Anansi Boys book review

After reading the Anansi Boys, I found this is a simple, vivid, and jovial coming-of-age novel. The author combines comedy, horror, and crime fiction makes it seem like a story with no profound truth on the surface, but it still strikes at the heart of the reader in essence. I think Anansi Boys is very different from other fantasy novels. Although it has adventures, magic and scary plots like ordinary fantasy novels, its essence is to discuss a question about how to grow up.

 

Through The story of Neil Gaiman, we see the growth of a man who use to be weak, self-contemptuous and uninteresting. At the same time, we also realize that while suffering in life can make a person grow up quickly, the process of growing up can be very painful.

 

The beginning of the story is a little less immersive, until the spider appears and the whole story becomes clear. On the surface, “Fat Charlie” has lost his job and his love life, but when he hits the bottom of his life, he comes to a holiday resort by accident. Here, he harvested his own love, more importantly, after experiencing many things, he began to force himself to grow up, although the process is very painful, but he still surpassed the old self, become the new fat Charlie. Fat Charlie use to be afraid to sing in public. Even though he had a good voice, he made a fool of himself because of his lack of confidence. But when fat Charlie is cornered and determined to go for it, he begins to become a different person, confident, optimistic and passionate. At the end of the story, both Fat Charlie and his brother Spider have their own careers and love lives, which is a happy ending.

 

In my opinion, the biggest achievement for Fat Charlie is not his love and career, but his transformation from a person with low self-esteem, timid and afraid to express himself to a truly attractive man. In this sense, it's fat Charlie's reconciliation with himself. And fat Charlie and brother spider once quarreled, and finally also shake hands and reconcile, the contradictions between the brothers reached a settlement, this is also due to their common suffering.


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