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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
http://theprettygoodgatsby.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/review-ragnarok/
OH HEY WHAT UP 5 STARS. Okay, seriously you guys, read this book. It's gorgeous, so so beautifully written. And there are Norse gods in it. And nothing is more badass than a Norse god.
Ragnarok takes places in the English countryside during World War II. The thin child (otherwise unnamed throughout the duration of the book) relocates with her mother while her father is off fighting. She comes across an old book of Norse mythology and it sets her imagination running.
This book is not one to be read for plot, characters, or rich dialogue. In fact, as far as I remember, there are only two short sentences of dialogue in the entire story. Instead, this is a showcase for Byatt's sheer talent for writing. The language in Ragnarok is absolutely breathtaking. There were countless passages I read and reread simply because the imagery was so beautiful. Ms. Byatt was even able to turn a description of a boat made from toenails into a gorgeous work of art.
The chapters alternate between the thin child's perspective and that of Asgard and its inhabitants. With each chapter the tension built and I knew it was coming. I knew his chapter would be up soon and when I finally reached it, I wasn't disappointed. It was everything I had hoped for and more.
Loki and I go way back. He's one of my favorite mythological beings - Norse or otherwise - and I eagerly awaited his arrival. In a book not written for its characters, I felt Loki was the one character I truly got a feel for. As he hatched his plans I became downright giddy. The writing was such that I felt as though I were watching his scenes acted out, rather than reading words on a page.
Loki's capture heralded in Ragnarok itself: the final showdown. Neil Gaiman did a spectacular job of capturing this moment in American Gods and I couldn't wait to read Byatt's take on the battle. In a word: stunning. I could vividly picture the entire world delving into chaos. I watched the battle-scarred gods fight against Loki's wolves.
What I love about the story of Ragnarok is that it doesn't have a happy ending and Byatt actually discusses that in the story. Long before the war the gods knew what was coming and what they would have to do. There are no good guys. There isn't that long, drawn-out moment while the audience holds its breath, waiting to see if the underdogs can score that winning goal as time runs out. It is what it is and I love that.
Despite its extremely short length (less than 180 pages!), Ragnarok is a sweeping epic and has earned a place as one of my tops reads of 2012.
Favorite Quotes:
OH HEY WHAT UP 5 STARS. Okay, seriously you guys, read this book. It's gorgeous, so so beautifully written. And there are Norse gods in it. And nothing is more badass than a Norse god.
The thin child learned to read very early. Her mother was more real, and kinder, when it was a question of grouped letters on the page. Her father was away. He was in the air, in the war, in Africa, in Greece, in Rome, in a world that only existed in books. She remembered him. He had red-gold hair and clear blue eyes, like a god.
Ragnarok takes places in the English countryside during World War II. The thin child (otherwise unnamed throughout the duration of the book) relocates with her mother while her father is off fighting. She comes across an old book of Norse mythology and it sets her imagination running.
The book also said that these stories belonged to 'Nordic' people, Norwegians, Danes and Icelanders. The thin child was, in England, a northerner. The family came from land invaded and settled by Vikings. These were her stories.
This book is not one to be read for plot, characters, or rich dialogue. In fact, as far as I remember, there are only two short sentences of dialogue in the entire story. Instead, this is a showcase for Byatt's sheer talent for writing. The language in Ragnarok is absolutely breathtaking. There were countless passages I read and reread simply because the imagery was so beautiful. Ms. Byatt was even able to turn a description of a boat made from toenails into a gorgeous work of art.
There are no altars to Loki, no standing stones, he had no cult. In myths he was the third of the trio, Odin, Hodur, Loki. In myths, the most important comes first of three. But in fairy tales, and folklore, where these three gods also play their parts, the rule of three is different; the important player is the third, the youngest son, Loki.
The chapters alternate between the thin child's perspective and that of Asgard and its inhabitants. With each chapter the tension built and I knew it was coming. I knew his chapter would be up soon and when I finally reached it, I wasn't disappointed. It was everything I had hoped for and more.
Loki and I go way back. He's one of my favorite mythological beings - Norse or otherwise - and I eagerly awaited his arrival. In a book not written for its characters, I felt Loki was the one character I truly got a feel for. As he hatched his plans I became downright giddy. The writing was such that I felt as though I were watching his scenes acted out, rather than reading words on a page.
