Рецензия на книгу

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  Asea_Aranion20 августа 2017 г.

  This is a perfect audiobook. Not only because Neil Gaiman’s reading is enough to make any book so, but because these stories, myths and legends from long, long ago, when the worlds were young, were always meant to be transferred orally, from mouth to ear – just as Neil encourages us to do, in the Introduction, to retell them to our friends. I know the joy of storytelling he’s talking about – I’ve practiced that, as well as reading fiction aloud, and of course it is not the same. So the Norse mythology by Neil Gaiman may seem too unadorned and uncomplicated in written form, all the more as we have been used to colourful superhero interpretations. I believe publishers made more harm than good by associating this book with American Gods , and getting the audience to expect perhaps another fantasy novel. But it will be just Neil sitting with you and telling you old, all-known tales. The treat is to close your eyes and hear his own voice, without really estimating, unlike you usually do with tales brand new. If accuracy to the traditional variants concerns you, however, I should say don’t worry. What was offered by Neil fairly corresponds my academic encyclopedia of world myths. Only I had a strange feeling every time when I checked with it, reading the same story in a dry scientific language. It was somehow odd to switch outright from Fenrir – live, fierce, proud, and betrayed, to Fenrir – a chtonic beast, studied and classified. The tale I liked best, anyway, was the one about the Mead of Poets – the longest and the most entangled, and, for understandable reasons, I believe the most personally cherished by Neil himself.

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