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Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Welcome goonlings to the Awful Book of the Month!
In this thread, we choose one work of literature absolute crap and read/discuss it over a month. If you have any suggestions of books, choose something that will be appreciated by many people, and has many avenues of discussion. We'd also appreciate if it were a work of literature complete drivel that is easily located from a local library or book shop, as opposed to ordering something second hand off the internet and missing out on a week's worth of reading. Better yet, books available on e-readers.

Resources:

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org

- A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best.

SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/

- A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.

:siren: For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. :siren:

Past Books of the Month

[for BOTM before 2014, refer to archives]

2014:
January: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness
February: Mikhail Bulgalov - Master & Margarita
March: Richard P. Feynman -- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
April: James Joyce -- Dubliners
May: Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 100 Years of Solitude
June: Howard Zinn -- A People's History of the United States
July: Mary Renault -- The Last of the Wine
August: Barbara Tuchtman -- The Guns of August
September: Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice
October: Roger Zelazny -- A Night in the Lonesome October
November: John Gardner -- Grendel
December: Christopher Moore -- The Stupidest Angel

2015:
January: Italo Calvino -- Invisible Cities
February: Karl Ove Knausgaard -- My Struggle: Book 1.
March: Knut Hamsun -- Hunger
April: Liu Cixin -- 三体 ( The Three-Body Problem)
May: John Steinbeck -- Cannery Row
June: Truman Capote -- In Cold Blood
(Hiatus)
August: Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Between the World and Me
September: Wilkie Collins -- The Moonstone
October:Seth Dickinson -- The Traitor Baru Cormorant
November:Svetlana Alexievich -- Voices from Chernobyl
December: Michael Chabon -- Gentlemen of the Road

2016:
January: Three Men in a Boat (To say nothing of the Dog!) by Jerome K. Jerome
February:The March Up Country (The Anabasis) of Xenophon
March: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
April: Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling
May: Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
June:The Vegetarian by Han Kang
July:Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
August: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
September:Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
October:Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
November:Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
December: It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

2017:
January: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
February: The Plague by Albert Camus
March: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
April: The Conference of the Birds (مقامات الطیور) by Farid ud-Din Attar
May: I, Claudius by Robert Graves
June: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
July: Ficcionies by Jorge Luis Borges
August: My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
September: The Peregrine by J.A. Baker
Blackwater Vol. I: The Flood by Michael McDowell
Aquarium by David Vann
December: Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight [Author Unknown]

Current:


Njal's Saga[Author Unknown]

Book available here:

Project Gutenberg (Dasent Translation): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17919/17919-h/17919-h.htm

Kindle Ebook of Modern Cook Translation: https://www.amazon.com/Njals-Penguin-Classics-Leifur-Eiricksson-ebook/dp/B002RI92IO

About the book:

Mel Mudkiper posted:

that does sound good, but on the other hand we have nordic bloodfeuds

quote:

Njáls saga (modern Icelandic pronunciation: About this sound listen (help·info)) (also Njála (About this sound listen (help·info)), Brennu-Njáls saga (About this sound listen (help·info)) or "The Story of Burnt Njáll") is a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga that describes events between 960 and 1020. The principal characters are the friends Njáll Ţorgeirsson,[1] a lawyer and a sage, and Gunnar Hámundarson, a formidable warrior. Gunnar's wife instigates a feud that leads to the death of many characters over several decades including the killing by fire of the eponymous "Burnt Njáll". The saga deals with this process of blood feuds in the Icelandic Commonwealth, showing how the requirements of honor could lead to minor slights spiralling into destructive and prolonged bloodshed. Insults where a character's manhood is called into question are especially prominent and may reflect an author critical of an overly restrictive ideal of masculinity.[2] Another characteristic of the narrative is the presence of omens and prophetic dreams. It is disputed whether this reflects a fatalistic outlook on the part of the author.

