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#icelandiclit
review
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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Pickpick

It was good to tick this one off my TBR, though it was more than just a tick-box exercise as I did enjoy it for itself.
The earlier poems are more mystical and esoteric, being prophecies of the gods and gnomic sayings for good conduct, surprisingly abstemious in respect of alcohol, and sadly misogynistic in parts. The later poems deal more with human heroes and dynastic strife. While some of the women here are marriage pawns, many are warriors ⬇️

Bookwomble ... (shield maidens), and they are fierce and forces to be reckoned with in their own right.
One of the roots of Tolkien's legendarium, so another strand of interest there. 4⭐
3mo
32 likes1 comment
quote
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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"With a hell-bent hand she loosed the dogs;
hurled before the hall doors a flaming brand; wakening the house servants,
the bride made them pay for her brothers.

She gave to the fire all who were in there,
who after the death of Gunnar and Hogni had come from Myrkheim;
the ancient timbers fell, the temples went up in smoke,
the estates of Budli's descendants, shield-maids inside
burnt up, their lives stopped, they sank into the hot fire."

Bookwomble Gudrun takes her ape-shittery up a notch and murders everybody! including herself! 🔥💀🔥 At least she seems to have spared the dogs.
Apologies for the spoilers, but it has been over a thousand years since first publication 🙃
3mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble I‘m sure the cut off for spoilers is well past a thousand years. Everyone should know who Keyser Söze is by now 3mo
See All 13 Comments
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Probably so, just don't tell me how the Epic of Gilgamesh ends! 🙉 3mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble Ay! You‘re a well read gentleman, Wombie, I know nothing about the epic of Gilgamesh so, naturally, I went off on a shallow dive. I found this while poking around and found it was interesting, especially in light of our recent use of AI to generate pictures. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/12/books/booksupdate/ai-ancient-tablets-gilgames... 3mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Not so much well read as old! 😄 The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest piece of literature to have survived, hence my little joke about spoilers. I can't get past the NYT login, but that looks like a fascinating article. I'll try to find it reported elsewhere 🙂 3mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble Yes, i sensed the joke and guessed it was an ancient text but I didn‘t know anything about it…The article, in a nut shell, says the tale is 30% unfinished but there‘s tablets spread across museums over the world revealing more of the tale. AI is being used to decipher them 3mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja I found a couple of articles I could read. I like this one, explaining that the sequence alignment algorithms used to reconstruct DNA strands have been adapted to identify and reconstruct fragmentary cuneiform texts. What a fabulous meeting of the most ancient and most modern writing technologies! https://theconversation.com/ai-is-helping-us-read-ancient-mesopotamian-literatur... 3mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble Those ancient Mesopotamians with their styluses and tablets (edited) 3mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja I love Gilgamesh - he's the most ancient human (historical or fictional) we have a detailed account of, and his concerns are the perennial ones of free will, the adventurous spirit, the quest for knowledge, friendship, mortality, and grief. The story of the universal flood given here predates the biblical account by millennia, and the name of the Babylonian flood survivor, Utnapishtim, when transliterated into Hebrew gives Noah! 3mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble I guess the bible is just a collection of greatest hits tales, plagiarized and made into a post-ancient self help book. 3mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja There's a lot of relevant thought in it, and other religious texts, as long, I think, that you don't get mired in a single, inflexible perspective - dogma is stultifying. 3mo
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble Agreed! Let‘s not wax theological…..on this occasion 🤭 3mo
29 likes13 comments
quote
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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"The bright-faced woman darted about, bringing drink,
the terrible woman, to the nobles; she brought morsels with the ale
for the pale-faced men, reluctantly; then she told Atli his shame.

'Your own sons' - sharer-out of swords -
hearts, corpse-bloody, you are chewing up with honey;
you are filling your stomach, proud lord, with dead human flesh,
eating it as ale-appetizers and sending it to the high seat."

