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A review by firerosearien
The Sagas of Icelanders by Jane Smiley
3.0
So the problem with an omnibus edition of Icelandic Sagas is that they get old pretty fast -- the action is often repetitive, and it doesn't help that many names sound alike and get confusing*.
I think here, as with any story collection, the key is to read just one or two -- as opposed to trying to make it through the entire thing at once.
That said it's pretty fascinating when you put it into the historical context. At a time most non-medieval scholars would still call the Dark Ages, the Icelanders (and Norse) were an extremely well developed society, with complex legal systems, women who had way more power (if not necessarily rights, though this is debatable) than others on the European continent of the time, and a code of honor that could rival the Pashtun or Albanian Kanun (one may debate if a code of honor is modern or medieval, of course).
I still think I enjoyed Njal's Saga the most (not included in this edition) since it reads the most like a novel, but I also particularly enjoyed the Saga of Hranfkel the Godi.
*I would imagine a non-native English speaker would have similar trouble separating James, Jimmy, Jon, John, etc as I, with no Icelandic knowledge other than pronunciation of a few letters and the patronymic, have with Thord, Thorolf, Thorstein, etc.
I think here, as with any story collection, the key is to read just one or two -- as opposed to trying to make it through the entire thing at once.
That said it's pretty fascinating when you put it into the historical context. At a time most non-medieval scholars would still call the Dark Ages, the Icelanders (and Norse) were an extremely well developed society, with complex legal systems, women who had way more power (if not necessarily rights, though this is debatable) than others on the European continent of the time, and a code of honor that could rival the Pashtun or Albanian Kanun (one may debate if a code of honor is modern or medieval, of course).
I still think I enjoyed Njal's Saga the most (not included in this edition) since it reads the most like a novel, but I also particularly enjoyed the Saga of Hranfkel the Godi.
*I would imagine a non-native English speaker would have similar trouble separating James, Jimmy, Jon, John, etc as I, with no Icelandic knowledge other than pronunciation of a few letters and the patronymic, have with Thord, Thorolf, Thorstein, etc.