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A review by olivierbeys
The Elder Edda by Unknown
3.0
Having read a lot in my life about the Greco-Roman mythological world, I got around to norse mythology quite late in my life with this set of stories (compiled in the Codex Regius). It was quite revealing to find out where Tolkien and others drew their inspiration from, I should have read up on this as a teenager when I first discovered Middle-Earth in the Lords of the Ring!
It is notoriously difficult to translate poetry, especially if it is circa 1000 years old. While this translation gave it a fair go, I'm sure I failed to grasp the many plays on words, cross-references to other myths and so on. In that sense, I would probably enjoy these stories in contemporary prose form just like so many people do with fanasy novels and computer games.
For me the reading experience worked best by reading one saga every (odd) day or so, rather than going for a long read. The downside of this is that it becomes rather difficult to keep track of the protagonists in the second part of the book dedicated to the heroic sagas. There is genealogical table in the book, which made it almost impossible to follow the flow of these stories, which are often related to one another.
In hindsight, I'd first read a companion book or some sort of informative book about norse mythology before tackling and better appreciating the originals.
That's why this was not quite a pageturner for me
It is notoriously difficult to translate poetry, especially if it is circa 1000 years old. While this translation gave it a fair go, I'm sure I failed to grasp the many plays on words, cross-references to other myths and so on. In that sense, I would probably enjoy these stories in contemporary prose form just like so many people do with fanasy novels and computer games.
For me the reading experience worked best by reading one saga every (odd) day or so, rather than going for a long read. The downside of this is that it becomes rather difficult to keep track of the protagonists in the second part of the book dedicated to the heroic sagas. There is genealogical table in the book, which made it almost impossible to follow the flow of these stories, which are often related to one another.
In hindsight, I'd first read a companion book or some sort of informative book about norse mythology before tackling and better appreciating the originals.
That's why this was not quite a pageturner for me