"Gods Behaving Badly", Marie Philips
Nestling uncomfortably under a brightly block-coloured cover with a cute, handwriting-effect title, this book understandably led a friend of mine to ask, "Are you reading a chick-lit?" While Gods Behaving Badly has a light-hearted, gently ironic tone that wouldn't be out of place in a Bridget Jones book or the like, and comes complete with a happy rom-com ending, it's poorly served by its presentation.
The ancient Greek gods have lived in London since the 1660s. Their power is diminishing (suggesting that they are finally succumbing to age and at risk of dying), they miss being important and adored, and they're heartily sick of each other, until Apollo, through a thoughtless act of cruelty to a mortal and a trivial slight against Aphrodite, unintentionally sets off a chain of events that radically affects them, the world and the lives of a small handful of mortals that wander unwittingly into their affairs.
To be fair, I love this kind of thing. Neil Gaiman does it all the time, and I lap it up. But Philips has an engaging approach to it. For one thing, while Gaiman's gods are very post-modern, more or less integrated into the modern world while self-consciously referencing ancient archetypes, Philips' gods are the real deal and couldn't give an arse about anything that happened after about 300 BCE. For another, while most other contemporary fantasies about the gods are more or less ecumenical - every god that people believe in is simultaneously real, and therefore none of their claims of absolute primacy are entirely valid - in Gods Behaving Badly the Greek gods are the really, absolutely, real gods and everyone else before and since has been wrong. Even (and especially) the Christians, who are therefore in for something of a shock given that they represent a clear majority (although, in a particularly fine nod to absurdism, Eros is a Christian in spite of knowing with certainty that the Christian God isn't actually real).
The story itself, while very modern and very natural, is also a perfect Greek divine myth, straight out of Ovid or Herodotus; a petty squabble between Gods ends up being a matter of life and death to several mortals; someone dies, there is a journey to the Underworld, and the day is ultimately saved by courage and virtue more than by power or guile.
The style is pacy, immersive and fun. Philips manages most of the writing in a light banter that captures the utter thoughtlessness of the Gods (and the banality of the particular mortals in question) perfectly, interspersed with some fine sections of more sober prose when suited and one or two pieces of grotesque black comedy that actually made me laugh out loud.
A fine, fun read. Well worth the day or two it'll take to read.