‘Ragnarok’ by A.S. Byatt
Ragnarok is a curious book. It is also a brilliant book, though I can imagine it will leave many readers cold. It is A.S. Byatt’s interpretation of the identically-named Norse myth Ragnarok, the end of days.
It is curious mainly because there are no characters, not really – certainly not as readers expect characters to be represented. The characters do not build, and though there are progressions – character arcs – of a sort, they are born from the inevitable foreshadowing of the end of all things, the mythological saga, rather than from the characters themselves. There is no obvious motivation for action. There are maybe three lines of direct speech throughout the novel. And this is precisely the point.
The story remains myth in the truest sense. The language remains abstract, the characters vague and fluid. There is not so much plot as there is story: the end is known, what goes before is fatalistic and inevitable. But despite this, there is a vitality in the words, a life to the language. In approaching her re-telling, Byatt adds a vibrant ecology to the world populated by these fallible gods. Using biological descriptions, she frequently creates lists of creatures, of habitat, building a sense of how nature is bountiful and varied. These patterns repeat throughout the novel, and the lists start to build an ecosystem in the words themselves, tying one to another through the logic of motif. The repetition draws a powerful bond between these ecosystems, underlining the fragility of our own planet, of the dependencies in all life. This creates an unease about the real-world ecological disasters around us: oil spills, global warming, over-fishing. The teeming wildlife described around Yggdrasil will fill you with wonder, and its decline is quick and devastating. You will likely feel despondent when Jörmungandr savages the habitat around Rásandrill. This is not accident, nor is it direct analogy. It is the patterned, meticulous language itself that will cause you to think back, that make the myth work.
There is an afterword in which Byatt muses on the difference between myth and fairy tale. In the end, while interesting and rigorous, this afterword feels superfluous: all of Byatt’s points are contained within the words of the novel beforehand. There is no need to spell it out.
Ragnarok is a virtuoso success. Refracted through modern sensibility, the language is intellectually satisfying, the mythology itself profound and unsettling. It resonates on a deep, dark level, and will stay with you long after the final page is turned. It offers no easy answers, asks no questions of the human condition. It is tied up with portent, a book that speaks of this particular moment in time, of our own end of days.
And that, surely, is the purpose of a myth.
