Review: Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman

Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman
Series: N/A
Genre: Mythology, Short Stories
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

The concept of mythology plays a strong role in our cultural narrative; whether Norse, Roman, Egyptian, or one of the myriad of other mythologies, people have been captivated by these stories for centuries. In his book, Neil Gaiman cherry-picks a few Nordic tales and weaves them together. It's pretty straightforward -- you get what the title implies -- but if you're even a little interested in the subject I highly recommend you pick it up.

The writing itself was very unembellished, in a way that felt like there was a narrator speaking to me directly, rather than an author gathering tales. You know in movies when the characters will visit an old person and the old person will start a story and it'll fade into the scene and you'll forget they're talking (like the beginning of Titanic)? It felt kinda like that. Like bedtime stories almost. Lulling, relaxing. (If I'm not making sense, I'm trying to say I liked the writing style and felt like it worked well with the tone of the book)

The stories were honestly so great too. Gaiman did a great job choosing stories. I'm sure there were sooooooo many to choose from and tons more great Norse myths that would have been fun to read but I wasn't bored reading a single one of these stories and I really loved how the characters made recurring appearances and how some of the asides made by the narrator kinda popped up as central focuses in other stories. It provided a kindof linking thread between the stories, making them not really part of a narrative but more than just a bunch of random myths thrown together from the same geographic area. Also, I loved the way the narrator kept leading up to Ragnarok and the way Gaiman wrote about it. All in all, the whole thing was really well done.

I'm beating a dead horse at this point by saying Neil Gaiman is my favorite author but I always have to mention it just in case someone doesn't know so here's my obligatory mention, and by reading this it was easy to remember why: it's easy to throw a bunch of stories that already exist together into an anthology but it's a lot more difficult to rework them into something cohesive and fluid while adding your own voice, which is what Gaiman did. (Let's not note that he did all that and I wasn't even capable of reading it for a month and a half after it came out because I'm trash RIP)

Where will you be on Ragnarok?

Let us know in the comments!