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A review by teresatumminello
Ragnarök: The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt
3.0
This book would probably be more interesting to those who know nothing, or not much, of Nordic mythology. Since I, as Byatt, read stories from this mythology as a child, I found myself looking for more, perhaps a retelling or an allegory (or more of the story of the 'thin child,' which is Byatt herself), which is exactly what Byatt says in her "Thoughts on Myths" (at the end) she didn't want to write.
More than anything else, this novella is Byatt's love-letter to [b:Asgard and the Gods|525794|Asgard and the Gods The Tales and Traditions of Our Northern Ancestors|Wilhelm Wägner|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347982621s/525794.jpg|513637], and shows how reading and rereading it informed her vision of the world. And by the very end, I decided it was an allegory -- of all the abundance (justifying her sometimes seemingly endless lists of flora, fauna, etc that populate these pages) that was once in the world and is no longer, due to the hubris of both gods and men.
More than anything else, this novella is Byatt's love-letter to [b:Asgard and the Gods|525794|Asgard and the Gods The Tales and Traditions of Our Northern Ancestors|Wilhelm Wägner|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347982621s/525794.jpg|513637], and shows how reading and rereading it informed her vision of the world. And by the very end, I decided it was an allegory -- of all the abundance (justifying her sometimes seemingly endless lists of flora, fauna, etc that populate these pages) that was once in the world and is no longer, due to the hubris of both gods and men.