The work is anonymous, although there has been extensive speculation on the author's identity. The major events described in the saga are probably historical but the material was shaped by the author, drawing on oral tradition, according to his artistic needs. Njáls saga is the longest and most highly developed of the sagas of Icelanders. It is often considered the peak of the saga tradition.[3]



About the Author

quote:

Njáls saga, like the other sagas of Icelanders, is anonymous. There are, however, many theories about the saga's authorship. The oldest idea, attested in the early 17th century, is that Sćmundr fróđi wrote the work. Other suggested authors include Sćmundr's sons, Jón Loftsson, Snorri Sturluson, Einarr Gilsson, Brandr Jónsson and Ţorvarđr Ţórarinsson.[4]

The saga is now believed to have been composed in the period from 1270 to 1290.[5] Among written sources which the author likely used are Laxdćla saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Ljósvetninga saga as well as the lost sagas Brjáns saga and Gauks saga Trandilssonar.[6] The author must, however, have derived the bulk of the material in the saga from oral tradition which he manipulated for his own artistic purposes.[7] Opinions on the historicity of the saga have varied greatly, ranging from pure fiction to nearly verbatim truth to any number of nuanced views.[8] It can be regarded as certain that Njáll and Gunnarr were real historical people and their fateful deaths are referred to in other sources.[9] Gabriel Turville-Petre said, "It was not the author's purpose to write a work of history, but rather to use a historical subject for an epic in prose".[10]


Translations

DeadFatDuckFat posted:

Any recommendation on which translation to get?

chernobyl kinsman posted:

oh i forgot about magnusson. cook is fine, it has more recent scholarship behind it.

alternatively you could just learn old norse; it takes legitimately a weekend to become conversant in it. be a man.

chernobyl kinsman posted:

yes, actually! this one is pretty good. there's also an excellent book by Jesse L. Byock, a great scholar who's done a ton of translation work.

i'm only being slightly facetious when i say you can pick it up in a weekend; i know a girl who was enrolled in an ON class but only went to about 3 lectures over the course of the semester, then sat down saturday morning and just...learned the language for the final on Monday. passed the class with something like a high B. it took me a few weeks to be able to workthrough it, but then i never gave it my full attention.

it's an inflected language, so if you know how those work you'll already be at a significant advantage,* but there are a few things that make ON really easy to pick up:

1) the case endings are super simplified. no declension bullshit, not too many irregularities.
2) the grammar is sensible. word order makes sense, and usually isn't wildly different from english.
3) this is the big one - small vocabulary. you can read most extant ON texts with maybe a decent grasp on ~300 words and not have to look up too much
3a) a TON of cognates. 'angr' means anger, 'gestr' means guest, and so on. this gets easier, too, once you learn the pronunciation, and start figuring out that 'hrafn' means raven.

* and if by chance you have Old English (or to a slightly lesser extant German), this'll be a cake walk.



Themes

quote:

Njáls saga explores the consequences of vengeance as a defence of family honor by dealing with a blood feud spanning some 50 years. The saga shows how even worthy people can destroy themselves by disputes and demonstrates the tensions in the Icelandic Commonwealth which eventually led to its destruction.[11] Any insult to one's honor had to be revenged: sometimes this includes slights which seem trivial to modern readers. Magnus Magnusson finds it "a little pathetic, now, to read how vulnerable these men were to calls on their honour; it was fatally easy to goad them into action to avenge some suspicion of an insult".[12]

Insults involving a character's manliness are especially prominent in the saga. Thus, Njáll's lack of a beard is repeatedly referred to and used by his opponents to call his manhood into question. Another example, among many, is when the gift of a silk garment is considered an insult by Flosi and a hard-won settlement breaks down as a consequence. Ármann Jakobsson has argued that it is "difficult to find a man whose manhood is not vulnerable"[13] and that Njáls saga criticizes the idea of a misogynistic society by showing that the ideal of masculinity can be so restrictive that it becomes oppressive to men and destructive to society.[2]

