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briandice's review against another edition
5.0
Stories are important. Maybe even essential. We learn about each other through stories; whether it be the Cliff Notes version of ourselves we tell to coworkers and clients or the long narratives enjoyed of our child's daily exploits at school. Long before our first attempts at writing stories we shared tales of ourselves, our heritage, our world through the spoken word. Homer's hymns, Aesop's fables or Icelandic sagas - they are all instructive, rich and certainly the greater for having been heard rather than read.
I have a personal story I've told about a half dozen times to different friends over the years involving me, Ozzy Ozbourne, Teddy Roosevelt and the Alamo. In its few tellings I've never failed to solicit a laugh or a smile. I feel, however, if I tried to write that story rather than tell it I would kill its soul. When my audience is nodding their head and laughing at a certain part of the narrative I can embelish that portion and play it longer. If I see their eyes begin to glass or their attention wane, I move quicker to the next act. By the end of the anecdote I've (hopefully) played the strengths of the story to my audience and, if not entertained them, at least shared something personal about me that helps to further explain who I am.
It was an absolute pleasure to read these dozen or so sagas of Icelanders whose culture is foreign to me, and yet I found the recognizable humanity in their struggles, the pleasures and pains of living and the search for some way to leave a mark on the world. Many of these stories were oral traditions passed through multiple generations of story tellers. How wonderful to know that the version I've read is an English translation of a collection of Icelandic texts written onto animal skins 700-1000 years ago from a story told and retold countless of times - to the point that whatever I'm reading is certainly a pale copy of the original. And yet the center of the story still holds. I'm invested in these explorers, their story. I truly want to understand the why, where and how of their lives. It makes me genuinely happy to know that while I appreciate great writers from the last 200 years, it isn't necessary to be a master of the written word to tell a compelling story.
Vonnegut exhorts his reader in a few of his novels: Listen. He doesn't tell us to Look, or Read Carefully, but to hear what he is writing. I can hear his words in my head, but I don't think that is what he meant. I love reading Vonnegut aloud, even to myself if my wife or daughter won't listen. As a lover of storytelling, I'd like to think that Vonnegut would be happy to know that a fan of his works took him at his literal meaning. And perhaps some master Icelandic storytellers of yore could relate as well.
I have a personal story I've told about a half dozen times to different friends over the years involving me, Ozzy Ozbourne, Teddy Roosevelt and the Alamo. In its few tellings I've never failed to solicit a laugh or a smile. I feel, however, if I tried to write that story rather than tell it I would kill its soul. When my audience is nodding their head and laughing at a certain part of the narrative I can embelish that portion and play it longer. If I see their eyes begin to glass or their attention wane, I move quicker to the next act. By the end of the anecdote I've (hopefully) played the strengths of the story to my audience and, if not entertained them, at least shared something personal about me that helps to further explain who I am.
It was an absolute pleasure to read these dozen or so sagas of Icelanders whose culture is foreign to me, and yet I found the recognizable humanity in their struggles, the pleasures and pains of living and the search for some way to leave a mark on the world. Many of these stories were oral traditions passed through multiple generations of story tellers. How wonderful to know that the version I've read is an English translation of a collection of Icelandic texts written onto animal skins 700-1000 years ago from a story told and retold countless of times - to the point that whatever I'm reading is certainly a pale copy of the original. And yet the center of the story still holds. I'm invested in these explorers, their story. I truly want to understand the why, where and how of their lives. It makes me genuinely happy to know that while I appreciate great writers from the last 200 years, it isn't necessary to be a master of the written word to tell a compelling story.
