Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've studied Norse Mythology for 20 years. However, I know that the academic texts that are so interesting to me are very hard to get into and could be described by many as 'hella dry.' For my friends and family, I've been searching for a telling of the myths that was approachable, respectful of the source material, well-written in a more modern style, but adjusted the myths to reflect the best academic ideas and opinions about them. Basically, I've wanted a telling of the myths as they most likely had been told before being butchered by those who meant to demonize the gods, but written in such a way as to entertain a modern audience. I had hoped that this book would be just the thing I've been looking for. Neil Gaiman made a lovely introduction that hinted that he'd done all that I could have asked for. My eyes lingered on a typo of a Goddesses's name, but I forgave it and moved on. He spoke about his research and I was excited about that even if I felt he'd come to some very different conclusions than I had. And then I read his 'cast of characters.' My spirits sank. Thor, Odin and Loki are not the main gods! There is some argument among the academics, but the usual suspects are always Thor and Freyr, with either Odin and Freyja, or Odin and Frigga rounding it out (and sometimes Odin doesn't even make the cut.) Loki might be a key player, but he's a supporting character and shouldn't be considered the main cast as the Norsemen saw it. Peeved, I moved onto the first myth. Not only was it sadly short and lacking in many of the details that have been teased out by academics, it was straight up wrong in places. Gaiman lifted phrases from other translations, which is perfectly fine in the academic sense, but not what I expected to see here. I expected his very own words, not reading words that I could nearly recite from having read them so often. I skimmed a few more of the chapters and found them to all have the same fundamental issues -- all the Christianization was still present, no effort had been made to clean up any of the known apocryphal additions to the myths. Sometimes things were just plain wrong. It seems that Gaiman didn't realize that certain things were not the same things, so sometimes I'd find myself confused because two distinct ideas had been conflated into one. The gods, who are often very deep characters in the myths, had been rendered very flat and entirely unlikable. After Neil's lament about so many of the the tales of Goddesses being missing in the introduction, I found it odd that he decided to make Freyja a one-note woman. Another thing I noticed is that the book slid from one spelling to another for proper nouns. I realize that there are multiple acceptable spellings for these very old words, but I prefer when a book sticks to one (perhaps acknowledging the others but saying which one it will use.) Far from the promised modern retelling of the myths, which is sorely needed, this book is junk. It's wrong, it's lacking known details that would have done a lot for this rather short book. It takes a very out-of-date approach to the material, and doesn't present it in an entertaining way. These myths were meant to be told and retold and made lush with detail by the poet or storyteller presenting them. Gaiman should know this if he did the research he claimed he did. But here are the same old words that have been used forever. As much as I love these arc words, they were exactly what I didn't want in this work. In conclusions, this lacks all that it claims it's got. It's a shiny cover (with the wrong shape for the hammer, by the way....) and a spiffy intro.... and the rest is just not worth the money. Get Kevin Holland's book, or even a copy of the Eddas and read them instead. This offers no advantages over either.