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thomas_edmund 's review for:
The Gospel of Loki
by Joanne M. Harris
Apparently Norse mythology is all the rage these days, NOT just because of the inclusion of Asgardian Marvel hero Thor (and his overly celebrated rival Loki) in recent films. In the Gospel of Loki Harris proves her scholarship of the topic by presenting a piece both seeped in originality and authentic mythology.
I hope it is relatively obvious this is Legend from the perspective of Loki the Trickster God, all the way from creation to Ragnarok. What impressed me most about this novel is that despite a fast pace and comedy focused prose, one felt a certain degree of authenticity around the story. Harris does intriguing work in making Loki the ultimate underdog hero, without loosing sight of his treacherous ways.
Despite being a strong piece there were some flaws however, the first I must confront is the humor. The gags rely heavily on apparent anachronisms, mostly in the form of the characters using modern (or slightly 90's) language. While a daring choice of joke to fill an entire novel with, I felt it was hit and miss, mostly miss. I feel it is important to point out that like a Disney movie there were layers of humor to keep the adults entertained, and some good laughs throughout Gospel of Loki. The constant stream of sarky, cheap jibes from 'Ours Truly.' did get old very quickly.
My other worry of Gospel was that while mostly exciting and fun, the shallow fast paced prose made it hard to attach to anyone or anything. The majority of the word-count was devoted to jokes, I rarely had a strong sense of the particular scenes, nor did many of the scenes 'stick' so to speak in my memory. Other than a particularly brilliant end to the first part, and the final conclusion of the novel which I must add was brilliant, most the scenes could be taken or leaven.
Despite the annoyances, Gospel of Loki is definitely a worthwhile read, the good parts made the in your face humor just bearable, and the talent of Harris in using a mythological villain as a narrator without making the reader hate him or twisting the original material too far cannot be denied.
I hope it is relatively obvious this is Legend from the perspective of Loki the Trickster God, all the way from creation to Ragnarok. What impressed me most about this novel is that despite a fast pace and comedy focused prose, one felt a certain degree of authenticity around the story. Harris does intriguing work in making Loki the ultimate underdog hero, without loosing sight of his treacherous ways.
Despite being a strong piece there were some flaws however, the first I must confront is the humor. The gags rely heavily on apparent anachronisms, mostly in the form of the characters using modern (or slightly 90's) language. While a daring choice of joke to fill an entire novel with, I felt it was hit and miss, mostly miss. I feel it is important to point out that like a Disney movie there were layers of humor to keep the adults entertained, and some good laughs throughout Gospel of Loki. The constant stream of sarky, cheap jibes from 'Ours Truly.' did get old very quickly.
My other worry of Gospel was that while mostly exciting and fun, the shallow fast paced prose made it hard to attach to anyone or anything. The majority of the word-count was devoted to jokes, I rarely had a strong sense of the particular scenes, nor did many of the scenes 'stick' so to speak in my memory. Other than a particularly brilliant end to the first part, and the final conclusion of the novel which I must add was brilliant, most the scenes could be taken or leaven.
Despite the annoyances, Gospel of Loki is definitely a worthwhile read, the good parts made the in your face humor just bearable, and the talent of Harris in using a mythological villain as a narrator without making the reader hate him or twisting the original material too far cannot be denied.