Kevin Crossley-Holland: THE NORSE MYTHS

Two years or so ago, while vacationing in southern Spain during a semester abroad (No: unlike most sentences beginning in such a fashion, this one will not go on to describe a memorable sexual encounter with a mysterious foreign woman, a life-altering bike trip, or an amusing marijuana-related anecdote. I apologize for the inconvenience), I started reading Edith Hamilton's classic Mythology. A short while later, I started drinking, which may have colored my recollection of this event somewhat, but upon my return to the US I was left with the impression that nothing makes good vacation reading like myths and folktales do. Flash forward to 2009, and you've got me puzzling over what sort of reading material I should bring to New York's Adirondack Mountains with me; since I'm already at work on the Norse myth-influenced American Gods (see previous entry), I grab my father's copy of Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths. Result? I enjoy myself thoroughly. C-H (hyphenated names are too long to write out in full) brings these thirty-two myths to life in much the way Hamilton did so successfully with (mostly) the Greek and Romans, and The Norse Myths can hardly be described as a dry retelling of these age-old stories. It helps, of course, that Norse mythology is so character-driven, and its characters so vivid: Odin, Loki, Thor, and company are a lot of fun (at least up until Ragnarok), and many of the tales bristle with a humor that I'd have to guess C-H is responsible for midwifing through the often-dangerous process of translation. I'm currently looking for my own copy of this A+ book in Philadelphia's used bookstores, and would recommend it immediately to anybody looking for a comprehensive yet readable introducution to the Norse myths.

Neil Gaiman: AMERICAN GODS

It's difficult to describe Neil Gaiman's American Gods (the first of two books completed during a brief vacation in New York's Adirondack Mountain, a locale very conducive to reading about myths and folklore, for whatever reason) without giving anything away. As I prepared to write this review, I found myself thinking, "Well, that happens so early in the book...who can it hurt if I mention it?" The Answer, I'm afraid, is that I'm Not Sure. Each mild surprise in American Gods builds on those that come before it, so that even if you're able to guess how everything will pan out in the end (as I was, sort of?), it still comes as something of a shock to actually read it. That being said, the more you know about myths and folklore--Scandinavian, Egyptian, South Asian and American Indian in particular, although I can't even begin to guess at where the allusions I missed come from--the more you'll get out of this book. And that being said, even if you know next to nothing about any of that, I still think you'll at least get a pretty good time out of these almost-600 pages. I certainly did, so much so that one of the main characters' identities strongly influenced the choice of my next book (you can see it here already: Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths). Just think about, say, that mythology class you might've taken in high school, but add of dash of something like, I don't know, Mad Max into the mix for good measure, and a layer of mystery on top of that. And all easy to read, very easy to read, and very entertaining. It's good stuff, really A+ stuff, and I'd recommend it to anyone both intelligent and unpretentious.