Reading Well: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

I’ve been looking forward to Neil Gaiman‘s Norse Mythology (2017) since it was announced. As long as your expectations are correct, it doesn’t disappoint.

Here’s what I mean: this is a very faithful retelling of the well-known tales of Norse legend–the origination of Thor’s hammer, the battle of Ragnarok, the treachery of Loki, etc. And those stories are told with all of the vividness, nuance, and wit that readers of Gaiman have come to expect. And it’s well-informed: Thor is bit of a doofus, which is consistent with the source material, but not the character as envisioned in the Marvel universe; Loki is complicated and both guilty of high treason and responsible for key successes in the narrative of the Gods, etc.

That faithfulness can also leave a reader wanting more: in the introduction, Gaiman refers to all of the gaps in our knowledge of the Norse mythic landscape: there are gods and, especially, goddesses that are referenced but whose stories are lost and numerous events that are only referenced obliquely in the material that has survived. Gaiman’s creation and interpretation of those stories would be a highly compelling read.

#WhatIWishICouldDo

Get a contract to rewrite a known set of myths? Sure! I think more than that, the process of submerging myself in a known sea of writings and then reinterpreting them is highly attractive, although I doubt my ability to remain as consistent with the source as Gaiman does here.