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aliencatl0rd's review
5.0
This is really a fantastic epic. Honestly, I've never enjoyed required literature but this story was really something else. Highly recommend to anyone.
ellisknox's review
3.0
It's tough for many modern readers to get through medieval literature. The stor-telling is incredibly clumsy by modern standards. There's zero character development, though there are occasional unexplained out-of-character moments. The descriptions are always hyperbolic: in every scene every character is dressed in finery never before seen and never to be equaled. Every scene, blithely disregarding the previous scene's descriptions.
There's a tedious adherence to some medieval story-telling conventions. Before anyone sets out to any new location, we have to watch them gear up. The women put on gowns--the most beautiful ever to appear and specially made for the convention (their seamstresses must have worked blazingly fast)--and the men put on armor, described in detail, every piece of which is blindingly bright and of such workmanship the world has never seen. The dialogue is stilted with a fondness for understatement by characters that I think is a sort of medieval zinger.
Even so. The story progresses. The second half in particular moves toward tragedy and is grim even leaving aside the absurd exaggerations. I mean, in one scene the Niebelungs throw bodies down the stairs. Seven thousand bodies. The numbers are comic, but you learn to let it slide.
This has been on my must-read list for a very long time. Finally can check off that box. Don't need to read it again.
There's a tedious adherence to some medieval story-telling conventions. Before anyone sets out to any new location, we have to watch them gear up. The women put on gowns--the most beautiful ever to appear and specially made for the convention (their seamstresses must have worked blazingly fast)--and the men put on armor, described in detail, every piece of which is blindingly bright and of such workmanship the world has never seen. The dialogue is stilted with a fondness for understatement by characters that I think is a sort of medieval zinger.
Even so. The story progresses. The second half in particular moves toward tragedy and is grim even leaving aside the absurd exaggerations. I mean, in one scene the Niebelungs throw bodies down the stairs. Seven thousand bodies. The numbers are comic, but you learn to let it slide.
This has been on my must-read list for a very long time. Finally can check off that box. Don't need to read it again.
captainfez's review
4.0
So during the hell year of 2020 I ended up watching the Met Opera's Ring Cycle while avoiding, y'know, everything. I'd wanted to see Wagner's cycle, and once it was done, hours later, I was keen to see where the story had come from.
First mistake: though the opera series shares names and themes, this version is a lot different. I mean, I'm not certain it's been adopted by Nazis as readily as Wagner's work has been, and there was a lot less in the way of either modernist stark staging or rabbits on horseback.
What this does have is hundreds of years' head start on Wagner. An anonymous text, it's based on oral tales of events and individuals from the fifth and sixth centuries through Germanic-speaking Europe, though they were retold in the 12th and 13th century. Particularly, it focuses on a guy named Siegfried who's keen on Kriemhild, a Burgundian princess.
(I must admit, there's a lot of geographic detail, ably explained in Hatto's endnotes, but it's really immaterial to your enjoyment of the epic, because what really makes it sing is the characterisation. There are some nasty fuckers in this work, and they're delightful.)
Siegfried's journey towards love – or useful political alliance, at least – is not the key part of the text, though. I'd thought he would be the Big Dude of the story, but it turns out that our anonymous author was much more keen on exploring revenge: Kriemhild and warrior-queen Brünhilde have an enmity that puts George R. R. Martin's slap-fighting to shame.
I wouldn't like to spoil the story, because though I was reasonably aware of classics – and even though I'd seen the Ring, I was still surprised. It's worth noting that this is a story that features vassals, dragons, beefy brothers, cloaks of invisibility and a dwarf. There's feats of boulder-throwing prowess, inhuman strength, mistaken boning, stolen gold and an inordinate amount of blood. Seriously, this has more gobbets of gore than the Iliad or any slasher flick you'd care to name. Hordes die, stakes are high and the drama is massively over the top.
I'd had this on my shelf for decades, and wish I'd come to it earlier. This is high melodrama with more than enough swords to keep the worst knife fiend satisfied.
And no Nazis, so y'know - win.
First mistake: though the opera series shares names and themes, this version is a lot different. I mean, I'm not certain it's been adopted by Nazis as readily as Wagner's work has been, and there was a lot less in the way of either modernist stark staging or rabbits on horseback.
What this does have is hundreds of years' head start on Wagner. An anonymous text, it's based on oral tales of events and individuals from the fifth and sixth centuries through Germanic-speaking Europe, though they were retold in the 12th and 13th century. Particularly, it focuses on a guy named Siegfried who's keen on Kriemhild, a Burgundian princess.
(I must admit, there's a lot of geographic detail, ably explained in Hatto's endnotes, but it's really immaterial to your enjoyment of the epic, because what really makes it sing is the characterisation. There are some nasty fuckers in this work, and they're delightful.)
Siegfried's journey towards love – or useful political alliance, at least – is not the key part of the text, though. I'd thought he would be the Big Dude of the story, but it turns out that our anonymous author was much more keen on exploring revenge: Kriemhild and warrior-queen Brünhilde have an enmity that puts George R. R. Martin's slap-fighting to shame.
I wouldn't like to spoil the story, because though I was reasonably aware of classics – and even though I'd seen the Ring, I was still surprised. It's worth noting that this is a story that features vassals, dragons, beefy brothers, cloaks of invisibility and a dwarf. There's feats of boulder-throwing prowess, inhuman strength, mistaken boning, stolen gold and an inordinate amount of blood. Seriously, this has more gobbets of gore than the Iliad or any slasher flick you'd care to name. Hordes die, stakes are high and the drama is massively over the top.
I'd had this on my shelf for decades, and wish I'd come to it earlier. This is high melodrama with more than enough swords to keep the worst knife fiend satisfied.
And no Nazis, so y'know - win.
roseofoulesfame's review
1.0
Whew this was a slog. How can a story that (a) involves Attila the Hun and (b) inspired the Ring Cycle and Lord of the Rings be sooooooo boring?
I was seriously tempted at several points to start a drinking game whereby drinkage happens any time there's a description of how fantastically wealthy everyone is (NO ONE CARES) and any time there is a jousting sesh for NO REASON. Also any time a man is terrible (just kidding; I have no desire to die of alcohol poisoning).
In fairness to the poet however, I think actually some of my gripes with this arise from the translation as apparently the original at least had the merit of a jaunty rhythm and a decent rhyme scheme.
Anyway, #justiceforkriemhild
I was seriously tempted at several points to start a drinking game whereby drinkage happens any time there's a description of how fantastically wealthy everyone is (NO ONE CARES) and any time there is a jousting sesh for NO REASON. Also any time a man is terrible (just kidding; I have no desire to die of alcohol poisoning).
In fairness to the poet however, I think actually some of my gripes with this arise from the translation as apparently the original at least had the merit of a jaunty rhythm and a decent rhyme scheme.
Anyway, #justiceforkriemhild
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