In hindsight, reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods after Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore was a mistake. Kafka on the Shore affected me profoundly. Not only did it show me how to write the impossible without ever suggesting that it is possible, it showed me how to live (it's a lesson I can't explain in words much better than the first clause of this sentence). It gave me hope.
Gaiman's world, by comparison, seems too neat. The loose ends are too carefully arranged, not flying around in the tail of a tornado - some without actually being tied to anything - as Murakami's are. His characters, too, seem too plausible - logically illogical even. The conclusion is carefully vague but never frustrating. People are not logical, life is not logical. There are no pretty ribbons tying everything together. Life is bizarre, entirely random, hideous. We do it every day because we think we have to.
I enjoyed Stardust far more, I think because it was less careful and more romantic (with a capital R). It made me forget about the real world for a while, but then again I hadn't met Murakami yet...
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