Hello Gentle Reader
If memory serves correct – this is the first two things. One this is the first book of Dame A.S. Byatt’s that I have read – she is actually a real Dame, but also the Dame of the English Novel. Second this is the first book in critically acclaimed “Canongate Myth Series,” which has included authors like Margaret Atwood, Victor Pelevin, Phillip Pullman, David Grossman, Klas Östergren, and Natuso Kirino. My first engagement with both Dame A.S. Byatt, and the “Canongate Myth Series,” are both favourable. The first concept of this ambitious project was way back in nineteen-ninety nine, when a publisher and owner of the independent Scottish publishing house Canongate Books, Jamie Byng. The first three titles were then published in two thousand and five. The series and publication has the intention of having a international focus, explaining why Russian novelist Victor Pelevin, Israeli author David Grossman, Japanese noir novelist Natuso Kirino, Chinese transgressive fiction writer Su Tong, the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić, and the Polish author (whose myth has yet to be translated) Olga Tokarczuk. Jamie Byng hopes when the project is completed (that to me is if the project ever stops) that there will one hundred books, retelling myths from authors from all the over the world.
Dame A.S. Byatt’s short novel is not a retelling of the Norse myth of “Ragnarok.” Its more or less, how a young child perceives this new found world of bloody (very human) gods who fight for pleasure, live to battle, enjoy the warmth of their enemies blood sprayed on their faces, enjoys the hunt, to that of World War II, taking place in the time in which she lives now. In some ways or another the child see’s the book she is reading Asgard and the Gods, as both a fairy tale and slightly different then a fairy tale.
For those who do not think of fairy tales a bloody they certainly are wrong. In the fairy tale of Snow White, the vain and jealous queen is forced to wear a pair of heated iron shoes, and dance until she dies. It is then easy to tell why the “thin child,” does not see much of a difference between the fairy tales, and that of the Norse Myths. However, she can certainly see there is a greater difference then she knows. Though she can only sense it through the pages and the illustrations she knows, there is a difference.
One of the most enjoyable parts of this book is Dame A.S. Byatt’s ability to portray scenes and scenarios with portrait perfect accuracy through the simple and cunning use of precise and complex but also artful words, mixed together to make an celebrant portrait or tapestry of “Ragnarok,” itself.
The concept of the world ending, mixing with the concept of World War II, is an interesting perspective. Surely many, who had lived through World War II, would have though the end was either upon them or close upon them or that hopefully the destruction would eventually stop. The later could be said to a poor little child, rushed from her home – and those familiar surroundings, that she once called home. Her father gone, flying some plane and battling – the same old toast made at Christmas hoping for his speedy return; though the child herself had accepted the fact that her father may as well have already been dead – this however is just simply one part of the entire book.
At a book that is barely two hundred pages long, it is a combination and effort of three books in one. An autobiography of Dame A.S. Byatt in the third person of a person simply known as the “thin child.” Then the child’s personal encounter of the myth. The last part of the entire book is the self-aware essay on the essay and the myths modern relevance to today’s world.
All of them are quite good. The last part of the book – the literary criticism of the myth was particularly not my favourite. My favourite part however is the complete bulk of this book. The entire personal view of the myth itself. The way the entire story of how the Norse Mythology portrays the world first becoming what it is – of course the birth of the world was a savage depiction that is a classical Norse mythological trait if one were to ask me – and there were more battles, and trips and feisty fits of jealousy to go all around. In Norse Mythology from the book “Ragnarok,” the world was brought anew by the death of a giant Ymir – his flesh created the earth, his blood which ran became the oceans, his hallowed out head then became the sky.
This is where the beginning of the retelling or the creation or rather the rewriting and creating a new myth becomes interesting.
This is not really a book, with action. Yes there are descriptions of many violet acts like the death of Ymir or the shackling of Fenrirs-wolf (Fenrisúlfr) and the consequent loss of Tyr’s hand. Not to mention the fishing trip of Thor where first encountered his enemy the world serpent Jörmungandr. There is the death of Baldr the Beautiful. The vengeance of the Norse gods on the shape shifting trickster Loki – who Dame A.S. Byatt has a great fondness for – and may I add I do as well. However the actions of Loki are chaotic and sporadic; he as a personification or a character is also one of the more empathetic characters that I found/find myself able to attach myself too; other than the other gods who I find are more interested in the bloodshed and destruction, of others.
