Customer Reviews

Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(76)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I just read that Ben Stiller's production company has optioned "Gods" for development as a TV series; I hope this hysterically funny yet sweet-tempered farce is not destroyed by a sitcom mentality.

In "Gods Behaving Badly," the gods of Olympus have been holed up in a decrepit London flat for almost 400 years of decay. Forced to make a living, Aphrodite turns to phone sex, Artemis walks dogs on Hampstead Heath, Dionysus runs a sleazy bar, and Apollo has a lame fortune-telling show on cable TV. Eros (Cupid) shoots Apollo with love's arrow, and his lusty gaze falls on poor timid Alice, a cleaning lady attending the show with Neil, a structural engineer who secretly loves her. In pursuit of Alice, Apollo comes close to destroying the world, and nerdish Neil must descend into the Underworld to rescue Alice (and the world) from death.

This *does* I admit sound like a sitcom premise; what rescues "Gods Behaving Badly" is the author's witty dialogue and almost romantic sympathy for her characters - even the naughty ones. Apollo's pursuit of little Alice has a kind of Marx-Brothers manic frenzy to it, and for bawdy comedy the book rivals Christopher Moore (one of my favorite authors), but with a more coherent plot, believe it or not. Read it before television gets hold of it!

This book's back cover blurb includes a review calling it 'hilarious.' I must have a different sense of humor than that reviewer, because I found little about the book that was amusing. The book was well-written, had swiftly but well-drawn charcters and a promising and clever premise of ancient gods living a modern life. Nonetheless, the overwhelming feeling evoked by the book was one of sadness.

The Olympian gods are living degraded existences in which all of life's moments, even sex, are desultory and boring. Their lives are boring and boring, therefore, to read. The two main human characters are both stunted emotionally and while their small lives are somewhat poignant, they do not inspire humor or in fact, anything more than pity. Nonetheless, the humans find heroism in themselves and manage to restore themselves and the gods to their rightful place through selflessness and courage.

This book is a good moral tale if one enjoys sad and dark stories. But hilarious? No.

This book certainly got off to a promising start, enough so that I kept moving along through some of the more tedious Neil-and-Alice moments. Marie Phillips writes well enough so that most people should be able to make their way through this novel in no more than two days.

It does have some laugh-out-loud moments, and some pretty good dialogue, but the author seems to have used up her best material before the first half of the book is completed. By the time the nebbishy Neil begins his (for lack of a better term) heroic quest, I felt myself trudging along obligingly, despite suspecting that an obvious conclusion was waiting for me. Sadly, there were no surprises in store.

It doesn't help that the author, while obviously having done good background research, only seems really interested in the character of Artemis. With the possible exception of Eros, all of the other gods & mortals seem to be filler for the most part. Alice & Neil are extremely mundane, and while this certainly makes sense in the larger context of the plotline, it doesn't necessarily make for engaging characters.

It wasn't a disappointment, and it certainly had some rather amusing moments --- but ultimately, I would have to file this one in the "could have been so much better" category.

While the concept for this novel has been utilized before by other authors, such as Neil Gaiman's American Gods, this work puts a new face on all those Greek gods you had to study about in high school, and the face is decidedly not complimentary.

The Greek pantheon is now installed in a London townhouse, having moved there in 1665 when prices were cheap. Given the age of the house, it's not surprising that it's not palatial - in fact it's downright grungy, broken-down, and quite filthy, as obviously none of these gods ever stoops to actually cleaning anything. And the gods themselves seem to be only a pale image of what they used to be, with limited power reserves and no apparent real desire to change how things are. And you might remember that these gods had decidedly different ideas about sex and family life, an item that hasn't changed in all the centuries, as these beings are still going at it in ways that would certainly shock poor Mrs. Grundy.

It's this incestuous and tumultuous relationship between two of the gods, Aphrodite and Apollo, that eventually snare two ordinary mortals in its web, one an engineer, one a cleaning lady. How they fare and what influence they eventually have on the on the whole situation forms the heart of the plot, which actually makes sense given the starting assumptions.

