was just sold when I was gone. I wondered who might get it, and what they would think (if they ever did) of who had it before. I have this book today and it will inevitably belong to someone in the future. They are a mystery to me. Perhaps they will wonder who owned it before them, and what he was like, and what he got out of it, as I wonder what they will be like. Maybe it will pass through many hands; maybe it will disappear in fire or flood. Perhaps in some afterlife we former owners will meet and say, “Oh, so it was you!”