Omens, prophetic dreams and supernatural foresight figure prominently in Njáls saga. The role of fate and, especially, of fatalism is, however, a matter of scholarly contention. Halldór Laxness argued that the saga is primarily a book about the fatalism inherent in Norse paganism. In his view, the course of events is foreordained from the moment Hrútr sees the thieves' eyes in his niece and until the vengeance for Njáll's burning is completed to the southeast in Wales. In this way, Laxness believed that Njáls saga attested to the presence of a "very strong heathen spirit",[14] antithetical to Christianity, in 13th century Iceland.[15] Magnus Magnusson wrote that "[t]he action is swept along by a powerful under-current of fate" and that Njáll wages a "fierce struggle to alter its course" but that he is nevertheless "not a fatalist in the heathen sense".[12] Thorsteinn Gylfason rejects the idea that there is any fatalism in Njáls saga, arguing that there is no hostile supernatural plan which its characters are subject to.[16]

quote:

According to the libertarian theorist David D. Friedman, "Medieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions."[23] While not directly labeling it anarcho-capitalist, he argues that the legal system came close to being a real-world anarcho-capitalist legal system[24] – while there was a single legal system, enforcement of law was entirely private and highly capitalist; and so provides some evidence of how such a society would function. "Even where the Icelandic legal system recognized an essentially "public" offense, it dealt with it by giving some individual (in some cases chosen by lot from those affected) the right to pursue the case and collect the resulting fine, thus fitting it into an essentially private system."[23]
(emphasis added)

quote:

In the early 13th century, the Age of the Sturlungs, the Commonwealth began to suffer from chaos and division resulting from internal disputes. Originally, the gođar functioned more than a contractual relationship than a fixed geographic chieftaincy. However, by 1220 this form of communal leadership was replaced by dominant regional individuals who battled with one another for more control. One historian argues the chaos and violence of this period stem from an imbalance of power and changes in the nature of Icelandic warfare. The separation of secular and ecclesiastical power led some families and regional networks to become stronger at the expense of others, leading to an imbalance of power.[19] The introduction of pitched battles and harassment of farmers on a regional basis raised the stakes and dangers.[19]

The King of Norway began to exert pressure on his Icelandic vassals to bring the country under his rule. The King's role in Icelandic affairs started in 1220, and had become strong by 1240 (Icelanders were starting to accept the King's choice of chieftains).[20] Over the period 1240-1260, the King consolidated power in Iceland.[20] A combination of discontent with domestic hostilities and pressure from the King of Norway led the Icelandic chieftains to accept Norway's Haakon IV as king by the signing of the Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") in 1262. According to historian Sverrir Jakobsson, three Icelanders played a central role in bringing Iceland under the King of Norway: Gissur Ţorvaldsson (for getting farmers to agree to pay taxes to the King), Hrafn Oddsson (for pressuring Gissur into supporting the King, and getting farmers in the Westfjords to submit to the King) and bishop Brandur Jónsson (for getting his relatives in the East Fjords to submit to the King).[21]

By 1264, all Icelandic chieftains had sworn allegiance to the King of Norway.[22] This effectively brought the Icelandic Commonwealth to an end.


Pacing

Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law.

Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion.

I encourage people to read whatever translations they find and compare notes in the thread.


References and Further Reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1ls_saga

http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/after-2-years-and-8-months-work-njala-tapestry-half-completed

Final Note:

Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book!

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ovenboy
Nov 16, 2014

Thanks for the links chernobyl kinsman, looks fun. Reading and picking out words and phrases that I could understand from the Green Knight was great. Would be fun to do the same with some of the sagas some day. I got the Penguin edition of Njal's Saga yesterday, the Cook translation. I read it ages ago, but in Swedish, so I'm really looking forward to checking it out in English.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
One thing I love about reading ancient prose is seeing parts where modern narrative conventions didn't exist and so the storytelling becomes jarring

Like how new characters are introduced by the author just going "Now there are three new characters in the story"

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Mel Mudkiper posted:

One thing I love about reading ancient prose is seeing parts where modern narrative conventions didn't exist and so the storytelling becomes jarring

Like how new characters are introduced by the author just going "Now there are three new characters in the story"

I love the opening to Egil's Saga for this reason. "So there was this guy named [Scandinavian name] and he was a were-bear and a famous warrior. Anyway, his grandkid . . . ."

