A.S Byatt, Ragnarok

I'm not sure this review of Ragnarok can do it justice, it's simply marvellous book and possibly the best novel I've read so far this year. It's slim, at a skimpy 154 pages, but it's made to be savoured, plenty of times I'd read a sentence, paragraph or even a whole chapter, then immediately turnaround and re-read it.

 I'm disappointed that I only have Ragnarok on loan from the library, as I can easily see myself wanting to go back to this periodically.

It's part of the canongate myth series, which I've only newly discovered.

ISBN: 9781847672971

The Plot: Taken from Nordic mythology, Ragnarok is the tale of the predestined apocalypse, an epic battle cumulating in the destruction of the gods.

Rating:««««« (5/5)

Hel, daughter of Loki

'Her form was uncompromising, straight-spined, with long legs, strong, capable hands firm feet [...] Half of her was black, and half blue. Half of her, those who saw her also reported, was living flesh, and half was dead. Sometimes the line between black an blue split her cleanly [...] but sometimes the black and blue floated on and in each other. They were beautiful, like the last blue of the sky meeting the dark of the coming night. They were hideous, the colour of bruises on battered or moribund flesh'

-A.S Byatt, Ragnarok, The End of the Gods