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Mar 15, 2018deebitner rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Reading Neil Gaiman is usually a joy, but I found many reasons to be more delighted than usual with this lovely volume of Norse myth. I am going to go ahead and say this is a five of five star review, and I'm happy to say why. To begin with, this is a book which can in large part be shared with children. The ancients weren't known for being delicate about sex and violence, but Gaiman has a great way of getting those points across in a way kids can understand. (See "The Wolves In The Walls" or "Coraline" for his style - they're scary, even bloody, but they're not gross.) I thoroughly enjoyed reading parts out loud to my son, and he laughed and made faces at all the right parts. Obviously, with any book it's parental discretion, but I found this fantastic to share. Next are the sources of the humor. This is a bit more subtle, but oh-so-welcome. It doesn't take a genius to understand that sexism is and has been a thing for generation upon generation. (Although less in the Nordic cultures than many - a point Gaiman clearly enjoys.) Some of the biggest myths have people dressing up as the opposite sex, or even changing form into another species. Gaiman never makes that the source of a joke, though. Instead, he finds other things to make funny, like a giant waiting for his stallion to return, or Thor being told (over and over again) to shut up. I like that much better than shaming humor. Gaiman doesn't mind at all writing his dialogue to be read or spoken aloud. (Far from it - he makes a point of that in his introduction.) And who better than a comic book writer to appreciate the gift he's been given by the Marvel movies? He makes it clear that the Marvel characters are not the same as their mythological predecessors. At the same time it's obvious that Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, and Idris Elba could have read these lines and enjoyed them. I am not ashamed of having heard the dialogue in these talented voices and hope others will get as big a kick out of it as I did. I haven't yet read the Sagas and the Eddas myself. I know that may have impacted my enjoyment here, but I can only recommend this book as one more in a series of tellings of tales that still live as long as we tell them.