American Gods

I am almost finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I wont get too much into the plot because you should read it for yourself, but I will say it is mostly about a war of sorts between the ancient gods brought to America by various settlers (including those who came here over the land bridge during the last ice age) and the modern gods of media and the internet and the like. Though I didn’t know it at the time I bought the book a good third of the novel is set in southern Wisconsin, specifically in places I know and love such as House on the Rock and Culvers. What is not set in Wisconsin is set in places that are the haunts of close friends and family (the Indiana/Kentucky boarder and just outside of Chattanooga Tennessee right on the boarder with Georgia).

While the novel is not overtly difficult it does put me in mind of reading Finnegan’s Wake. Most of the ancient gods are not named, only described (the death of Amaterasu is one instance of this) and there seems to be an assumption that the reader will recognize them and understand their function within their pantheon. My own interest in ancient gods and folklore (to which the person who was reading my copy of The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore while on the toilet the morning after my wedding can attest) helped immensely and gave me the same smug satisfaction that one gets after reading Finnegan’s Wake and realizing that a good third of it was understood.

One of the tent poles of the story is the idea that in America the people are too far removed from their gods to know the holy places for what they are and so instead of building shrines and temples have built roadside attractions to which pilgrims’ flock, unaware of exactly why they are drawn to these places. While I am overjoyed that House on the Rock was included I do believe that Baraboo should also have been included as a location for the story. As many who know me understand there is very little that I can not turn back around into a discussion of my hometown (since there is very little on earth that I love more than Baraboo and I made my marriage to one of the few greater loves a tribute to the town). It is a conversation I had over Christmas with my Grandmother-in-law that makes me think that Baraboo is one of those unrecognized holy places of America. Judy was asking me why a place like the Al. Ringling Theatre is in Baraboo. The Al Ringling is often considered the first of America’s Palatial Movie Houses designed by Rapp & Rapp. Why can the start of a historically significant architectural* firm be found in a little town north of “Where the North begins”? The answer was, to me, simple. The circus provided the money for the theatre. “And why,” she asked “did the circus start here?” “Because The Ringling Brothers are from Baraboo**. They grew up here.” She pressed on asking, “But why did they start a circus? Did they come from circus people?” “No, they came from immigrants who were small time crooks and moderately sucessful harness makers and leather workers.” “So why did they start a circus?” “Because they saw one as children and decided that the circus is what they should do and be and they made the world’s greatest circus. The Greatest Show on Earth.” That is the magic Neil Gaiman missed in American Gods by not including Baraboo (though others have been drawn to write about Baraboo and its peculier type of mystery. Notably Barry B. Longyear with his books Circus World, City of Baraboo, and Elephant Song). He missed a land so steeped in the bizzar holyness he references in his book that it made seven brothers, the children of immigrant criminals and trades people, into the greatest showmen the world has known.

*This is not the only bit of architectural history to be found in this area. My architectural nemisis Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and Romeo & Juliet can be found in this area as well.
**A note to detractors: I consider the amount of money the Ringling family poured into Baraboo and the fact that they chose to winter here long after it was a financial necessity as evidence enough that the Ringlings considered Baraboo their hometown