Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
madman wrote: In a way, the story of Jesus is a fairly traditional Sun
God story.


Yup. And the Jesus mythos is pretty easily traced back to Mithras and
Zoroastor (especially the later) ... it's fun to pull out an
evolutionary timeline of religion, especially in the axial period, just
to see what was going where when. (For a really fun one, try to figure
out who 'thought up' monotheism first,...)

-Kelly
  

    

What is the significance of mistletoe?

And, I can't help wondering, in view of what a horndog old Wednesday was,
whether or not he left behind a whole slew of children, and what they
might be up to.  I couldn't quite get whether he "chose" to impregnate
Shadow's mother.  And if so, why did he choose *her*?

My first time through the book, I was startled to find 7/8 of the way
through it that Shadow was probably black.  It's during his look at his
life's diorama after he died, and he describes himself as having a
coffee-and-cream complexion and his mother is dying of sickle-cell
anemia.  In my second pass through, I found people asking him if he was
black or if he was native American, but nothing really seemed to say one
way or another.
  

    
This might be a spoiler, so be warned, everyone.
Linda- Mistletoe was the only kind of wood that could kill Baldur
(because it was the only thing that Frigga did not make swear never to
harm him).  Loki tricked another, blind god, Hodor into shooting an
arrow of mistletoe at Baldur, thus killing him (at least, that's
according to the Norse I read).
Baldur is supposed to be the son of Odin and Frigga, which made me
wonder if, in fact, Shadow's mother was Frigga.  I could not, however,
find any connection between Frigga and blood condition, or anything.

Shadow black?  Never even considered it, mainly because I've always
considered Norse to be, well, Scandinavian, and blonde hair and blue
eyes, which is, decidedly, not black.

I can't *Wait* to read this book again.
  

    
For some reason, from the very first chapter I had the image of
Michael Clarke Duncan (Green Mile) in my head as Shadow... from time to
time I would consider my image to be ill founded, as the way Shadow is
received by people isn't really indicative of a 300 lb, 6'5" black man
(white people in small towns just seem waaaayyy to eager to embrace
him into their community), but that quiet strength just resonated with
me...
... maybe I was closer to the mark than I realized.
  

    
Linda - How was Shadow black if his father was Nordic? Wouldn't that
make him mixed, or is the old slave days definition of "one drop of
African blood" being applied here? :)
If it does, I'll have to re-evaluate my own genetic make-up.

Anyhow, Shadow's mother could also have been *part* African, or even
Melungeon ( http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~mtnties/mlgn.html ) and
carried the Sickle cell gene.

The problem I have with the Sickle Cell bit is this:
In order for Shadow's mom to be suffering from Sickle Cell, she had to
have gotten the gene from both parents (who could carry it regardless
of skin color, if they have even a single African ancestor who had it).
It's a recessive gene, so it takes a duplication.
Shadow, therefore, has to also carry the gene. So if Wednesday's so
smart, why mate with an obviously ill woman (or should be obvious, to a
God) who'll produce a child who carries such a devastating gene?

Coffee-and-cream skin - like mine, you mean. People probably thought,
especially if Shadow had more Caucasian looking hair, that he was
Native or just an outdoorsman.
  

    
I'm pretty sure there's a conversation in the book in which Wednesday
explains to Shadow that it's, in fact, extremely difficult for him and
other gods in a similarly diminished, er... umm... capacity, to
conceive children.  It seemed clear to me that this is the primary
motivation behind his prolific attempts at procreation.  (Although, he
also mentions something about the Rejuvenating Power of Virgins after
the cafe manipulation/seduction scene, so I think there's some question
about which benefit has priority at that point.)  

I'm not quite clear, without rereading, exactly how or when Wednesday
became aware of Shadow's conception/existence.  It seems pretty clear,
though, that as soon as he and Loki came up with the Great Con, they
started looking for an existing son or Wednesday got busy trying to
make one.  An interesting question is: did they come up with the plan
before or after Shadow's conception?

I don't believe that Wednesday chose Shadow's mother any more than any
of the others.  She simply conceived.  And the really interesting
thing to me is that she seems to have had some idea who Shadow's father
actually was.  I thought that her headlong exit from the country and
subsequent moving around represented her attempts to present a moving
target (harder to find).  Further evidence for this is shown, I think,
in the literally violent reaction she had to Shadow's questions about
his father.  (Isn't it in the Underworld that Shadow remembers a scene
of this?  The implication there is that when he pursued this line of
questioning far enough as a child, she lost it and hit him to stop it.)

