The sagas of Icelanders : a selection /

The Icelandic Sagas are among the masterpieces of world literature whose composition stretches from about the year 1000 to 1500. Presenting the adventures of Norse and Viking heroes, the sagas are told with ritual simplicity and a realism that anticipate the modern novel. This volume offers nine full sagas and six tales, all new translations by various hands and all part of The Complete Sagas of the Icelanders, also edited by Thorsson. Published to mark the 1000th anniversary of Leif Ericksson's voyage to North America, as told in the Vinland Sagas, this selection includes (along with the Vinland Sagas) the famous Egil's Saga and that of Gisli Sursson. The volume also offers a preface by novelist Jane Smiley and a scholarly introduction by Robert Kellogg of the University of Virginia. Wonderful for anyone interested in world literature, this selection is recommended for public and academic libraries.--Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

What better way to begin a new century than with a generous collection'the first such in English'of some of the greatest stories ever told. This compendium is a distillation of the Complete Sagas of Icelanders published in five fat volumes in Great Britain in 1997. From that original edition's 40 sagas and 49 related briefer tales, Thorsson's edition extracts ten sagas and seven tales. The excellence of the sagas (oral tales that were written down in the 13th and 14th centuries, though having existed much earlier) as literature is attested to in an appreciative Preface by Jane Smiley (whose recent novel, The Greenlanders, is a skillful imitation of this venerable form) and in a long and informative Introduction by scholar Robert Kellogg. But these wise, blunt tales of hardship, conflict, and destiny speak eloquently enough for themselves. The greatest of them all, the brooding, Aeschylean Njal's Saga is understandably not included. Still, it's hard to imagine a reader who won't be hooked by the masterly Egil's Saga, the tale of a stubborn farmer's ongoing feud with several generations of Norwegian royalty. The unforgiving Egil, who's also an accomplished poet and warrior, is the saga's single most memorable figure'unless that distinction belongs to Gudrun Osvifsdottir, the vengeful hellion of The Saga of the People of Laxardal. Also of highest interest: The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey's Godi, a taut dramatization of the implacability of fate that recalls Sir Walter Scott's magnificent 'The Two Drovers'; Gisli Sursson's Saga, a compact and thrilling, almost Dostoevskyan revenge tale filled with unforgettable dream imagery; and the 'Tale of Thorstein Shiver,' a terrific story of the supernatural. Irresistible tales that are, as surely as the masterpieces of Homer and Cervantes, the forerunners of the modern European novel. All honor to (appropriately enough) Viking for making these treasures available.