About this title: In Iceland, the age of the Vikings is also known as the Saga Age. A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world's great literary treasures - as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set around the turn of the last millennium, these stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norse men and women who first settled in Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured farther west to Greenland and, ultimately, North America. Sailing as far from the archetypal heroic adventure as the long ships did ...
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Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780141000039ISBN:0141000031
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. VG. Slight edgewear & one small crease on lower front right side. Text excellent: bright & clean with no writing, underlining, names or marks. A very nice book. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 848 p. World of the Sagas. Audience: General/trade. The Icelandic Sagas are one of the great marvels of western literature, a great human achievement. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Penguin, New York
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780141000039ISBN:0141000031
Description: Very Good. Very Gently Used. Excellent gift copy of this book! NO previous owner's inscriptions or markings. ***We love books and we care about your order! Small, locally owned New and Used bookstore: 4094 Hastings, Burnaby, BC, Canada. Please feel free to call for more info about any of our books: 604-293-2665*** read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Date Published: 2001-03-01
ISBN-13:9780141000039ISBN:0141000031
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780141000039. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780141000039ISBN:0141000031
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books, New York
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780141000039ISBN:0141000031
Description: Very Good. 8vo. (lxvi) 782 pp. First Thus. Trade paperback with French flaps. Lightly rubbed on the corners with a single crease on the spine; no interior markings. This collection contains: Egil's Saga translated by Bernard Scudder; The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal translated by Andrew Wawn; The Saga of the People of Laxardal; Bolli Bollason's Tale; The Saga of the Greenlanders; and Eirik the Red's Saga translated by Keneva Kunz; The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey's Godi; and The Tale of Halldor ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780141000039ISBN:0141000031
Description: A unique body of medieval literature, the ten Sagas and seven shorter tales in this volume rank with the world's greatest literary treasures. They include the celebrated "Vinland Sagas", which recount Leif Eriksson's pioneering voyage to the New Worl... read more
Description: Good. 0141000031 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: LANE
Date Published: 1997
Description: Published by LANE in 1997. Hardback with Dust jacket. Condition: Very Good. May show some slight signs of wear. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: LANE
Date Published: 1997
Description: Published by LANE in 1997, hardback with D/J, medium size, very good in very good D/W, covers very good, internally good, boards very good, decorative front cover, without inscription, index. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
"This book is for a select audience. The translations of the sagas are not unreadable, but such things require certain types of readers. I very much liked this."
"I picked up this tome a few years ago and tried to speed through it, like I was reading a history book or a modern, plot-driven page-turner. Bad idea. It was like trying to speedread the Bible, where a verse or two can encapsulate an entire life. In anything, the sagas are even more spare and packed with action than the Bible.
So, this go around, I am taking the sagas on one at a time. I just finished reading The Saga of the People of Vatnsdal, a tale that extends across five generations of a family that settled the Vatnsdal valley in northern Iceland, and I was richly rewarded for my slower pace. These are great stories, peopled by dynamic characters. I love the no-nonsense style. The original tellers of these tales were bards of few words, yet the stories have surprising emotional depth. This saga bridges two ages, the pagan one where the action takes place and the Christian one a couple of hundred years later, when the sagas were first written down, and I like how the magic of the former age is acknowledged in the narrative. It is a little like the magic realism of some Latin American literature, with the added benefit that it feels real rather than merely a literary stunt by the author. I also like the abrupt shifts in plot and the odd dead end. These stories read like what they were, a folk history lovingly passed down from generation to generation, where the tellers were very careful to preserve the lives of their ancestors, even if that meant including the odd aside leading nowhere. I guess it's a little postmodern in that sense, except that the sagas' twists are organic rather than a literary conceit."
"The thick tome contains several sagas of the Icelandic people. I can't stomach the academic introduction offered by the academics who study this stuff, although the included maps of Iceland are great. After the thick introduction, the first saga, Egil's saga, starts near page 100. This was my favorite saga in the book, it documents the Vikings who fell out of favor from the Norwegian king, and so left Norway to settle Iceland. The saga, spanning four generations, is full of testosterone, beautiful woman, treachery and gold, all the necessary components for any good soap opera.
The subsequent sagas overlap and continue from the first, and they document how the settling of Iceland continued until there was no more room. Pay attention, there are more characters in these stories than you can shake a Viking axe at! Luckily, the academics give the tree of geneology showing how the main characters in the sagas are related.
As the reviewers on the back cover of the book state, these sagas are on par with other more well known Europoean literary works. Enjoy!"
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