Vonnegut exhorts his reader in a few of his novels: Listen. He doesn't tell us to Look, or Read Carefully, but to hear what he is writing. I can hear his words in my head, but I don't think that is what he meant. I love reading Vonnegut aloud, even to myself if my wife or daughter won't listen. As a lover of storytelling, I'd like to think that Vonnegut would be happy to know that a fan of his works took him at his literal meaning. And perhaps some master Icelandic storytellers of yore could relate as well.
marthadude's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
haraltr's review against another edition
too dense, i’m sure the tales are wonderful but i cannot keep up
gravunder's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
vthecreature's review against another edition
I was reading this for class. we read Egil’s Saga, The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi, Gisli Sursson’s Saga, and The Saga of the People of Laxardal. I came to enjoy the humor and action in this, but it’s not something I’d read with my free time. It gave me a more well-rounded view of Icelandic and Viking cultures and literatures though.
mjex19's review against another edition
3.0
We come from the land of the ice and snow where the… uh… you know!
miocyon's review against another edition
4.0
It’s a bit of a slog at times (I started this this summer when I was in Iceland) but it’s at times fun, and is always interesting. These were some of the first prose (not verse) stories ever written down, and they have a feel of peeking into a different time. All the names can get challenging, although you can often ignore the long pedigrees and just enjoy the stories. The writing is ‘simple’ for lack of a better word, although that’s only in sentence structure. In themes and issues, they are as complex as anything today. My favorite bits were the sagas and stories about coming to North America (Vinland in the books). If you don’t want to commit to the whole book, find a translation of one of the sagas, like Egil’s Saga, to get a taste.
rhganci's review against another edition
5.0
I've spent the past month reading many of the major sagas included in this edition, specifically, EGILS SAGA SKALLAGRIMMSON, HRAFNKEL'S SAGA FREYSGODI and LAXDAELA SAGA. I've done so with a great deal of enjoyment, as I'd really never read anything like this. They're essentially just stories about farmers in various degrees of conflict--none of them very complex, none of them very intrcate, all of them very good.
I really enjoyed both EGILS SAGA and LAXDAELA SAGA, because they were kind of connected by the character I found most interesting, a woman named Thorgerd. She's the daughter of Egil, and despite his manliness and love of violence and "man things," she was his favorite child, and her scenes in both sagas are really enjoyable, because you get the sense that she just doesn't care about the patriarchal system of medieval Iceland. What's really interesting his how the author seems to go out of his (or her, according to the introduction of LAXDAELA SAGA) way to make Thorgerd seem more similar in personality and demeanor to Egil than any of the sons. In EGILS SAGA, she's the only one who can talk to him after his sons die, and she convinces him to write a long poem called "Sonnatorrek" which bemoans the loss of the sons. It's an interesting paradigm, and I'm thinking of writing my midterm paper on this, somehow.
It's got some funny moments (Egil slams a dude up against a wall and pukes in his face) and some sad ones (broken hearted lover Kjartan dies never have made things work with lady love Gudrun), and all in all, for stories about farmers in the Middle Ages, it's a heck of a collection of stories, and of all of the things I've read in graduate school, these have been my favorite so far.
I really enjoyed both EGILS SAGA and LAXDAELA SAGA, because they were kind of connected by the character I found most interesting, a woman named Thorgerd. She's the daughter of Egil, and despite his manliness and love of violence and "man things," she was his favorite child, and her scenes in both sagas are really enjoyable, because you get the sense that she just doesn't care about the patriarchal system of medieval Iceland. What's really interesting his how the author seems to go out of his (or her, according to the introduction of LAXDAELA SAGA) way to make Thorgerd seem more similar in personality and demeanor to Egil than any of the sons. In EGILS SAGA, she's the only one who can talk to him after his sons die, and she convinces him to write a long poem called "Sonnatorrek" which bemoans the loss of the sons. It's an interesting paradigm, and I'm thinking of writing my midterm paper on this, somehow.
It's got some funny moments (Egil slams a dude up against a wall and pukes in his face) and some sad ones (broken hearted lover Kjartan dies never have made things work with lady love Gudrun), and all in all, for stories about farmers in the Middle Ages, it's a heck of a collection of stories, and of all of the things I've read in graduate school, these have been my favorite so far.