fastidium

Maeve Livingtone is dead. She was killed by the ruthless Grahame Coats who is now living off of the Livingtones’ money on a small Caribbean island. But Maeve doesn’t want to join her long deceased husband in passing over into the afterlife, she wants to hang around as a ghost.

For those who have read Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys, this will sound familiar. Maeve is an interesting character device that allows Gaiman to explain some of the mythology and lore that surrounds the world of the two Anansi boys, Fat Charlie and Spider.

Not sure where to go or what she should do, Maeve discusses her situation with an old man, another ghost. The old man explains,

“So … a long time ago, Tiger had the stories. All the stories there ever were was Tiger stories, all the songs were Tiger songs, and I’d say that all the jokes were Tiger jokes, but there weren’t no jokes told back in the Tiger days. In Tiger stories all that matters is how strong your teeth are, how you hunt and how you kill. Ain’t no gentleness in Tiger stories, no tricksiness, and no peace.”

After explaining to Maeve that people take on the shapes of the songs and stories that surround them, the old man says that Tiger stories weren’t really violent per se but were just bad stories: they began in tears, and they ended in blood.

But then Anansi came along. The old man explains,

“Well, Anansi won the stories - won them? No. He earned them. He took them from Tiger, and made it so Tiger couldn’t enter the real world no more. Not in the flesh. The stories people told became Anansi stories. This was, what, ten, fifteen thousand years back. Now, Anansi stories, they have wit and trickery and wisdom. Now, all over the world, all of the people they aren’t just thinking of hunting and being hunted anymore. Now they’re starting to think their way out of problems - sometimes thinking their way into worse problems. They still need to keep their bellies full, but now they’re trying to figure out how to do it without working - and that’s the point where people start using their heads. Some people think the first tools were weapons, but that’s all upside down. First of all, people figure out the tools. It’s the crutch before the club, every time. Because now people are telling Anansi stories, and they’re starting to think about how to get kissed, how to get something for nothing by being smarter or funnnier. That’s when they start to make the world.”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We all have much to be thankful for.