I do have a book review blog but it’s been neglected for a long time now and besides, this ones kind of relevant.
You know by now that I love Iceland Scandinavia. You may – although you probably don’t – know that I’ve read some of the “important Scandinavian medieval literature” that survives today, that is to say the Icelandic sagas and the Eddas. Maybe you’ve heard me rave about the Saga of the Volsungs, both as a shocking and hilarious piece story and as a proto-Hobbit.
Last month I finally got my hands on Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. It’s taken a while to coordinate existence of paperback version with having my Christmas book token in the right bag at the right time. I’ve had my eye on it for ages.
We all know that Neil Gaiman is bordering on genius. He’s very good at what he does and the Norse mythology, as well as mythology from throughout the world runs heavily through his American Gods, a book I seem to re-read at least every two years.
So I was excited about his take on Norse mythology. He’s taken the stories from the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda and details from other sagas and sources and strung it all together… to basically recreate the Eddas.
For someone who isn’t interested in tackling the original medieval material (it’s genuinely still pretty readable, especially if you’re happy to keep one finger in the glossary section) it’s a nice modern easy way to read the old stories. It gathers everything together and removes a lot of the odd, obsolete phrasing.
For someone who’s already read it all, there’s nothing new here. I wasn’t expecting new stories but I was expecting a new style, something new in the way they’re told, some heavy touch of Gaiman in the writing. What I got was the same stories told in exactly the same voice. For newcomers that’s great – that flat matter-of-fact tone is as much part of the old stories as Thor and Loki are. But anyone could have written this book. I could have written this book. I wanted to hear and feel Neil Gaiman writing this book.
So there’s a review. Absolutely perfect if you want to read the stories of Norse mythology. A disappointment if you already have.
(Now, Neil Gaiman in full American Gods mode writing a modern Volsungs Saga… I can imagine nothing better! Neil Gaiman taking on Guðrun’s revenge!)