Anansi Boys [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

 

 

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The old African gods are still going strong in the 20th century. They've expanded their range with the ancestors of the people who first believed in them: the islands of the Caribbean, America, Britain, this world and the next. Anansi, the spider god, won all the stories from Tiger (the god that represents all cats) long long ago. And Tiger is still angry about it. When Anansi dies, his son, Charlie is in for a world of trouble. Nobody told him his dad was a god - not until after the old fellow died. Then they told him that he has a brother too. It's all news to Charlie. And that's just the beginning.

My thanks to the previous reviewer. His enthusiastic review persuaded me to buy this audiobook. As he's indicated, Lenny Henry is an excellent reader. The way he can change his voice from an old lady with a Caribbean accent, to a girl with an English accent to a man with an American accent, without pause or hesitation, is very impressive and completely convincing. The story is fantastic (in both senses of the word), sometimes funny, occasionally frightening and a real treat for the imagination.

Great fun. Highly recommended.

One of the great joys of being a child is having stories read to you. Once you become an adult this is something that tends not to happen, so recently I have discovered the joy of buying audiobooks of my favourite stories and getting that joy returning.

Anansi Boys is a story about an every man (Fat Charlie) and what happens after his father, the Spider God Anansi dies and he meets his brother Spider. It's a story that is very much about story, so it doesn't concentrate on large passages of descriptive narrative - and having read the novel I decided to take the plunge and buy this version as I though it would make a good audiobook.

If you don't know who Lenny Henry is (and if you don't where have you been) he is a comic/impressionist and part of his repertiore is a large array of Caribbean voices, which also make up a large array of the voices used latter on in the story. He has an easy listening voice when telling the story and his range of vocals across the different characters is a delight (I will be stealing some of them when I tell stories to my children). He has a good sense of pace during the telling so you get the tension at the right points and don't actually have to concentrate on the words that he is saying to much.

When I read Anansi Boys I must admit that I didn't find it terribly funny, it did get a few chuckles, but when you have somebody reading to you you get the sense of the absurd that Neil Gaiman was trying to get across that I just completely missed and it has evoked a few belly laughs whilst I've been driving.

The book is spread across 8 CDs and it's about 10 hours in length which isn't too bad and I know that I will listen to it many morte times than I will read the novel.

If you liked reading the story then give listening to it a chance!

I heartily recommend it to you 9/10.

This story opens with Charlie. He lives a very ordinary, somewhat dull life in England. He travels home to Florida to his father's funeral. While there he is told that his father was not an ordinary human, but the human form of an Anansi (an African Trickster God). Charlie doesn't believe it. While there he is also told that he has a brother named Spider. Charlie is shocked as he believed he was an only child. He is told that if he is ever in trouble and needs his brother's help that all he has to do is tell a spider. He is warned, however, not to do so since the consequences could disrupt things for him.

Back in England, he feels some despair as well as a desire to meet his brother. So he sees a spider and whispers to it to tell his brother Spider to come to him. From the moment his brother arrives, his life is turned completely upside-down. Spider seems to bring nothing but trouble into Charlie's life. To tell more would ruin the story for you.

This was my first Neil Gaiman story and it won't be my last! This unabridged audio of his novel "The Anansi Boys" was very well narrated and the story was so good that I often stayed in the car to listen to more of the story after already arriving at my destination. Now that I've enjoyed the audio version so much I plan to buy the book. I highly recommend this fantasy novel.

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