These gods are not only mortal, they’re a bit banal. What finally left me feeling dissatisfied is, paradoxically, the pleasant, ingratiating way in which he tells it. he simply tells us the story, and tells it well. Yet I wonder if he tries too hard to tame something intractably feral, to domesticate a troll. There is a good deal of humour in the stories, the kind most children like – seeing a braggart take a pratfall, watching the cunning little fellow outwit the big dumb bully. Gaiman plays down the extreme strangeness of some of the material and defuses its bleakness by a degree of self-satire. His telling of the tales is for children and adults alike, and this is both right and wise, it being the property of genuine myth to be accessible on many levels. Gaiman’s characteristically limpid, quick-running prose keeps the dramatic impetus of the medieval texts, if not their rough-hewn quality.
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