Wayward Heroes | 
3rd floor musings
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I've got quite the to read list.
pickWHY YOU SHOULD READ:
• Cool retelling of Icelandic folktales
• Brilliant and vivid writing
• Deadpan humour
• You'll learn some history
• It's sometimes funny and will make you lol
BUT! There's some politics in it that drags a bit at times and at 500 pages the book started to feel long towards the end.
Still, check it out if you want to read cool historical fiction by a Nobel Laureate about Vikings misguidedly seeking glory and fame.
"Although some books state that the Norsemen had axes so sharp that they could cleave men from head to toe, the way wooden rafters are split, or cut men's heads off and slice their limbs off their bodies without needing a chopping-block, or halve a fleeing enemy with one blow, making him fall to the ground in two parts, we believe all this to have been dreamed up by people who actually wielded blunt weapons."
"Do you not see how the skald recites verses to my mother, rhapsodizing most manfully? One would think you might be at least as frolicsome with me - younger woman that I am! Now lay your head in my lap, you, and I shall hunt out your lice, and tell me the while how you slew my gallant Thorbrandur, and whether he screamed as the steel cut him."
SO ROMANTICAL. FYI, this painting was as a result of googling 'lice hunting'. 'Twas a fruitful search.
There's no better way to get back home after a fantastic vacation.. A surprise mail from Archipelago books with this gem! A translation from the Icelandic is huge in itself. And to add to that, Laxness is a Nobel Laureate! Can't get cooler than this! Starting to dig in right away! Unpacking and laundry can wait.. :)
