Saga: A Novel of Medieval Iceland by Jeff Janoda
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(Hardcover)
- Pub. Date: April 2005
- 359pp
- Sales Rank: 486,451
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: April 2005
- Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
- Format: Hardcover, 359pp
- Sales Rank: 486,451
- ISBN-13: 9780897335324
- ISBN: 0897335325
Synopsis
When a nameless Norseman sat down to write the Saga of the People of Eyri in the 13th century, the brutal story was already centuries old. Today this ancient tale is masterfully retold in Jeff Janoda's SAGA: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND, a rich historical novel of the first Icelandic settlements.
SAGA tells the story of the savage rituals of feud and sacrifice brought by the settlers from their Norwegian motherland as well as their new, competing beliefs in a democratic legal assembly and a code of restraint. When Thorolf the Viking trades away his valuable family lands to spite his son, Arnkel, the ruthless Norse chieftain vows to regain them at all costs. Robbed of his rightful inheritance, Arnkel begins a venomous feud with his neighbors and with rival chieftain Snorri, a lawless dispute destined to end in betrayal and death. Janoda's characters are eloquently wrought, their passions and pagan beliefs brought to life in a tale over a thousand years old. His delicate hand renders fantastical elements like spirits and elves as vividly as their human counterparts, illuminating the harshness of life in a society on the brink of modernity, yet isolated in the farthest reaches of the planet.Customer Reviews
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Saga: A Novel of Medieval Icelandby Anonymous
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August 31, 2005: As a lover of the Icelandic sagas, and fiction that aims to emulate them, I awaited my copy of this novel with a burning impatience. It finally came and I plunged right in. I was not disappointed. Jeff Janoda has written a fine piece of fiction, moving and powerful and true to the feel and spirit of the old sagas. As a writer of this sort of fiction myself (well, I've written one novel along these lines, anyway), I came to this one with some preconceptions, some personal prejudices. Indeed, I would not have approached the material as Janoda did, preferring to hew a closer line to the original saga voice, myself. But Janoda won me over. While retaining the modern novelistic conventions, many of which stray far afield from the old saga techniques, Janoda brilliantly evoked the older saga form from which this novel arises. Here is the story of Arnkel Thorolfsson's feud with the famed Snorri Thorgrimsson, Snorri the Priest, the sly Icelandic chieftain who appears in so many of the great sagas (Njal's Saga, Laxdaela Saga). This particular tale is from the Eyrbyggja Saga and is only one of several interwoven plots found there. But Janoda has teased it out and put flesh on the bare saga bones, creating a rich and compelling modern novel of real human beings contending with one another in a harsh and unforgiving land. In the process he has recreated that world in all the rich detail and grim coloration that is only limned in the traditional sagas. The beauty of what he's done is seen from the start as we enter the mind and heart of Ulfar Freedman, former slave of a local farmer who ekes out his livelihood on a holding that lies adjacent to Arnkel Thorolfsson's steading and that of Arnkel's father, the brutal and vindictive Thorolf Lamefoot. In the sagas we tend to see everything from the point of view of the great men, the chiefs (called godhis) and their kinsmen and retainers. But Janoda's book, presented initially through the eyes of Ulfar, gives us these great ones as they may really have been, overbearing, harsh and altogether heedless of the lesser folk around them. Arnkel has his chieftanship as the result of a deal in which his father, Thorolf, sold Ulfar his property in order to buy Arnkel his position (chieftainships could be bought and sold in old Iceland). But Arnkel, who is not only proud and fierce but a good deal cleverer than his father, sees that his chieftainship came at a very great cost, the break-up and diminution of Thorolf's land holdings, thus impairing Arnkel's future inheritance. Arnkel is not prepared to pay such a price, even for the chieftanship, and wants his full inheritance back. In fact, Thorolf, Arnkel's father, actually gained his formerly vast landholdings by killing Arnkel's grandfather in a duel after brutalizing and abandoning Arnkel's mother, the old man's proud and arrogant daughter, Gudrid. Gudrid, for her part, desperately wants her father's lands back in their entirety, too, wishing only ill on Thorolf, her former husband and tormentor, and has raised Arnkel with these things in mind. And thus the hapless and gentle Ulfar finds himself an unwitting pawn in a struggle that pits Arnkel against his father, and father and son against Ulfar's own former master, Thorbrand and his six sons. Though neighbors of Arnkel godhi, the Thorbrandssons are aligned with the famous Snorri of Helgafell, in hopes of counterbalancing Arnkel's growing strength in their district. Old Thorbrand,...
Saga: A Novel of Medieval Icelandby Anonymous
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May 23, 2005: I did not want this book to end. Such a sweeping vision of this harsh landscape and its people was depicted by Mr. Janoda that the reader utilizes all of their senses to soak in this epic story. The daily tastes, smells, textiles and rituals of the first inhabitants of Iceland are woven into an epic story of ambition, lust, revenge and calculated power plays. Reminiscent of The Godfather with broadswords. The author depicts a surprisingly delicate feminine insight in his strong female characters surrounded by the savagery of the time. Great Read.
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