Charles Dee Mitchell's Reviews > The Saga of the Volsungs

This first foray into the Icelandic Sagas was not a great success. I know it was a very different time and a different culture, but I couldn’t care about these people. The men’s notions of bravery and honor made them come off as thugs. “They now traveled wide through the land, performing many splendid deed and killing many kings’ sons.” It is also open season on brothers. The women have a predilection for murdering their own children.

All these things happen in Greek myth as well, so it may be a matter of style. This prose narrative moves quickly but remains flat rather than at all lively. I might have found it often incomprehensible because it wasn’t holding my attention.