WEEK 8: CONTEMPORARY URBAN FANTASY

This week I read Anasi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I really enjoyed his poetic style of writing and the way he makes it sound more flowery so I really brings you to another place. I felt that for starters the fact that Charlie had such a distant relationship with his father was a good place to start for making it relevant to the contemporary world. Not actually knowing who your parent really is, having the scars of how they raised you stick with you forever, the fact that Charlies wasn’t even fat anymore was such a smart way to show the emotional scars you can have from childhood.

I like that he used the story from a myth as a platform to relate it back to family dynamics, issues and personal insecurities. His troubles with his long lost ‘brother’ Spider and how he even takes the woman he was engaged to. I thought it was interesting how he used the myth this way making Spider his ‘brother’. How Spider was everything Charlie was not, the complexity that jealousy and comparison is a common trait in family households of dysfunction was shown very well through these two. The way they interacted and the situation thy were placed in showed volumes of their characters. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it as the way he sewed myth, contemporary family issues with fantasy was very smart and entertaining.