There's a fair amount of humor suffusing this work, and some of the portraits of the gods are hilarious - I particularly enjoyed the description of Athena, goddess of wisdom, who can't seem to utter a sentence without using obfuscating polysyllabic words and conveying zero information, much like certain academics. The two mortals are reasonably well portrayed, though not in any great depth. The prose is pretty utilitarian and it reads quickly, but there are both some graphic sex scenes and uses of some language that might offend some readers.

The biggest flaw of this book is the ending, which is just too pat and uses a near-cliché as the `answer' to the god's problems. But I found the book to be quite an enjoyable read, giving me a few chuckles, and with a little bit of wholesome goodness in the concept of a modern day `hero' going up against these almighty gods of yesteryear. Not a great book, but fun.


--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

An easy and quick read with a nice story. The author's imagination helps propel the story as the reader is presented with half a dozen gods and goddesses from ancient Greece/Rome as they find themselves in the 21st century living in London. Mixed in with them become two 'mortals', Neil and Alice, who are madly in love with each other yet don't have the ability to make their feelings clear to one another.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the author developed the personalities of the various gods and goddesses. Their descriptions from ancient stories come to life as we see how materialistic Aphrodite as well as vain. How casually they think of humans and humanity and how much pride they take in themselves and their failing powers trying to preserve as much self respect as they can. Even so, the idea that man was created in God's image takes on a new meaning here, it is as if these gods and goddesses are the extremes of crass human emotions and ideas. Be it faith, chastity, sexuality, jealousy, etc.

A fast read, a fun read, and most importantly an entertaining one. Took me a little over a day of casual reading and it flowed quite well. The dialog will have you laughing to yourself or out loud more than once as these gods and goddesses interact with nature, humanity, and each other. The only thing I was surprised by is the fact that these rulers of the world, with the names that many in this world should be familiar with, are not known by many of the characters they interact with.

I don't write poor reviews generally, but since I selected this product to read for free, I am now committed to writing a review of this for Amazon.com, for that's the agreement.

I spend my reading time these days divided (mostly) between ancient literature, modern philosophy, and cultural criticism. So, this book looked promising: a fun experiment, interfacing our modern culture with the culture of ancient Greece, by way of placing the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece in the modern world. I thought it would be a fascinating story, full of contrast and critique.

That's not at all what this book is. It is, in fact, the opposite - the stock scripts and behaviors that fill the modern social lives of middle & high-school children are projected onto the behaviors of the gods. The gods have neither depth or fidelity to ancient forms as a result - their actions are merely a collage of shallow pop-culture phrases, gestures, interests and activities that make soap-operas look like the pinaccle of all of Western Civilization by comparison.

I laughed at the very first line of the book: "One morning, when Artemis was out walking the dogs, she saw a tree where no tree should be. The tree was standing alone in a sheltered part of the slope. To the untrained eye, the causal passer-by, it probably just looked like a normal tree. But Artemis's eye was far from untrained..." etc. The gods, throughout, are the projected fantasies of a poorly educated low-ceilinged imagination, who has reified the tawdry and the banal, and can only assert that these characters are gods because they have "powers," which powers belong on the TV show "Charmed," or some knock-off of it (which reinterprets the meaning that the word "god" had to an ancient Greek, or to anyone from any ancient culture). The characters themselves are simplifications of the archetypes found in the media of the Modern Pop-culture Industrial West. They say nothing that an adolescent couldn't dream-up and then put, word for word, in a comic book.

This is very frustrating for anyone who has any appreciation for the slightly secularized literary expressions of real, robust ancient Greek paganism, and who is fascinated with the religious experience of the gods that is reflected in them. As far as the god Eros is concerned, I doubt that any modern Christian would recognize the Christianity that he has adopted, though it serves as a wonderful foil for the author to have the gods mock Jesus ("that thief of faith"). Strangely, the gods seem to think of monotheism as a heresy, which is not a category that any ancient pagan would have understood, and clearly one that the author does not, either. The gods of ancient Greece did not care what you believed, and did not care about "faith," whatever the author means by it. They want sacrifices, temples, monuments and feats in their honor.

