Ragnarök: The End of the Gods

Posted on December 17, 2011

Ragnarök: The End of the Gods, by A.S. Byatt

Ragnarök: The End of the Gods is a frame story about the Norse pantheon, as it is discovered by a young girl who is reading Asgard and the Gods. The girl, who is only referred to as the Thin Child, lives in the English countryside during World War II. She is mostly bored by school and church, and she is sometimes sick, but she loves to read and as she reads Asgard, its stories become metaphoric for the events in the Thin Child’s life.

The story comes in at about 150 pages, but they’re laden with stories of Norse mythology, from Yggdrasil and the creation stories to Ragnarök – the final battle of the gods. It’s more of a primer on the Norse stories than an encyclopedia, but it’s fascinating nonetheless. Having read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarök provides insight to many of the characters that Gaiman based on Norse myth. Despite this, I was disappointed by Ragnarök‘s brevity. I wish there was more to it, regarding either the Thin Child, the gods, or both.

The book is interesting, but doesn’t feel very compelling. While the stories that the Thin Child reads about the gods are richly detailed, information on her own life is vague. While this is likely the author’s intention, it leads me not to care so much about the Thin Child as a character. If the Thin Child isn’t worth caring about, I might as well skip directly to reading Asgard and the Gods.

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