And the entire rest of the saga is about his grandkid, Egil, and the bear thing is never mentioned again, that's just a perfectly normal thing some people are, like having a noteworthy mole, because Chekhov's gun is 900 years in the future.

It's sometimes easy to forget, given how polished the sagas can be, that they're some of the oldest fiction in the world.

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jan 8, 2018

Arson Daily
Aug 11, 2003

At first I wanted to skip the first paragraph of almost every chapter because of the "this person, who was the son of X was begat by Y who was the great grandson of B ect" but I learned to love it because of the seemingly all vowel spellings of the names. I did get the distinct feeling that the first third of this book could be summed up with this scene however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRRDzc25uxs

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy
Best thing put down from the Sagas is still the following:

quote:

Then he went to the outer door and saw nobody there. It was raining hard, so he did not go outside, but stood holding both the door-posts with his hands and peering round. At that moment Thorbjorn sidled round to the front of the door and thrust his spear with both hands into Atli's middle, so that it pierced him through. Atli said when he received the thrust: "They use broad spear-blades nowadays."

Then he fell forward on the threshold.

- Grettir's Saga (1900 translation)

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy
Now onto the matter at hand, this character is a genius:

quote:

"Well," says Thorarin, "'tis not with thee as the saw says, 'be warned by another's woe'; for she was wedded to a man, and she plotted his death."

Glum said—"May be such ill-luck will not befall her a second time, and sure I am she will not plot my death. But now, if thou wilt show me any honour, ride along with me to woo her."

ovenboy
Nov 16, 2014

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Best thing put down from the Sagas is still the following:


- Grettir's Saga (1900 translation)

There's a lot of good, laconic oneliners in these, like when they try to figure out if Gunnar is at home. I suppose it goes well with the oral tradition but I wonder how much of it was actually said by the person it is attributed to and how much of it was refined later. I could easily se it being "a thing" and how people would weigh their words in order to produce something cool.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Fögur er hlíđin.

ovenboy
Nov 16, 2014

Arson Daily posted:

At first I wanted to skip the first paragraph of almost every chapter because of the "this person, who was the son of X was begat by Y who was the great grandson of B ect" but I learned to love it because of the seemingly all vowel spellings of the names. I did get the distinct feeling that the first third of this book could be summed up with this scene however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRRDzc25uxs

A lot of the set-up feels cumbersome, since I don't overly care about the grand parents of this or that character, but on the other hand you run across stuff like this: "There was a man named Atli, the son of Earl Arnvid of Gotland. He was a great warrior and had his base in Lake Malaren, with a fleet of eight ships. His father had withheld paying tribute to Hakon, foster-son of King Athelstan, and then fled with his son from Jämtland to Gotland."
While not particularly interesting, I thought it was cool since I happened to grow up in Jämtland, and now have found myself moved to Gotland. I imagine lots of the other details must be quite cool if you actually grew up on Iceland, and happened to be familiar with the geography there, as well as the farms and families. That said, it always feels good when a character is out of the saga.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Now onto the matter at hand, this character is a genius:

There are some poorly thought out marriages in this book...

I'm not sure why Hallgerd is being such a dickhead either. Gunnar and Njal seems fine with an eye for an eye, and that seems like a fair legal custom, so it seems weird when Hallgerd in the beginning keeps upping the ante, and killing more people whenever the families reach equilibrium. The cheese theft seems completely unnecessary too.

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

ovenboy posted:

I'm not sure why Hallgerd is being such a dickhead either. Gunnar and Njal seems fine with an eye for an eye, and that seems like a fair legal custom, so it seems weird when Hallgerd in the beginning keeps upping the ante, and killing more people whenever the families reach equilibrium. The cheese theft seems completely unnecessary too.

Wergild or an eye for an eye might satisfy the law, but it doesn't necessarily satisfy those who are left behind. Hallgerd holds grudges really hard.

