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krystowska 's review for:
The Gospel of Loki
by Joanne M. Harris
Diverse cast of characters:
No
After having read that the author harasses people who give a bad review, I'm almost afraid to leave mine.
When I picked this up, I new already from the start that I wasn't going to love it (I'm not a fan of fantasy), but being extremely interested in mythology, and having read too little Nordic such, I hoped to at least learn something. And yes, a quick Google search shows that many of the mythological stories in Harris' book are true (meaning that they are real myths existing in the old sources we have), but what she has done with them... ... It is awful!
I see writing modern adaptation of old - sometimes thousands of years old - stories as a form of translation. And just as with translating between languages, the translator has to find a balance between choosing a "language" that makes the story accessible to the new readers, but also at the same time staying true to the original writer and trying to convey the same style, or feeling. Here we are talking about old norse gods. They are not ordinary people! To have a teenage Fenriswolf (called Fenny in the book) answering his parents "whatever" as if he were a modern, american, teenage boy, well... ... I'm out of words, I can't even....
I also find this retelling to be so misogynistic. And not in a "these were different times" - way, but in a modern 21st century way. The goddesses are depicted just as vain, slutty or stupid. It was so sad and disappointing, I actually wanted to quit reading on several occasions. (And I almost regret that I didn't. I feel that you have to read a whole book to be able to assess it properly, but this time it didn't do any good.)
I know that this genre is fiction, but I am still so extremely disappointed in the way the author just took the stories and put them, not in a fictional sphere, but in the worst macho 20-century misogynistic, macho sphere you could immagine. And the worst part is that people are going to believe it, meaning they are going to believe that this book conveys the essence of the old norse society with it's gender roles et c. That's making me extra sad...
When I picked this up, I new already from the start that I wasn't going to love it (I'm not a fan of fantasy), but being extremely interested in mythology, and having read too little Nordic such, I hoped to at least learn something. And yes, a quick Google search shows that many of the mythological stories in Harris' book are true (meaning that they are real myths existing in the old sources we have), but what she has done with them... ... It is awful!
I see writing modern adaptation of old - sometimes thousands of years old - stories as a form of translation. And just as with translating between languages, the translator has to find a balance between choosing a "language" that makes the story accessible to the new readers, but also at the same time staying true to the original writer and trying to convey the same style, or feeling. Here we are talking about old norse gods. They are not ordinary people! To have a teenage Fenriswolf (called Fenny in the book) answering his parents "whatever" as if he were a modern, american, teenage boy, well... ... I'm out of words, I can't even....
I also find this retelling to be so misogynistic. And not in a "these were different times" - way, but in a modern 21st century way. The goddesses are depicted just as vain, slutty or stupid. It was so sad and disappointing, I actually wanted to quit reading on several occasions. (And I almost regret that I didn't. I feel that you have to read a whole book to be able to assess it properly, but this time it didn't do any good.)
I know that this genre is fiction, but I am still so extremely disappointed in the way the author just took the stories and put them, not in a fictional sphere, but in the worst macho 20-century misogynistic, macho sphere you could immagine. And the worst part is that people are going to believe it, meaning they are going to believe that this book conveys the essence of the old norse society with it's gender roles et c. That's making me extra sad...