Very good new edition of the Volsunga saga, with a translation that gives a strong impression of the matter-of-fact presentation of the original. The Very good new edition of the Volsunga saga, with a translation that gives a strong impression of the matter-of-fact presentation of the original. The sagas' almost total lack of literary adornment is one of their best features, I think, or at least one of their most distinctive qualities, and Crawford ably translates that terseness into a readable modern version that avoids archaic vocabulary or grammar. It's brisk and exciting, an excellent plunge into the world of the sagas. It was the Penguin Classics edition of this saga that introduced me to this great body of literature, and I hope this new edition will do the same for future readers.
Volsunga saga is the story of a legendary family of heroes, the most famous of which is Sigurð the dragon-slayer. It's a wide-ranging and diffuse body of myth, especially for one that takes up barely eighty pages, and is endlessly fascinating. In addition to Sigurð's killing of Fáfnir, the only talking dragon in medieval literature and a forebear of Smaug, there are betrayals and murders by the score, and several moments that are surprisingly moving for such a blood-steeped legend—perhaps my favorite is when Signy, having avenged her father's death by arranging the murder of her husband, therefore keeping one bond while breaking another, announces what she's done before returning to her husband's burning hall and dying with him.
It should be obvious why Wagner saw opera potential in all of this.
This edition also includes the "sequel," more or less, The Saga of Ragnar Loðbrok, the inspiration for the Kirk Douglas film The Vikings as well as the biker-and-fashy-haircut chic "Vikings" show on the History Channel. While I was familiar with Ragnar, this is the first time I've ever read this particular saga, and until encountering it here I had no idea it was intended to continue the story of Volsunga saga, splicing Ragnar into Volsung and Sigurð's family tree.
Crawford includes references to parallel poetic versions of the prose stories here in his translation of The Poetic Edda, which is a helpful feature if you have more than a passing interest in these stories and their place in the larger body of Norse myth and literature. A detailed family tree, a very good introduction, in which Crawford places these two sagas and their Viking creators in their own historical and cultural context, and a helpful glossary of characters are also included.
Highly recommended.
Addendum: Listened to the audiobook, narrated by Crawford, two and a half years after first reading his translation. It was a welcome refresher, and very well done. ...more
One of those books that makes you wonder why you even bother trying to write fiction yourself. Hilarious, moving, thrilling, melancholy, a little horrOne of those books that makes you wonder why you even bother trying to write fiction yourself. Hilarious, moving, thrilling, melancholy, a little horrifying, and all perfectly balanced, not to mention a masterpiece—probably the American masterpiece—of narrative voice. Mattie’s narration is up there with Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield, if not better.
Portis is a brilliant writer and it’s a shame he isn’t better known. I may just work my way back through his four other novels this year; they’re all worthwhile. Rereading True Grit is like a deep drink of cold mountain spring water after a very long walk in the heat.
Read for the first time in 2010, I think. Just after grad school and before the Coens’ adaptation—the one I prefer—came out. Read again for the second time in 2019.
The way this novelwraps up was also a partial inspiration for Griswoldville. So while reading Portis is to despair of ever writing anything near as good, I’m still giving it a shot....more
First read in 2008, reread in 2020. After the 2020 read my friend Coyle of the City of Man Podcast hosted David Grubbs and I to discuss it; it was oneFirst read in 2008, reread in 2020. After the 2020 read my friend Coyle of the City of Man Podcast hosted David Grubbs and I to discuss it; it was one of the most fun podcast conversations I’ve had.
Just as good, and far richer now that I can see more of what Lewis is up to. My favorite of the Space Trilogy....more
First read in the summer of 2006, the first book my Cormac McCarthy I ever read. I remember liking it and being both impressed and bewildered by it. IFirst read in the summer of 2006, the first book my Cormac McCarthy I ever read. I remember liking it and being both impressed and bewildered by it. I read almost all of the rest of McCarthy’s corpus over the next couple years and have revisited a few, especially No Country for Old Men and The Road, in the years since. Reread sixteen years later, 2022 (!!!). What a book. Even given the book’s slow work on me, its growth in my estimation in the years since I read it, it’s vastly better than I remembered. ...more
First read in 2008 or 2009. Chesterton’s observations about “the inside of history,” combined with my then-recent study of John Keegan and Victor DaviFirst read in 2008 or 2009. Chesterton’s observations about “the inside of history,” combined with my then-recent study of John Keegan and Victor Davis Hanson, informed my master’s thesis and I quoted pretty extensively from The Everlasting Man in the introduction and in the chapter epigraphs.
Listened to Derek Perkins’s excellent audiobook narration on an unexpected cross-country drive from Texas the weekend of December 4, 2021, finishing it on my daily commute.
It holds up. Indeed, it’s even better than I remember. A sweeping, brilliantly written, immensely well-read thematic account of human history, part-rebuttal of materialist history, part push back against chronological snobbery (a term coined by CS Lewis and Owen Barfield as informed by their reading of this book), part apologetic, all great. Chesterton wears his vast reading lightly and I picked up much more thanks to the study of the intervening dozen years than I did the first time around.
The first reading it just washes over you; the second it strikes even deeper. Looking forward to the third.
Still one of the most magnificent and stylish Civil War novels, traits made all the more potent by the economy of Foote’s storytelling. This time arouStill one of the most magnificent and stylish Civil War novels, traits made all the more potent by the economy of Foote’s storytelling. This time around (my third or fourth) I listened to the 2019 audiobook narrated by Peter Berkrot. It was less than five hours of listening but gave not only a sweeping and poetic account of the battle but a poignant look back to the beginning and forward to the end of the war. ...more
Hysterical. I first read A Confederacy of Dunces in grad school, summer of 2009, I think, and found it hilarious. I've just listened to the audiobook Hysterical. I first read A Confederacy of Dunces in grad school, summer of 2009, I think, and found it hilarious. I've just listened to the audiobook and the story is even funnier than I remembered. A Southern classic, and Ignatius is one of the great literary characters of modern literature.
A connection I love to talk about: One of my MA thesis advisers, Dr. Jerry Reel, was a New Orleans native who knew John Kennedy Toole when they were at Tulane together. He told me that Toole's depiction of the city and its dialects and culture were stunningly accurate, and that a knowledgeable reader can tell to the block what part of the city the characters come from just by the way they talk....more
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