Dr. Kloctopussy
Apr 22, 2003

"It's time....to DIE!"
So, the lovely version of the Saga that Amazon forces upon me when I try to check out the Cook translation from my elibrary says this:

quote:

"So shall it be," she answered, and sang two songs, in which she revealed the cause of their misunderstanding; and when Mord pressed her to speak out, she told him how she and Hurt could not live together, because he was spellbound, and that she wished to leave him.

Meanwhile, in Cook...

quote:

She answered, 'When he comes close to me his penis is so large that he can't have any satisfaction from me, and yet we've both tried every possible way to enjoy each other, but nothing works. By the time we part, however, he shows that he's just like other men.'


:lol:

Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jan 17, 2018

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
isn;t that the victorian translation that edited out all the unseemly sex stuff

Fedelm
Apr 21, 2013

It's called Ursa Major, not Ursula Merger. And that's not even it. That's Orion.
I've tried to read this saga twice in the past ten years but I'm a slow reader and life stuff just kept popping up before I could finish either time.

My memory is foggy; one of the things I seem to remember was that one woman character (Hallgerd?) decided she wanted to marry someone and went ahead to the Allthing to get it done and I was impressed, I didn't expect to read about a woman taking control of her life like that, so cool.

Then she went and did poo poo like this:

ovenboy posted:

I'm not sure why Hallgerd is being such a dickhead either. Gunnar and Njal seems fine with an eye for an eye, and that seems like a fair legal custom, so it seems weird when Hallgerd in the beginning keeps upping the ante, and killing more people whenever the families reach equilibrium. The cheese theft seems completely unnecessary too.

I wished she could be assertive by fighting her own battles or something instead of sending people to their deaths over and over. (Do we need to spoiler?) Of course I don't know much about what the law was like at the time and at least it was a great illustration of how stupid cycles of violence can get.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

"So shall it be," she answered, and sang two songs, in which she revealed the cause of their misunderstanding; and when More pressed her to speak out, she told him how she and Hurt could not live together, because he was spellbound, and that she wished to leave him.

Yeah seems unfair for the translation to say "spellbound" and leave it at that, did your Amazon version explain the source of the spell either?:

Cook's translation posted:

"If I have as much power over you as I think I have, then I cast this spell: you will not have sexual pleasure with the woman you plan to marry in Iceland, though you'll be able to have your will with other women. Neither of us comes out of this well, because you did not tell me the truth."

The way she prefaces the curse it sounds more like a nice guilt trip/self-fulfilling prophecy.

Dr. Kloctopussy
Apr 22, 2003

"It's time....to DIE!"

Mel Mudkiper posted:

isn;t that the victorian translation that edited out all the unseemly sex stuff

Apparently so (it's the one by George Webbe Dasent in 1861).

Semi-tangential rant: I'm livid that I can't get the Penguin Classics edition on my kindle when it's the one listed in the elibrary, and I can read it through the elibrary app on my tablet. Amazon's response to my angry emails is telling me to email my local library, which I did, but this is pretty clearly an issue their side, since they also link to these stupid editions if you try to buy the kindle version from the Penguin Edition page.This happened with Chaucer, too, and I'm expecting the same when I finally get the Oliver Ready translation of Crime and Punishment I'm on the waitlist for.

:ssj:

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Dr. Kloctopussy posted:

Apparently so (it's the one by George Webbe Dasent in 1861).

Yeah the Webbe one is basically a whole new book because he took the story and edited out everything that would be offensive or against the tastes of the reader of his era

Speaking of weird sex poo poo in classic literature, this will always be my fav

From the Tain Bo Cualinge

quote:

“Then Medb got her gush of blood.

‘Fergus’ she said, ‘take over the shelter of shields at the rear of the men of Ireland until I relieve myself’.

‘By god’ Fergus said, ‘you have picked a bad time for this‘.

‘I can’t help it’, Medb said. ‘I’ll die if I can’t do it’.

So Fergus took over the shelter of shields at the rear of the men of Ireland and Medb relieved herself. It dug three great channels, each big enough to take a household. The place is called Fual Medba, Medb’s Foul Place, ever since.