If you've never read any classical literature and think that "Survivor" is one of the highlights of your week, and that the quarrels on Jerry Springer and Judge Judy are real, appreciable, conversation-worthy problems, you'll enjoy this book. To top it off for you, it's got some very dull sex scenes in it, too, which most pop-TV trash could never show you.

Otherwise, read Lombardo's translation of The Iliad, which really punches, and reads a lot better (and more accessibly) than the other translations of that work, which are usually dry, and (strangely) have a British temperament. Even readers of this book ("gods behaving badly") could pick up Lombardo's translation and understand it without trouble. That will enrich you and expand you, and make you more human. This will enslave you to the dregs of modern consumer culture far below the level of "The Gossip Girls."

Gods are immortal; so what happens to them once they no longer have a following? While Ms. Phillips turns this premise into an interesting story, with many unique twists, the same premise underlies Neil Gaiman's 2003 book, American Gods--and was developed in a far more intricate (and interesting) plot. While Gaiman included a wide array of international gods of folklore (Thor to Native American spirits) and built his story around a basic mystery, Ms. Phillips focuses on the Gods of Greek mythology--Zeus and his immediate (more or less) family, and builds her story around a Greek myth--with heavy doses of satire and irony added.

Phillips' set up is brilliant--the Gods bought a London townhouse in the 1600, and it (and they) have been slowly deteriorating ever since. Aphrodite is reduced to working a telephone porn operation, and Apollo as a TV psychic (not a good one at that). It seems only Hermes, the God of War, is still fully employed. But it all goes on too long, and the sense of mystery--why have the gods lost all of their power--is no mystery at all to those who read Gaiman's book--no one believes in them anymore.

The central "action" involves a rough retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story, reset in modern day London. The climatic sequence where our hero rescues his true love from the dead is compelling, but again, the gods' big revelation about how to regain their powers is anti-climatic--I figured out their problem long before they did!

In sum, a very good read, but felt throughout like a reworking of ground covered by Gaiman much more compellingly a couple of years ago.

Typically when I give a rating and review on anything other than a 4 or 5 stars it seems every friend, family and fan of the author's marks the review as negative feedback. As much as I wish I could give something a higher rating, if it doesn't jive with me please take this as "constructive" feedback that the author will hopefully put into their next book.

With that said. . . .

Pro's:
1) Hey! She got published. A feat many folks envy and dream about but far fewer actually accomplish. Bravo!

2) The back cover description sounded interesting and fun, a little soap-opera-like, but that was ok. It was well worded for the marketing purposes of the book.

3) The cover was intriguing and appropriate for the story

4) Some interesting things happen to the main characters. There was so much potential in this story, but it fell flat for the following reasons. . . .

Con's
1) Overall the story conflict and the interaction between the characters is trite. It wasn't just soap-opera-like, it was a prime-time soap opera extravaganza

2) In chapter 2 Apollo and Aphrodite are going at it and the description isn't too bad (though adult) and by chapter 23 they are going at it again but this time the author reverts to more colorful language that wasn't necessary at all and just stopped the flow of the story. Changing the "author's tone of voice" made this difficult to read

3) The author needs to spend more time listening to how men talk. Neil and Alice in some scenes sound the same.

4) As mentioned above, this was overall a great concept (extra star for that). But its as if the author didn't sit down and brainstorm a hundred ways to use the idea and pick the best. Instead it seems the author took the first idea and ran with it whether it was good or not

5) Much of the writing felt like I was reading a translation of a foreign novel, which tends to get the gist across, but doesn't flow well.

6) I started reading and cringed from the opening line to the final line. The author didn't know how to grab my attention or let me go at the end in a glorious way

OVERALL:
I wish I could have enjoyed this book more, but the author needs to get more honest feedback on her writing before publishing and not just listen to forgiving, kind friends, family and possibly an easy going critique group. There are far better "first time" books you could spend your time and money on. Too bad this isn't one of them.

