%0 Journal Article %A Berry, Geoff %D 2017 %T A. S. Byatt. Ragnarök; The End of the Gods. Melbourne: Text, 2011 [Book Review] %U https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/journal_contribution/A_S_Byatt_Ragnar_k_The_End_of_the_Gods_Melbourne_Text_2011_Book_Review_/5016461 %R 10.4225/03/59226ecd58f3c %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8455586 %K A.S. Byatt %K Wagner %K Myths %K Ragnarök %K Nordic myths %K mythopoeia %K British and Irish Literature %X
The Nordic myths of Asgard have been paid a fair degree of respect over recent years. They were a major inspiration behind Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which received magisterial filmic treatment from Peter Jackson, and were granted a more explicit role in Kenneth Branagh’s recent visual feast Thor. A. S. Byatt’s new novel Ragnarök is a much more personal journey than these heroic epics, retelling the core mythic cycle of the Northern Europeans through the thoughts and experiences of a small girl during the Second World War air raids in and around London. Explicitly taking its cues from Dr W Wagner’s 1880 book Asgard and the Gods, Byatt’s reverie also clearly utilises autobiographical details in its telling of “the thin child” during wartime.
%I Monash University