CestMoi
Sep 16, 2011

Weird sex poo poo such as a period

Dr. Kloctopussy
Apr 22, 2003

"It's time....to DIE!"
that is a 100% accurate description of how menstruation works

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

CestMoi posted:

Weird sex poo poo such as a period

lol

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

CestMoi posted:

Weird sex poo poo such as a period

I didn;t have a better category to put "witch periods a river that creates a cursed valley" and I have no regrets

Dr. Kloctopussy
Apr 22, 2003

"It's time....to DIE!"

Mel Mudkiper posted:

I didn;t have a better category to put "witch periods a river that creates a cursed valley" and I have no regrets

"loving awesome"

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

In 1980 director Friđrik Ţór Friđriksson made a short film inspired by the Saga of Burned Njal. He advertised it extensively in various newspapers and a lot of curious and exited people showed up to the premiere only to find out that the film was not an adaptation but a experimental short in which someone sets fire to a copy of the book and we watch it burn to a crisp in real time.

This has since been interpreted as a sort of declaration of independence for Icelandic film making, an attempt by a newer medium to break free from the shackles of tradition and create it's own identity as well as a screed against ideas about the importance faithfulness in adaptation. Friđrik has said that he just thought it would be funny.

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
if you like Njal's Saga for the plot and combat I highly recommend Grettir's Saga, my personal favorite of the sagas. It has a lot of spooky stuff and also a connection to Beowulf.

If you liked it for the weird inscrutable poo poo then I recommend Eyrbyggja saga, which opens with a war between two families that starts because one family won't stop making GBS threads on another family's sacred land. It also includes a blood rain, a scene in which a ghost seal pops its head up through the floor of a hall and a kid has to hammer it back down, and a haunting which is settled by legally evicting the ghosts. It owns.

DeadFatDuckFat
Oct 29, 2012

This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.


So what exactly does a "horse fight" entail and how does one win? It seems like the human contestants aren't actually riding the horses but just standing behind them and pushing them?

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

DeadFatDuckFat posted:

So what exactly does a "horse fight" entail and how does one win? It seems like the human contestants aren't actually riding the horses but just standing behind them and pushing them?

you make the horses fight

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
reminds of how we found out that early humans domesticated chickens because we loved watching them fight each other and then we got used to eating the loser and decided they were pretty good

DeadFatDuckFat
Oct 29, 2012

This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.



Pretty cool horse pic in that link. edit:I've yet to read the full version of that article

Also, do the other sagas have as much of the psychic prediction (I don't know what to call it) kind of thing where one person flat out says "you're gonna die" or "this is going to be bad" and it comes true immediately afterwards? I can see why you would want to emphasize how wise someone is by having them predict the future, but it seems like a weird thing to have it happen so often with lots of different people unless it's just a common device used in old norse stories.

DeadFatDuckFat fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jan 19, 2018

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

DeadFatDuckFat posted:

Pretty cool horse pic in that link. I guess since rules and stuff are vague, we don't know if the two brothers who pushed their horse into Gunnar's were "cheating"?

Also, do the other sagas have as much of the psychic prediction (I don't know what to call it) kind of thing where one person flat out says "you're gonna die" or "this is going to be bad" and it comes true immediately afterwards? I can see why you would want to emphasize how wise someone is by having them predict the future, but it seems like a weird thing to have it happen so often with lots of different people unless it's just a common device used in old norse stories.