Bookwomble Wow! And I thought Medea's anger at Jason for infidelity was extreme, but Gudrun's fury towards Atli for killing her brothers takes infanticide to the next level! 3mo
dabbe 😱😱😱 3mo
29 likes2 comments
quote
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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"I expect a wolf when I see his ears."

A quote about knowing a wrong 'un when you see a wrong 'un from the Lay of Fafnir, a story about how the lust for wealth and power ends in much suffering. It's quite an ancient story; not sure that it has any relevance for the modern age. ?

quote
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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"Hearing I ask from all the tribes,
greater and lesser, the offspring of Heimdall;
Father of the Slain, you wished me well to declare living beings' ancient stories, those I remember from further back."

- Voluspa (The Seeress's Prophecy)

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

quote
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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"It isn't as good as it's said to be,
ale, for the sons of men;
for the more a man drinks, the less he knows about his own mind.
The forgetfulness-heron it's called
who hovers over ale -drinking;
he steals a man's mind.
That's the best about ale-drinking that afterwards
every man gets his mind back again.
Let no man hold onto the cup, but drink mead in moderation,
let him say what's necessary or be silent;
no man will scold you
⬇️

Bookwomble ... because you go off early to bed."

These lines from "Sayings of the High One" confound my stereotyped view of the viking ideal as roistering indulgers in copious amounts of alcohol, though I suppose the High One's admonition was needed because that actually was the case ??
4mo
27 likes1 comment
blurb
Bookwomble
Poetic Edda | Carolyne Larrington
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I've read retellings of these stories since I was a kid, and I read the Prose Edda a few years ago, so feeling it was time to read the Poetic Edda. This Oxford World's Classics edition looks like it has good explanatory notes, but not too extensive for the dilettante reader that I am.
#BookmarkMatching Accidentally, a reasonable colour match to the book with this bookmark showing Nordic artefacts, which I bought from the Jorvic Viking Museum 🔖

TrishB Bookmark appreciation 👏🏻 4mo
Cathythoughts Perfect photo 🩵 4mo
39 likes2 comments
review
Centique
Miss Iceland | Audur Ava lafsdttir
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Pickpick

Hekla is a young woman in 1960s Iceland. She is named after a volcano, and like her namesake so much is going on under the calm surface. Hekla is a writer but it seems only men can be? Olafsdottir writes in an observational way - we hear what people say to Hekla, see what she sees and we notice the hypocrisy, but we are left to imagine what Hekla is thinking. I like this style of writing and the way it makes the reader try to figure out Hekla. ⬇️

Centique But i would have liked a little more to dig into and the abrupt ending left me wanting more. Still i think i will remember this book - particularly the friends Isey and Jon John. 5mo
53 likes1 comment
review
Texreader
Independent People | Halldor Laxness
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Pickpick

In the early 1900s, Bjartur lived in a sod house he called Summerhouses, and he owed no debt after 19 years raising sheep and paying off the land. Bjartur valued nothing more than being debt-free (& therefore being an independent man) and his sheep. He begrudged anyone and anything threatening either one, at the expense of his enduring family. His stubbornness cost him family members‘ lives and it seemed the losses didn‘t affect him, until ⬇️

Texreader his daughter Asta Sollilja, his “flower,” re-enters his life. I found Bjartur very frustrating. While sometimes his actions were understandable, most of the time it felt like they cost him and his family so much…keeping them in unimaginable poverty. But what great insight about the country of #Iceland, since it was written somewhat close in time (1934-35) to the fictional story‘s setting. #foodandlit (edited) 5mo
Catsandbooks 👏🏼🇮🇸 4mo
49 likes2 comments
review
Lunakay
LoveStar: A Novel | Andri Snaer Magnason
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Mehso-so

The genre is definitely 'weird sci-fi'.
A dystopian novel where a scientific genius from Iceland changes the world with his breakthrough tech. A lot of original ideas in here but they don't form enough of a coherent story line for me.

I liked the idea of becoming a literal shooting star instead of being buried after death.

Skyr has been eaten in honor of Iceland month :D

🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸
#foodandlit
@Catsandbooks

Catsandbooks 👏🏼🇮🇸 4mo
18 likes1 comment