As for the sickle-cell anemia, I think Wednesday would have just
considered it a fortunate thing, since he obviously didn't want any
rivals for control of Shadow.
  

    

I think that last sentence is spot on- it served Wednesday's purposes for
Shadow's mother to not be a part of his life, so if he could find one who
was sick but could not pass the sickness in any meaningful way to her son (I
am assuming, of course, that Odin does not have a recessive gene for Sickle
Cell) than that might be a choice score.
So to speak.
  

    
Pamela, MadMan- I'd thought that too, about Wednesday needing Shadow
to have a limited/non-existant support system - after I'd logged off.

Having Shadow lose everyone, all at once, could have rendered him
incapable of action; having already lost his mother, and life going on
anyway, he'd be more prepped to be useful to Wednesday after losing his
wife and job.

According to
http://encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/67/06723000.htm?z=1=2=1,
people from the middle east and India are also prone to sickle cell.
Which makes sense, as the sickle shape of blood cells makes you less
susceptible to malaria... and means that Shadow's mother (or her
ancestors) could have been from India or the middle east...
  

    
Ah!  Thanks for that.  I did not know.  Mike told me that sickle cell
anemia was not limited only to blacks, but we didn't know what groups
of people might have it.

And thanks, Will, for the info about mistletoe.

I'm really enjoying this thread about Shadow and his mother and
Wednesday...
  

    

I did get the distinct feeling, by the by, reading the bit about Wednesday
meeting his mother, that it was a calculated thing on Wednesday's part- he
may not have had a full plan yet, but at that point I think he knew that he
was putting _something_ in motion, and that a son might be useful, 20 years
down the line.
But maybe I'll change my mind if I reread it. These things happen.

I'm currently reading Smoke and Mirrors for the first time. I'd read some of
the individual stories in Angels and Visitations, but there's a lot of weird
stuff in here. Needless to say, I like it...

Not many questions for Neil, lately, though. Somebody ask him something, and
maybe he'll wander back and tell me Chad's middle initial.
  

    
Sun god stories are very similar. It's really just one story we keep
recycling according to era and culture.  

I think the first monotheist might have been Akhenaton the so-called
Heretic. He was the first to establish the sun god mythos and the cult
that worshipped the Aten.  The Ancient Egyptians tried to wipe his name
from their memory after his death. He's a very interesting historical
character.  Tutankhamen was his son-in-law.

Anyway, when I read the description of Shadow's complexion as "coffee
and cream," I thought he might be an African American with Native
American blood. Historically, some Native American tribes owned slaves,
some worked with them and other tribes gave many sanctuary and some
inter-married.  You can certainly observe Native American phenotypic
traits in some African Americans.  

As to the "one drop rule," you might want to check out a book called
"Black Looks" by bell hooks in which she discusses America's obsession
with "race," the nonsensical idea of "purity" and how African Americans
are forced to deny their mixed heritage. And consider the controversy
surrounding the very idea of Thomas Jefferson's mulatto offspring.
  

    
Rocky- didn't the DNA prove that yes, these descendants were from T.
Jefferson or a close relative?

Regarding the African/Native American mix, a lot of Cherokee avoided
the Trail of Tears by marrying into black families... in fact, the
Census labeled people not by race, but rather by shade of skin (black,
colored, ect.), resulting in a whole lot of "black" people in the
SouthEast who believe that their light hair or skin comes from a
Caucasian ancestor when in fact they're part Native.
Light skin? Native? Another myth, that all Native Americans are red or
leather colored... height varies greatly from tribe to tribe as well.

Another favorite is the myth of the "Black Dutch" ancestry. If you
are, by your race, an illegal in an area, you lie; a lot of Cherokee
claimed to be "Black" Dutch, which I'm not sure even exists, or what it
means, but it seems to have worked...
  

    
Oh, and the Africans certainly got their own back at the Natives by
being Buffalo Soldiers, didn't they?
  

    
Hi all; long time no write.  I'm in seclusion, writing outside of Red
Wing MN.  And now, reading this discussion list for the first time in
over a week, I'm deeply regretting that I didn't bring my copy of AG
for a second go.  So much to go back and explore.