The skies thickened and thickened. Things - Dises - leathery winged female things - wailed in the wind and perched on the crags, staring and screaming. Nidhøggr the great worm who gnawed the roots of Yggdrasil came out and sucked the blood from the dead as they law in the freezing slime. From the Kettlewood, where Loki lay bound among the geysirs - which still spouted hot - came a louder howl of wolves, wolves in the wood, wolves padding over the snow, wolves with blood on their fangs, wolves in the mind.
Wind Time, Wolf Time, before the World breaks up.
That was the time they were in.
Loki's capture heralded in Ragnarok itself: the final showdown. Neil Gaiman did a spectacular job of capturing this moment in American Gods and I couldn't wait to read Byatt's take on the battle. In a word: stunning. I could vividly picture the entire world delving into chaos. I watched the battle-scarred gods fight against Loki's wolves.
What I love about the story of Ragnarok is that it doesn't have a happy ending and Byatt actually discusses that in the story. Long before the war the gods knew what was coming and what they would have to do. There are no good guys. There isn't that long, drawn-out moment while the audience holds its breath, waiting to see if the underdogs can score that winning goal as time runs out. It is what it is and I love that.
Bunyan's tale had a clear message and meaning. Not so, Asgard and the Gods. That book was an account of a mystery, of how a world came together, was filled with magical and powerful beings, and then came to an end. A real End. The end.
Despite its extremely short length (less than 180 pages!), Ragnarok is a sweeping epic and has earned a place as one of my tops reads of 2012.
Favorite Quotes:
They became raiders. They overran each others' housesteads, howling and roaring, slaughtering the weak and emptying the meagre stores. They drank what mead there was, swallowed the wine as though there was no tomorrow, which they began to believe was true. Hungry creatures, hungry men, will eat anything. The battle-winners feasted among the dead bodies, which were being torn at by creeping, crouching beasts. They gripped each other and fell about the fire, fornicating with whomever was to hand, with whatever was to hand. They bit and kissed and chewed and swallowed and fought and struggled and waiting for the world to end, which it did not, not yet. They ate each other, of course, in the end.
This was the moment. This was the beginning of the end. These gods were gods who had existed in waiting, waiting to made a last stand.
The gods went over the bridge, Bifröst, the rainbow bridge that linked Asgard and Midgard. They were damaged already, when they set out. Tyr had lost his arm to the wold, Odin his eye to Mimir, Freyer had given away his magic sword, Thor's wife, Sif, had seen all her magical hair fall away from her bald head. Thor himself, according to some poets, had lost the hammer he had thrown after the Midgard-serpent. Baldur had lost his life. There are two ways, in stories, of winning battles - to be sumpremely strong, or to be a gallant forlorn hope. The Ases were neither. They were brave and tarnished.
A gorgeous narrative about the Norse end of the world myth, and about the power of myth itself. Byatt weaves together a retelling of the Ragnarok myth with her own childhood experience of first reading that myth during World War II, which felt to her like the beginning of the end of her own world. The narrative voice is intentionally mythic, larger than life, distant, very different from the human scale of a novel. This works perfectly for a narrative that examines the way myths help us to shape our own understanding of the world around us. The book is also just extraordinary on the sentence level. She brings the majesty and horror of the epic, violent myths into being with flat-out incredible writing. If you have even the slightest interest in Norse mythology, you will not be disappointed.
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is probably the clearest and most engaging version of those myths I've ever read. But I am a big fan of A. S. Byatt's writing style in general.
I can't help but think this was an easy paycheck for A.S. Byatt. She's retold some Norse myths, and hung them on the flimsy thread of a child reading them in England during the bombings of WWII.
The myths are fascinating, of course, but she doesn't bring much new to the re-telling, and actually weighs them down with a prosody they don't need. As for the little girl - way too little character to give the conceit any depth.
Two stars is generous, and only reflect the myths themselves.
Pass.
The myths are fascinating, of course, but she doesn't bring much new to the re-telling, and actually weighs them down with a prosody they don't need. As for the little girl - way too little character to give the conceit any depth.
Two stars is generous, and only reflect the myths themselves.
Pass.
Admittedly I read the author's end note before I'd read a lot of book, which might have influenced, but I couldn't quite tell if it was meant to be autobiographical or not, and that didn't let me fully get into the myth. The prose style also wasn't particularly to my liking, though I think it would've been nicer to listen to as an audiobook.
Very lovely overview of Norse mythology although I wished Byatt had done more with them than just doing a straightforward recap.