It's been a while since I read the other sagas but from what I recall it's so common it seems to have been a general given of the Icelandic world. Sun rises in the morning, some people's grandfathers were bears, snow is cold, if you're smart and good at poems then you can probably predict the future everyone does it, I want your land let's duel for it, etc.


other classic saga-related errrata:

http://www.viking.ucla.edu/Scientific_American/Egils_Bones.htm

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Oh we need suggestions for next month; right now I'm leaning very strongly towards The Sign of the Four.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Oh we need suggestions for next month; right now I'm leaning very strongly towards The Sign of the Four.

its literally two weeks away! Lets chillax and focus on the current book a little more first

DeadFatDuckFat
Oct 29, 2012

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Just got to the end. It's interesting how Mord Valgardson gets away completely with turning the Njalssons against their foster brother via his smack talk. Their culture seems to be heavily against the kind of thing that he did, especially when compared with Skammkel's character earlier in the saga. Mord has kind of a bad reputation, but I was expecting him to get axed pretty hard. I guess maybe he lives just because That's the Way It Happened?

thatdarnedbob
Jan 1, 2006
why must this exist?
Jumping in at the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT to say I just finished the book and it was tight. I have thoughts:

1. This is not Burned Njal, he was clearly Smoked Njal, at best. At least his son Skarphedin got his lower body burned off, for that sweet burning action. (spoiler for a 1000 year old book)

2. I love the assholery some the characters have. Skarphedin has a great run of just burning every bridge possible when asking for allies, but then burns one bridge so hard that a previous guy comes back and says "That was awesome, I got your back now". (Chapter 120) Hrapp is also great. Context: Hrapp has just been sleeping with Gudbrand's daughter, when Gudbrand's servant (Asvard) caught them. Hrapp kills the dude, finds out the daughter is pregnant, and then strolls into Gudbrand's hall to let him know (which is the polite and honorable thing I suppose).

quote:

Gudbrand was sitting in his high seat, and only a few men were in the room. Hrapp walked up to him holding his axe high.

Gudbrand asked, 'Why is your axe bloody?'

'I have been taking care of Asvard's backache,' he said.

'Not out of good will, I suppose,' said Gudbrand. 'You must have killed him.'

'That's true,' said Hrapp.

'What was the reason?' said Gudbrand.

'It will seem petty to you,' said Hrapp, 'but he was trying to cut off my leg.'

'What had you done before that?' asked Gudbrand.

'Something that was none of his business,' said Hrapp.

'All the same, tell me what it was,' said Gudbrand.

Hrapp spoke: 'If you really must know, I was lying with your daughter, and he didn't like that.'

Gudbrand spoke: 'On your feet, men, and seize him and put him to death!'

'Small benefit I get from being your son-in-law!' said Hrapp.

3. chernobyl kinsman, who suggested learning Old Norse in order to read this, is more optimistic about our chances than I was. Did anyone manage to do some reading from the Old Norse version?

4. About the law stuff: I thought it was interesting how so many of the procedures ended in arbitration, and how obsessed with formalism the saga was as the legal results became less and less satisfying to the concerned parties. Earlier y'all were talking about Hallgerd and Bergthora's proxy war, and I feel that's a direct parallel to all the events leading to the Althing brawl. One curiosity I had, about Hrut and Unn's divorce, was that both of the proceedings related to that ended with a declined challenge to duel. Could the various assault and murder cases have been 'settled' with duels, or was that just a property thing?

Grevling
Dec 18, 2016

The whole text in Old Norse is here (sentence for sentence) with English underneath.
https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index.php?page=record&vid=908&mid=1606760

I can understand some of it having taken a course in Old Norse once. Reading the whole thing in ON seems pretty optimistic to me, but certainly reading a few bits of it could be a fun exercise. Some of it is pretty near English, to take some examples from the beginning:

quote:

Mǫrdr hét mađr, er kallađr var gígja

mađr: the nominative form of "man", it's more recognizable in the accusative case (mann).

kallađr: should be recognizable as "called."

var: past tense of vera ("to be"), related to "were".

quote:

Hann var ríkr hǫfđingi ok málafylgjumađr mikill ok svá mikill lǫgmađr, at engir ţóttu lǫgligir dómar dśmđir, nema hann vćri viđ.


ríkr: related to rich but should be understood as powerful.

svá: means so.

mikill: there is an archaic English word ("mickle") related to this.

lǫgmađr: lǫg (law) + mađr

ţóttu: past tense of ţykkja, mean something like "to consider" but also seem, appear. Related to English "think."

dómar: plural of dómr. Means judgement and funnily enough related to "doom."

vćri: subjunctive past tense of vera and also related to "were."

