03 February 2017

Norse Mythology ~ Neil Gaiman



**OK **

Ye gods!  Yawn!
Informative but not engaging

I know I am meant to swoon with joy because it is by (spoken in reverent terms) ... Neil Gaiman ... but no, no swooning on my part.  I felt very let down by something that I had been eagerly anticipating.  

While it definitely added to my scant knowledge of Norse mythology, it was not an engaging read.  It felt more like a lowly translation by someone not adept at either language.

The short story format was fine but it, combined with the language used, made it seem more of a children's version than a richly detailed, magical presentation of Norse mythology.  It was all too simplistic.  Dialogue in particular was poorly done - was he initially planning a graphic novel?  And if there is an argument that it was a written presentation of oral storytelling, then I would have fallen asleep around the fire.  It was informative but not colourful, it was peopled with characters but had no charisma, it was paraphrasing rather than engaging storytelling.