However it is Dame A.S. Byatt’s prose that I found most enjoyable. The fluid descriptions of how the world was created, and changed and existed and then destroyed was something that I found more enjoyable, of the book, therefore the lack of any characterization, or action. The prose would change in such a flexible manner. The descriptions like water colour paint or shadows, changing and shifting, becoming a kaleidoscope of images and scenes. The following passage is a adequate example:
“Mistletoe is a feeble killer. It attaches itself to the boughs and branches of trees and sends fine threads like blind hairworms into the rising columns of water which the leaves in the tree suck up and breathe into the air. The mistletoe has no branches and no true leaves: it is a tangle of waxy stems with, strange key-shaped protrusions and whitish gluey berries with black seeds visible through the translucent flesh, like frogspawn, the thin child always thought, seeing the lumpish globes of mistletoe dense on bare branches in winter. Little twigs of it were pinned to lampholders and over doorways at the turn of the winter, and you kissed one another under it because it was evergreen and clinging, it represented constancy and perpetual liveliness. Next tot the holly in which it was sometimes wound; it seemed ghostly, almost absent. The holly was shiny and scarlet and prickly and strong. The mistletoe was soft, floppy, a yellowish colour that was like dying leaves.”
This is just a small taste or preview of some of the great flowing descriptions and the acute detail that Dame A.S. Byatt is able to present in this short novel. It should come to no surprise that Dame A.S. Byatt is also somewhat (or rather is) an academic of sorts. An academic in what, one would suppose in the academia of all writers are interested in. Literature, history and whatever else comes to mind. Dame A.S. Byatt has written seven books of criticism; and if her novels are much like this one – though each one different then she more or less put a great deal of study and research into each novel. When discussing her last novel (before this one) Dame A.S. Byatt wrote “The Children’s Book,” which she described the research of the book incredibly and intensely pleasurable. She had explained to the interviewer that she knew all about the High Victorians but not much about the Edwardian Era and the turn of the twentieth century; so in which case she found the new knowledge quite enjoyable. However Dame A.S. Byatt’s real academic career, or her scholarly career, was her education. She has studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, Bryn Maw in the United States, and Somerville College in Oxford. Dame A.S. Byatt has lectured at London University in the Department of Extramural Studies, she has also lectured at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design as well as the University College London. In an interview Dame A.S. Byatt had revealed she knew she could be a scholar, but was uncertain about becoming a writer, and writing novels.
The end of the world presented in “Ragnarok,” is an interesting end of the world scenario. Perhaps it’s just me as a reader, but I could not quite comprehend why the end happened – perhaps it is just the order of all that exists and lives – it will one day end. Every sentence ends, with a period. Every breath ends with a exhale. Every life ends in death. The dinosaurs rule ended in their extinction. So too shall the world in human logic. It exists therefore by its own rules and laws of nature it too at some point or another must end. Stars die – and the sun will die, therefore life on earth must certainly end as well. When will it happen? Someone could certainly find out. By simple calculations of the approximant life span of a star, with the added calculation of the sun itself and its grandeur (a substitute for the more appropriate word) and then there is a logical estimated approach as to when the world would end – at least when life on earth would end.
The end of the world though in “Ragnarok,” is much different than other thoughts of the end of the world. Dame A.S. Byatt points out that Christians believe in the end times, of the world, that Christ will come back and judge those that are faithful and those that are not – living and the dead. Those that were faithful would be brought back to heaven, and live in eternal peace, while those that did not, would suffer, in the end times until whatever happens after the end times.
“Ragnarok,” offers no such hope for anything or anyone. The end comes. It comes as a form of everlasting winter. The crops die out. The food store dwindle, people show their true colours. They overtake the other villages – weaker villages, slay it all and take what food and mead they have, and move on to the next place of origins. So it goes. Fenrirs-Wolf (Fenrisúlfr) will brake free from his imprisonment. Sköll and Hati kin of Fenrirs-Wolf (Fenrisúlfr) devour the sun and moon. The sky goes red with the blood of the celestial bodies; and then an inkling black takes hold. As if the entire sky has become enshrouded in the a velvet curtain. Fenrirs-Wolf (Fenrisúlfr) seeks vengeance as does his brother Jörmungandr seek their vengeance and in the end meet their own ends. It’s the end of the world. An end of all that is end. It is the final chapter. Something that some would find more peace in. No redemption. No judgment. Nothing just the end. Just the world – or the world as it is known now, ending. Yggdrasil withers and dies the halls of Asgard fall and crumble, Midgard itself becomes extinct. Nothing remains. Everything in its last sigh or breath of relief finds its own peace. The entire cosmology of the Norse Mythology falls and ends – and in some ways it has. Though in other ways it lives on. In folklore, literature, songs, and films (and television).
Perhaps Dame. A.S. Byatt sees the somewhat frightening end of the world of “Ragnarok,” as a time of peace and to the end of all the suffering and chaos that life itself brings. In all an interesting book. Though at times I wish it was a little bit longer, and a bit more detailed in area’s. However a wonderful first glimpse into the wonderful Myth Series, and also a great starter for me to go out and discover some more Dame A.S. Byatt.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
