Had to DNF. Too difficult to get into with the writing and too slow in the beginning. Not intrigued enough.

Very funny story of how some mythical gods cause havoc in New York when they come to life. ( )

This book took me forever to get through, but I think that's more my fault that its. It was pretty funny (in the Wodehouse vein, but slightly less wit and quite a bit more...deviancy?) with some LOL moments, which I always appreciate. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/201523-night-life-of-gods-thorne-smith.h... ( )

In Night Life of the Gods, by Thorne Smith, we meet Hunter Hawk, wealthy eccentric scientist in 1920s America, who, after numerous explosions, manages to invent an "atomic ray" that turns living beings into statues, and a second ray that restores them to their original state. He meets Megaera, the 900-year-old descendent of one of the ancient Furies and daughter of one of the last living leprechauns, and she has the magic to turn statues into living beings. Together, the two are invincible, especially when they get to New York City, where there are museums full of statues of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, waiting to come back to life.... This is a re-read from a gazillion years ago, and I must say it holds up well. Thorne Smith is a humourist in the same vein as James Thurber (indeed, the two were friends), and his wordplay and sarcastic commentary about life under Prohibition is still very, very funny. Mind you, I'm not sure that any human being (or deity, for that matter) could actually survive the amount of alcohol his characters constantly imbibe, but given that it's a fantasy anyway, why not indulge? Also in its favour is the fact that the female characters, while generally indolent, are by no means subordinate to the men; in fact, both genders are given non-traditional personality aspects. It's true that the only non-white characters are waiters in a restaurant, and there is one cringe-worthy passage of one of them speaking to another, but there isn't the kind of pervasive racism one might expect from the era. Interestingly, I found this in a Kindle version that includes nine (count 'em, 9!) novels by Thorne Smith, perhaps his whole output, for a mere US $4.59, whereas the Kindle version of this book by itself was over US $5.00. If you're interested in American humour from the 1920s and 1930s, and you have a Kindle, this is an absolute bargain. Recommended! ( )