For Neil-- a question and a comment:

Question:  There are, to a certain degree, similarities between AG and
Brief Lives.  Is this a coincidence, or Jane Austen's 2 inches of
ivory, or utterly insignificant, or what?

Comment:  Not sure how useful "your writing reminded me of" comments
are.  Still, my wife and I agreed that when the TV goes all wonky on
Shadow at the motel, we both expected a band of jazz-playing lizards to
take the screen.

feeling very far from home; returning to this sort of conversation
makes me feel good.
  

    
Len--Yaaayyyyy!  You're back!!!

Sorry.  I've just missed you, and I was about to post & see if you
were lurking. How's Minnesota?  Too bad you're there when Himself is
signing everywhere else. Are you learning lots?  Is this program
helpful?  Write & tell all! 

On the "was Shadow planned" thing--just finished my second time
through yesterday ( I feel like I've been out of town and am just
coming back to real life--ick.  I want to go back on the road with
Wednesday!).  Shadow says at one point that he thinks they started this
con 80 or 100 years ago.  Wednesday says that he knew Shadow's mom was
pregnant, but that they lost track of her when she left America.  He
does also say that they rarely have children anymore.  So was Shadow
part of the plan from the beginning?  Good question.....

Thanks for the sickle cell info--I never even thought of that as an
indicator of Shadow's heritage.  I just didn't have a picture of him in
my head, other than the grey eyes. I was always looking at everyone
else through his eyes...hmmm, I wonder if that author guy planned that?
 ;-)

Mary (reading "Death on Zanzibar" by M.M. Kaye, because it's light &
fluffy)
  

    
Len -- well, apart from the road trip side of things (and the problem
in the strip club), I'm not really sure what the similarities would be.
 Or rather, some people have said that American Gods is like Season of
Mists, and they've said it's like Brief Lives, and I'm not sure I can
see it in either case. They have some versions of some characters in
common, obviously, and I didn't do a stripper because I'd already done
it in Brief Lives, and then Kevin Smith did his version of that in
Dogma, which seemed very much to cover the territory.

But I don't feel American Gods encompasses the same themes as either
of the Sandman storylines.
  

    
Neil- Welcome back!  So nice to see your name back in the discussion. 
Glad the signing trip went well, and that American Gods was well
received over there.
Question- Do you know if there's any connection between Shadow's
mother and Frigga?  If so, could you comment?

Mary- darn you!  There's a song that mentions "Zanzibar", and it's the
only word I know of it, and now I can't get said song out of my head,
even though it's barely a chord.  D'oh!  Sounds like a job for Miss
Mousey's "Lost Causes"...
  

    
Neil - you get points for seeing Dogma; having one of my alter egos as
God was startling, though...

Will you be going back and giving input on any of the threads we've
had in your absence? Threads and input, Neil, not questions and
answers, breathe slowly... 
  

    

Well, I'll be amused by the Zanzibar bit, and will fess up on something,
given that Neil hasn't responded yet:
One of the main characters of the John Brunner classic _Stand On Zanzibar_
is named Chad C Mulligan- unix geeks may have seen some of Chad's quotes in
various fortune files, attributed to _The Hip-Crime Vocab_.

So, I was wondering if the _American Gods_ Chad Mulligan was related to the
_Stand On Zanzibar_ Chad Mulligan. Neil? Any comment?
  

    
JaNell- Does Neil get more points for actually being in the credits of
Dogma?  He is, you know...
  

    
Ja'Nell - Now I've got Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldiers" running through
my head.
  

    
Will - 
(shocked) 
He IS? 
One more reason that he frightens me terribly. But I kinda like it.


Rocky - HA-ha!

Neil -  Jameson is amused that you used Ganesha after all...
  

    
I *loved* Dogma (so did all of my priest, nun, and otherwise
fish-eater buddies).  But I did not realize that Himself was in the
credits.  Kevin Smith rocks.

And I was having a Sandman flashback in the stripper scene.  I always
wondered if you had seen it, Neil.

I keep thinking of the Brunner book, which I haven't read since I was
about 12. Must go find a copy... especially since I keep telling people
that's what I'm reading, then correcting myself.

Mary
  

    
Yep.  His name is really, really small (but then again...that might be
because of my TV) in the thank yous.  Made me really, really happy.

Angelina.
  

    
If you look at the IMDB, he's even listed there.  And, he's also got a
voice credit on "Gargoyles," which I've always thought was
fascinating...