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Njal Saga Penguin Classics Anonymous Robert Cook 9780140447699 Books

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Njal Saga Penguin Classics Anonymous Robert Cook 9780140447699 Books

One of the greatest novels written - and one of the earliest - this darkly funny saga of Viking life follows a series of offences and counter-offences that gradually form into a fatal vendetta. From its first line: "There was a man called Mord Fiddle" (Mord means 'murder'…) it gallops along.
One of the highlights is a horribly hilarious account of the Battle of Clontarf, in which Brian Boru and his men - including many friends and relatives of his opponents - fight off invading Icelanders hired by his divorced wife to back her sons' claim to kingship. One of those being chased by another with battle-axe raised stops to do up his shoelace. "What are you stopping for?" asks yer man, axe still held ready to drop, and the shoelace-tyer shrugs and says: "I wouldn't reach home by nightfall anyway." The axeman laughs so much he has to let him go.
Brilliant book.


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Njal Saga Penguin Classics Anonymous Robert Cook 9780140447699 Books Reviews

I recently became interested in Norse mythology, and after acquiring a number of books on the subject my interest spilled over into Norse, particularly Icelandic, sagas. I bought the hefty Penguin "The Sagas of Icelanders", and since all the reviewers for it lamented the exclusion (understandably, for space reasons) of Njal's Saga, I bought that separately, and I've just finished reading it.

I bought this translation, Cook's. There seemed to be two main choices, this or Magnus Magnusson's, and I noticed a few reviewers quite bluntly trashing Cook's translation, promoting Magnus's instead. I decided to start with Cook's anyway, figuring that, even if it was inferior to Magnusson's, I wouldn't know what I was missing, since I hadn't yet read Magusson's. Admittedly, I still haven't read Magnusson's translation, but I enjoyed Cook's translation very much and did not by any means think of it as lacking.

In fact, in Cook's notes on the translation presented in the book, he explains his motivation and justification for translating the saga the way he did, in a way that seems to anticipate the disfavor of his translation by loyal Magnusson fans

"[This translation] differs from previous translations of Njal's Saga...in attempting to duplicate the sentence structure and spare vocabulary of the Icelandic text."

After giving a few examples of the stylistic eccentricities in which the saga was originally written and demonstrating how he attempted to reproduce them in his translation--even contrasting an excerpt of Magnusson's translation with his own--he goes on to say

"It is hoped that the reader of this translation will accept--and even learn to enjoy--these and other efforts at fidelity, though they may seem strange at first. The intent has been to create a translation with the stylistic "feel" of the Icelandic original."

Clearly, Cook did not set out to create a dry, inferior translation; rather he set out to create a more stylistically faithful translation, even if it meant sacrificing some of the flare and drama to which we as modern readers are accustomed.

Regarding the story itself...what can one say? There is something immensely powerful about reading a piece of literature that was written over seven centuries ago and discovering that its author and the people about whom he wrote had many of the same thoughts, feelings, and problems that we do today. When a character responds emotionally to a situation, or feels frustrated because of a moral dilemma, we can still, despite the vast chasm of time separating us, so easily relate to him or her. Even the author's humor and wit are delightfully close to home. Stories such as Njal's Saga remind us that people from long ago and far away are just that people. Just like us. In a popular culture that has a tendency to glorify the ephemeral, trendy Here and Now, it's a fact that's easy to forget.
A classic. One of the greatest and best-known Icelandic sagas, Njal's Saga, or The Story of Burnt Njal, relates the often turbulent relationships of the Norse settlers of Iceland, where slights to honor, deceit, and intrigue often resulted in horrific blood-feuds. And yet at the same time, the Icelanders were developing a legal system and a system of "atonements" or settlements at the annual meetings or "Things", including the "Althing", that worked to end bloody feuds and allow periods of peace. The story of Njal is doubly poignant because he was one of the greatest legal counselors of his time, helping many of his friends to achieve favorable outcomes at the Things, and he was farsighted, with a gift of foreseeing the future of his neighbors and his own family, yet he was ultimately powerless to prevent doom to himself and his family from the rash and imprudent words and actions of his own sons and their manipulation by schemers. This story is a window into both a chaotic yet developmental period in medieval history and the nature of its psychology, as well as a warning to our current age of the need to never allow our civilization to deteriorate and devolve into what might fairly be called such a near-dystopian state.
Covers a few generations of Norse history, as well as the infamous Gunnar - one of the greatest warriors of Iceland with his magic halberd.

This is an historical telling of oral tradition, exaggerations to lift the families that were respected and slander those unliked. It starts with one character's journey, goes onto another (who also gets to deal with the previous character), then onto yet another, then on to families, the take-over of Christianity, internal squabbles, etc. It's actually a really good read if you're into history with a bit of embellishment that's not like America's embellishment of our own history where we've always been good; it stays somewhat objective and embellishes for drama.
I am grateful for this English translation of Njal's Saga, which makes this epic story accessible to so many. Though written in spare and simple language, the saga is breathtaking in scope, describing a remarkable series of triumphs, tragedies, intrigues, and unintended consequences over several decades. Though the saga is now nearly 1000 years old, it gives the Viking world it depicts a vigorous and compelling immediacy. The foreword and introduction to the saga are especially helpful and are worthwhile reading on their own. Despite the clarity and simplicity of the text provided in the translation, this is not an easy read because of the numerous characters introduced and the sheer scope of the story. Having first read the saga in a Norwegian translation, which I believe was likely to hew fairly closely to the old Norse writing of the original, I am impressed with how well this English translation seems to reflect the idiomatic worldview and expressions of the Norse.
One of the greatest novels written - and one of the earliest - this darkly funny saga of Viking life follows a series of offences and counter-offences that gradually form into a fatal vendetta. From its first line "There was a man called Mord Fiddle" (Mord means 'murder'…) it gallops along.
One of the highlights is a horribly hilarious account of the Battle of Clontarf, in which Brian Boru and his men - including many friends and relatives of his opponents - fight off invading Icelanders hired by his divorced wife to back her sons' claim to kingship. One of those being chased by another with battle-axe raised stops to do up his shoelace. "What are you stopping for?" asks yer man, axe still held ready to drop, and the shoelace-tyer shrugs and says "I wouldn't reach home by nightfall anyway." The axeman laughs so much he has to let him go.
Brilliant book.