I started reading this in Norwegian, but haven't had time to read much. I haven't even gotten to Njal and the actual story yet, but I enjoyed reading about Hrut, Unn, Hallgerd, Mord and the rest.

My translation didn't censor the part about the marital problems either. I found an older translation from 1896 where it says in brackets that Unn tells her father "plainly" that Hrut is bewitched.

thatdarnedbob posted:

2. I love the assholery some the characters have. Skarphedin has a great run of just burning every bridge possible when asking for allies, but then burns one bridge so hard that a previous guy comes back and says "That was awesome, I got your back now". (Chapter 120) Hrapp is also great. Context: Hrapp has just been sleeping with Gudbrand's daughter, when Gudbrand's servant (Asvard) caught them. Hrapp kills the dude, finds out the daughter is pregnant, and then strolls into Gudbrand's hall to let him know (which is the polite and honorable thing I suppose).

It was law that if you killed someone you had to report it, otherwise it would be killing in secret and therefore a murder. If I remember it right it would become a murder if afterwards you rode past three farmsteads. Then you would be declared an outlaw who could be killed by anyone. They were all about being able to defend yourself; if you killed someone who would have been able to fight back, it wasn't so bad as if it had been an assassination.

Grevling fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jan 30, 2018

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat
the reason you were allowed to ride past three farmsteads, rather than having to report it at the nearest, is that the nearest might belong to the family of the guy you killed and then his family would merc you

thatdarnedbob
Jan 1, 2006
why must this exist?
Seems like a reasonable consideration. Hrapp's coolness and jerkness just keep going up, in my book.

ovenboy
Nov 16, 2014

Kestral posted:

Wergild or an eye for an eye might satisfy the law, but it doesn't necessarily satisfy those who are left behind. Hallgerd holds grudges really hard.

Yeah, no kidding.

thatdarnedbob posted:

Jumping in at the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT to say I just finished the book and it was tight. I have thoughts:

2. I love the assholery some the characters have. Skarphedin has a great run of just burning every bridge possible when asking for allies, but then burns one bridge so hard that a previous guy comes back and says "That was awesome, I got your back now". (Chapter 120) Hrapp is also great. Context: Hrapp has just been sleeping with Gudbrand's daughter, when Gudbrand's servant (Asvard) caught them. Hrapp kills the dude, finds out the daughter is pregnant, and then strolls into Gudbrand's hall to let him know (which is the polite and honorable thing I suppose).


Same. There was lots of little cool moments or vignettes that'd pop up suddenly. For next month's book I think I need to take some notes while reading, because I kept thinking "this is really cool/bizarre" and then figured I'd remember it for the thread, but I was also reading the book just before bed so... Killer-Hrapp was a favourite though, what a dickhead.

I also liked when the Njalssons went around trying to drum up support, and everyone they petitioned dunked on the pale, unlucky-looking, sharp-featured, troll-like man fifth in line. I generally liked the prescience in the book, and I suppose it is a mix of superstition (you're ugly, that's obviously bad luck from the start), and some of the wiser people just being good at figuring out which way the wind is blowing, and a pinch of regular old magic.

The law was interesting, and how much weight was placed on the letter of the law rather than the spirit. Also: "This is our legal tactics for the lawsuit, and while we're planning, these are our martial tactics for the lawsuit, just in case."

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Next BoTM will be The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. Apologies no thread up yet, I've been swamped.

ovenboy
Nov 16, 2014

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Next BoTM will be The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. Apologies no thread up yet, I've been swamped.

Cool, I think I've got that one lying around somewhere. I appreciate that you take time out of your day to think about and post these threads!

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
My community college will actually have that one, so I can read a physical copy.

I heard every single line of Njal in the voice of jarl Balgruff. I didnt mean to and couldn't stop.

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ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


Meanwhile, I only just got my copy of Njal's Saga, so I'll be starting that today and reporting in long after everyone else has moved on to The Sign of Four. :v:

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