Norse Mythology

I wanted to read Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology back when it came out a year ago.  I read a bunch of Norse mythology back in school (it's hard to believe, but it's been eight years since I read The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda!) and enjoyed it.  So I was interested to see what Neil Gaiman brought to the table.  I started reading Norse Mythology last night and finished it a few minutes ago; it's a super easy and enjoyable read.  It also felt like going back to an old friend because, after reading the two Eddas, all the stories in Norse Mythology were very familiar to me.

Gaiman's Norse Mythology is a retelling of the old Norse myths.  In the introduction he says he took bits and pieces of stories from both of the Eddas to create his versions.  His stories start with the beginning of the universe and how the worlds were created, give us some fun adventures of Thor, Loki, and the other gods, then end with Ragnarok and a glimpse of what happens afterwards.  Most of the stories start with some trickery by Loki, who then has to make things right afterwards.  Most of the stories are rather light romps (although they often end with the death of a bunch of giants because of course that's how stories with Thor will end), but the end few are much darker in tone.  Gaiman has modernized the tales a bit in his retellings (particularly the dialogue); in his introduction he said he tried to imagine himself back a long time ago in the lands where these stories were first told, but often the dialogue is much more modern than you would expect from that (like in "The Master Builder," Freya says to Loki "You talked these idiots into it" - that phrase sounds really modern). I don't think that this takes away from the retelling, but I did want to point out that it is there.

Overall, Norse Mythology is a quick and fun read if you are interested in or enjoy mythology (particularly Norse mythology).  I can see why everyone loved it when it first came out last February. :)

School Book: The Poetic Edda

I was working on a different paper, but was having a lot of trouble with it. So to take a break, I decided to read The Poetic Edda, which conveniently also helps me with school work.

The Poetic Edda was a really interesting read. I'm glad I read The Prose Edda before it though, because Snorri's work really helped me understand a lot of what was going on. I also found that I'm getting familiar with the Norse structures and allusions (kennings in particular. There aren't many in Eddic poetry, but I can pick out some of the more simple ones referring to blood and warriors).

That being said, The Poetic Edda is still a bit confusing. I think a lot of the confusion stems from us just not knowing a lot about their mythology. There were a number of instances where the note for a confusing line might say that the original is confusing or there is debate among scholars.

But overall, I really enjoyed the Poetic Edda, both the first poems about the gods and the later heroic poems (particularly the poems relating to the Volsungs). I think the only poems I wasn't too fond of were the ones concerning Helgi. There were three of these. The first one was alright, but the second was confusing and the third seemed like a confusing copy of the first poem. They were alright, but not as good as the other poems in this collection.

School Book: The Prose Edda

I know I said The Reluctant Fundamentalist was the last book on the term's reading list. And that's true. But Snorri Sturluson's The Prose Edda was a book I wanted to read to help me with a final paper (and it will be followed by the Poetic Edda).

The Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson back in 13th century Iceland. In it, he recorded the old pagan mythology as best he could (he was writing a few centuries after Iceland was converted to Christianity and the old ways were being lost). As such, The Prose Edda gives us most of what we know of pagan Viking culture.

The Prose Edda was a fun read. It's pretty easy to get through, as long as you can make it past the long sections of ancestry (which were not as bad as those found in the Tain). It's a great overview of Norse mythology (and was a really good introduction for someone like me who only knew a very limited amount).

School Book: The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun

I was a bit leery of reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun. I've read The Lord of the Rings several years ago and found it a bit dry, so I was sort of expecting the same type of writing. Luckily I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, I wasn't really expecting Norse poetry, but was sort of expecting prose (like Ackroyd's Canterbury Tales). But even in the explanatory stuff that his son, Christopher Tolkien, included, there was no dry anything; I genuinely enjoyed what pieces of Tolkien's lecture notes were included.

I read The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun out of order. I started with the poems, then went back to the introduction and later the commentaries on the poems. This is how I normally read school books, specifically Shakespeare and the like. I want to enjoy the work without anyone else's comments first, and then I'll go back and read whatever the editor/translator/whomever has to say.

The poems themselves were rather entertaining, but a bit hard to figure out at first. The style in which they were written is just so foreign to a modern English speaker. But once I got over that, I just enjoyed the story. Of course, the introduction and commentaries did help a bit. Once I'd read the poems I went back to these areas and some of the points I'd had trouble with started making more sense.

In the end I read the entire book from cover to cover, and I really enjoyed all of it. Tolkien's lectures were quite interesting and well-written, and I liked how his son explained how the poems came to be the way they are.