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Sometimes there are books
that simply speak to the times, that capture a momentary trend, encapsulate a
particular headspace in time. For my summer of 2012, I think I may have found
the one, a book that managed to capture some of my highlights and newfound
interests within its pages. And that book is Ragnarok; The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt. The Avengers heralded the opening
of summer with the misadventures of the infamous brothers of Asgard, Thor and
Loki. On and on the summer days rolled away in brilliant sunshine and brought
us the Olympic games, a tumultuous event that puts the world slightly off
kilter, as all eyes turn towards one location, where a temporary world, very
small and yet somehow greater than our own is created. And beyond the Olympics,
beyond this summer, looming on the horizon is always the threat of war,
decimation, an ultimate, apocalyptic end. The apocalyptic presence in our pop
culture, cult fiction, and entertainment media is strong and constantly
present. And so, as the summer draws to a close, a book that deals with that
kind of tumult and subject matter, as well as the origins of Loki, Thor, and
the Asgardians couldn’t be more appropriate.
Ragnarok is A.S. Byatt’s retelling of the stories of the Norse gods of
Asgard and the tale of Ragnarok, their final destruction. But she tells it
through the unlikely eyes of a young girl in 1940's wartime England, referred
to only as the Thin Child. When
the Thin Child’s father goes off to fight in the war, she and her mother move
out of London and into the country, away from the imminent threat of air raids.
The Thin Child is lonely and spends much of her time reading whatever she can
get her hands on, and they eventually land upon a copy of Asgard and the Gods. Through
the Thin Child, Byatt refocuses and retells the stories of Asgard. The Thin Child finds an odd comfort and
justification in the myths as she grows up in wartime and awaits the return of
her father.
I read this book mostly
outside on my lunch breaks. I devoured Byatt's lush descriptions of Yggdrasil,
the immense life-tree, steadfast and immeasurably large, with the sunlight
winking down at me through the leaves of the (much smaller) trees around my
office. As the Thin Child devours
the stories of Asgard, she learns that in the advent of Ragnarok, Yggdrasil
begins to wither. The idea infallible foundation of the world is actually quite
fallible resonated with me as I read. In the afterword of the book, she says
that she wrote the book with our own rapidly deteriorating world in mind. But
the book never got preachy, never soap-boxed; it read like a proper myth
should, distant and unemotional. The reader is meant to take away their own
meaning.
In fact, one of Byatt’s biggest
accomplishments is that she is able
to maintain the tone and character of a myth or epic while writing in a very
modern style. She uses the typical lists, exaggerations, and personification
and glorification of animals and other creatures. But her acute descriptions
bring the characters and he setting tangibly to life in a way that older
tellings of myths never have. Byatt sucks in the reader and keeps them happy
with her magnificent and detailed paintings of her story. The retold narrative
of the book and the thoughts of the Thin Child are woven seamlessly together. The
narrator tells the stories of Asgard as though reading in summary and
interjects the thoughts of the Thin Child as though it was her memory. Byatt's
style and the handling of the stories is what, aside from the stories of the
gods themselves, made the book both worth reading and worth reading.
For my summer 2012, this
book was a perfect cap-off. I delved deeper into the Norse characters that had
piqued my interest and found parallels to the Olympics that were ever-present in my thoughts. Even if your summer wasn’t filled with
Thor, Loki and learning about the origins of Asgard, even if apocalyptic
fiction isn’t on your radar this is a book worth reading simply because it is a
fine piece of storytelling.
Written by Meaghan O'Brien
