[books 2012] Margaret Atwood

60. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood

A collection of Atwood's essays about SF and related books. Devoured in two days on the coach and train to and from London. Quite simply wonderful - fascinating, wonderfully written. If I'd had one of my notebooks on me I would have filled it up with quoteables.

I had no idea Atwood is such a huge H Rider Haggard fan.

Will probably re-read this, fairly soon. And I don't re-read anything, ever.

And now I've got to find time to re-read Idylls of the King.

[books 2012] Norsemen in the Viking Age

61. The Norsemen in the Viking Age by Eric Christiansen

Or, everything you thought you knew about the subject - there's no contemporary evidence, it's all extrapolated from the later medieval Icelandic sagas, or by inferring parallels with other, better documented, Germanic groups. I was vaguely aware of this, but not to the degree or in such great detail.

The title makes it sound like a general, accessible work, as does the fact that it's part of a series called "The Peoples of Europe". This is Proper Academic History, outlining what we do and don't know, structured thematically rather than chronologically.

I was disappointed, but not entirely surprised to find that there were probably no berserkers amongst the pagan Vikings - there is only one, extremely dubious, contemporary reference, whereas one would think that they would have been mentioned by the chroniclers of the societies the northmen plundered, had they existed.

Ditto for the concept of sacral kingship. A professor I studied Middle English with at Leeds is mainly responsible for debunking that one. In the 90s, after I left. Apparently, the idea that Merovingian kingship was also sacral has been debunked too. The book that contains the relevant chapter costs £44 from Amazon. I must learn how interlibrary loan works.

The woman who turned me on to medieval studies in the first place when I was an undergraduate has a footnote!

When I did this for a living, my work was all about the Vikings in England and the Celtic world, but what got my attention now was their interactions at the other side of the Viking lands, with the emergent French and German societies. (Nope. Still can't get the least bit excited by the Rus and the Byzantine adventures). Repeat after me: You do *not* need another Masters degree, and you have never been able to grasp the way the Carolingian empire becomes France and Germany, and you can barely read modern German.

What I was mostly left with was wondering how the hell I ended up doing my PhD in something else altogether - I let getting put off by the Toronto programme put me off medieval history altogether.

So yes, it's hard, but much more interesting that what I thought we knew.

I got this from the library but I think I want my own copy, if only for plundering the bibliography. I am also tempted to explore some of the other books in the series.