If you want to see a similar concept taken to the heights of great writing try Neil Gaiman's "American Gods".

When I heard about this book, I was excited to receive and read it - The premise being Greek Gods living in present day London - they are losing their strength, and are forced to make livings the mortal way - Well, the book promises that it is hilarious - well, it's not. Not in the least. Well, there was one funny line but it had profanity so I cannot relate it here -
The gods have no great redeeming values - they fight among themselves as they did in the old days, but it is not pretty and the mortal couple in the book, finally become the people we wanted them to be towards the end of the book.
If you want to read a really great hilariously funny book about the Gods coming to life and dealing with mortals and the consequences, PLEASE get
Nightlife of the Gods, by Thorne Smith - it is worth the find.
Gods Behaving Badly could have been a great book with a lighter hand, and less needless profanity and blatant sex.

The concept was a great one, Greek Gods living in London in the present day and adapting themselves to modern living. I thought it would be a great, fun story to read, filled with creativity, entertaining and hopefully even funny. I didn't find it to be any of those things.

I received this through the Amazon Vine program, before its publication date. I had limited information at the time I requested it and thought it sounded good so I requested a copy to read and review. I faced a challenge when I didn't even want to finish the first chapter. I plowed through the book out of obligation. I'm sorry to write this review but it is honest (I didn't want to lie in my review).

I didn't like any of the characters, there was nothing to like about them. They weren't funny, even, and I thought that the idea of Greek Gods living in the present day could have had a lot to laugh about.

All were reduced to scummy positions in society, even living in squalor in a rat-infested house. The lovely Aphrodite as a phone sex operator and doing that on a cell phone while walking around? Dionysus not just as a nightclub owner but a sleazy, dark one filled with weird acts being performed on stage? Apollo as a not talented television psychic? And due to the writing, the characters were all shallow, which didn't make me feel emotionally interested in any of them.

As today's news reporters do, the author also takes emotionally-charged issues and presents them so shallowly that we don't care. A child getting bulled and beat up on a schoolyard is presented with no emotion, then videotaping said event, no emotion. A human having been turned into a tree and later chopped down, just because while walking to work, she refused to perform a sex act on Apollo, again, no emotion. The human couple in love, barely any emotion.

One God has converted to Christianity although that is covered so shallowly that we don't even care let alone understand why a Greek God would convert to Christianity! (Is that not a huge thing?) One discussion between the Gods about Jesus Christ and Christianity was especially insulting, where they say Jesus Christ was just a mortal and they take it from there, basically putting down any Christian for being so stupid to believe in Jesus Christ as anything but a regular old dead human from the past.

The book has some sex scenes, starting right off on the sixth page of the book, which were also written so as to illicit zero emotion or interest, it is just crude and uncaring and trivial and nasty. Profanity is throughout the book as well, with dullness actually, why bother?

One thing that drove me nuts was the over-use of dialogue. I've never read a book so full of dialogue and so lacking in text. And the dialogue is not great either. The author does not use it in the way that a master at dialogue such as Stephen King does, in ways to reveal each character's persona and that conveys emotion and that actually moves the story forward.

I know it is hard to write a book and I thought it was even harder to actually get published. I don't usually write reviews with such negative content, if I don't like a book of adult fiction I just don't review it, chalking it up to just my taste in fiction being different than other people's and who am I to judge? However issues like shallow characters, being a book that when I'm half way through it, that I don't even care enough to go on to finish it, is a sign for me that the book is not just not good but is pretty poor. The Amazon Vine program puts me in a hard position; I am forced to review the book that I didn't know much about at the time I ordered it. I'm sorry to rate this so low but it is my honest review. I disliked it so much and I thought the writing and storytelling in and of itself was so bad that I can't even muster up a justification for a 2 star rating.

Perhaps some would think this is a good summer beach read. It just is not my cup of tea at all, even for beach reading.

One more thing. Why would the author and publisher advertise on the back cover in the author's biography section that she writes a certain blog which, as of today, she has set to be read only by invited guests? Since we readers are not allowed to read that blog we should not even be told about it.