I loved Possession, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, Ragnarok was a disappointment. I didn't feel that Byatt brought anything new to the mythology, and if you're going to tell a common, known story, I need you to illuminate something different in that story. I understood the connection she drew between WWII and Ragnarok, but the connection was too tenuous for it to count as "bringing something new" to me.
Additionally, it was difficult to invest in a story in which no characters had depth. I don't enjoy books for plot alone, so I struggled to enjoy Ragnarok. Byatt explains at the end that she disagrees with the impulse to humanize and psychologize gods in modern retellings, and while I do see value in her stance, it means that the reader is expected to invest in shallow characters who stand for concepts, rather than complex characters whose desires motivate their otherwise hard-to-understand actions. Furthermore, because the one human character also served as an allegory, there were no psychologically complex characters in this story. Again, Byatt explains at the end that the thin girl was essentially herself as a child, but that wasn't interesting enough to keep me invested. It got to the point that I was about ready to scream if I encountered the phrase, "the thin girl," one more time.
This hasn't turned me off of other A.S. Byatt because Possession is one of my favorite books, but I wish this hadn't been my second encounter with her writing.
Additionally, it was difficult to invest in a story in which no characters had depth. I don't enjoy books for plot alone, so I struggled to enjoy Ragnarok. Byatt explains at the end that she disagrees with the impulse to humanize and psychologize gods in modern retellings, and while I do see value in her stance, it means that the reader is expected to invest in shallow characters who stand for concepts, rather than complex characters whose desires motivate their otherwise hard-to-understand actions. Furthermore, because the one human character also served as an allegory, there were no psychologically complex characters in this story. Again, Byatt explains at the end that the thin girl was essentially herself as a child, but that wasn't interesting enough to keep me invested. It got to the point that I was about ready to scream if I encountered the phrase, "the thin girl," one more time.
This hasn't turned me off of other A.S. Byatt because Possession is one of my favorite books, but I wish this hadn't been my second encounter with her writing.
With a Nordic Mythology class in my past and a love of A. S. Byatt's writing (mainly "Possession"), I thought it about time, I read some more of her work.
Short, concise, but dense retelling of the end of the gods.
Short, concise, but dense retelling of the end of the gods.
I thought I would love this book, and, unfortunately, it was not the case.
I couldn't enter Ragnarok because, I suppose, of the writing style. It didn't click with me. And so I was not engaged in the story, I was left unmoved. I didn't feel the chaos and uproar of the end of the gods, I didn't feel appalled or horrified or thrilled. I was just reading, feeling nothing, it was an awful sensation.
It was an original idea to intertwine World War II and Norse mythology; and as A. S. Byatt writes it in the afterword, she doesn't have a name, and is just "the thin child" because the book is not really about her, but about Loki, his children, and the end of the world. It is also about the impact of myths on readers, and here, on children. The girl has a kind of parallel world that influences the real world; but she never believes in the gods or in the stories. She also differentiates myths and fairy tales. And it's clear that she prefers Loki, the trickster.
The afterword was really super interesting: the author writes about her vision of myths, about her novel and why she wrote it this way. Gods don't have a personality in the original myths, and she didn't want to give them one, as other writers do in novels. She also gives a bibliography at the end, and I added some books to my reading list!
So, it was a good book, I loved to rediscover some myths, and have a whole new lot of books to read on many different topics! But, I couldn't appreciate the writing style and wasn't drawn in the book.
I couldn't enter Ragnarok because, I suppose, of the writing style. It didn't click with me. And so I was not engaged in the story, I was left unmoved. I didn't feel the chaos and uproar of the end of the gods, I didn't feel appalled or horrified or thrilled. I was just reading, feeling nothing, it was an awful sensation.
It was an original idea to intertwine World War II and Norse mythology; and as A. S. Byatt writes it in the afterword, she doesn't have a name, and is just "the thin child" because the book is not really about her, but about Loki, his children, and the end of the world. It is also about the impact of myths on readers, and here, on children. The girl has a kind of parallel world that influences the real world; but she never believes in the gods or in the stories. She also differentiates myths and fairy tales. And it's clear that she prefers Loki, the trickster.
The afterword was really super interesting: the author writes about her vision of myths, about her novel and why she wrote it this way. Gods don't have a personality in the original myths, and she didn't want to give them one, as other writers do in novels. She also gives a bibliography at the end, and I added some books to my reading list!
So, it was a good book, I loved to rediscover some myths, and have a whole new lot of books to read on many different topics! But, I couldn't appreciate the writing style and wasn't drawn in the book.