Saga: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND [Hardcover]

Jeff Janoda JANODA (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2005

When a nameless Norseman sat down to write the "Saga of the People of Eyri" in the 13th century, the brutal story was already centuries old. Today this ancient tale is masterfully retold in Jeff Janoda’s SAGA: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND, a rich historical novel of the first Icelandic settlements.

SAGA tells the story of the savage rituals of feud and sacrifice brought by the settlers from their Norwegian motherland as well as their new, competing beliefs in a democratic legal assembly and a code of restraint.

When Thorolf the Viking trades away his valuable family lands to spite his son, Arnkel, the ruthless Norse chieftain vows to regain them at all costs. Robbed of his rightful inheritance, Arnkel begins a venomous feud with his neighbors and with rival chieftain Snorri, a lawless dispute destined to end in betrayal and death.

Janoda’s characters are eloquently wrought, their passions and pagan beliefs brought to life in a tale over a thousand years old. His delicate hand renders fantastical elements like spirits and elves as vividly as their human counterparts, illuminating the harshness of life in a society on the brink of modernity, yet isolated in the farthest reaches of the planet.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This detail-rich novel is a retelling of a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga written by an unknown author. The original document arose from the colonization of Iceland by Norwegian settlers, and this particular tale unfolds before the enticed reader's eye as an intriguing concoction of abject realism (the day-to-day livelihood as practiced by the colonizers is explained, and the physical features of the land are beautifully described) and flights of fantasy (elves are coinhabitants of the Iceland presented here). The story line is essentially about land--who owns it, who disputes the ownership of it--in this hardscrabble agrarian society, where inheritance of land means everything, and honor (and necessary revenge against those who would besmirch it) is the essential tenet of life. Tribal organization and clan government are opened to contemporary viewing and appreciation. With the author's ability to pump viability into the characters, the novel does what good historical fiction is supposed to do: put a face on history that is recognizable to us all. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"does what good historical fiction is supposed to do: put a face on history that is recognizable to us all." -- Booklist, May 15, 2005

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 370 pages
• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers; 1 edition (April 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897335325
• ISBN-13: 978-0897335324
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,287,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeff Janoda has been a teacher in Canada for eighteen years, and is the father of two exceptional children, Madeleine and Duncan. He has an enduring and fervent interest in the outdoors, fitness, riding his motorcycle, and practically every aspect of history, from the evolution of man, to the behind-the-door politics of pre-World War One and Two Europe. Writing should be included in his passions, by his own admission. It is far from being a hobby. It is a way of life. He recalls filling in entire notebooks with his stories as a child."In every idle moment of the day, my mind is filled with the cares and intrigues and actions of the characters in my books. They are not fictional to me."

His interests in writing span several genres: science fiction, his first published work in short fiction (nominated for Canadian Aurora awards for one story), historical fantasy, and military fiction.

"Saga", his first novel, came out of his interest in the Norse people. During his research he came upon the Icelandic sagas, and Professor Jesse Byock's profoundly important work, "Viking Age Iceland" (Penguin UK, 2001) where he first read of the struggle between Arnkel and Snorri for the Crowness forest and felt compelled to tell that tale.

Library Journal said that the novel was "A masterful retelling of an Icelandic saga. Janoda's rendering of the physical and intellectual landscape is effortless. Highly recommended."

The Times Literary Supplement said that "Janoda's book is a model of how to turn a saga into a novel."

Tom Shippey, a noted authority on Norse mythology and culture and author of "The Road to Middle Earth", said that "Saga" was "As focused as Jane Austen, as macabre as Steven King. A brilliant blend of scholarship and insight."

His current work, soon to be completed, is about German fighter pilots during World War Two.

Jeff Janoda can be reached through his website at www.jeffjanoda.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, August 28, 2005

By 

Stuart W. Mirsky "swm" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saga: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND (Hardcover)

As a lover of the Icelandic sagas, and fiction that aims to emulate them, I awaited my copy of this novel from amazon.com with a burning impatience. It finally came and I plunged right in. I was not disappointed.

Jeff Janoda has written a fine piece of fiction, moving and powerful and true to the feel and spirit of the old sagas. As a writer of this sort of fiction myself (well, I've written one novel along these lines, anyway), I came to this one with some preconceptions, some personal prejudices. Indeed, I would not have approached the material as Janoda did, preferring to hew a closer line to the original saga voice. But Janoda won me over. While writing with a markedly modern sensibility and retaining the modern novelistic conventions, many of which stray far afield from the old saga techniques, Janoda brilliantly evoked the older saga form from which this novel arises.

Here is the story of two Icelandic chieftains as Arnkel Thorolfsson struggles to increase his influence and standing at the expense of another chieftain, Snorri Thorgrimsson, known as Snorri the Priest in the literature, that sly Icelander who appears in so many of the great sagas (Njal's Saga (Penguin Classics), Laxdaela Saga (Penguin Classics)). This particular tale is from Eyrbyggja Saga (Penguin Classics) and is only one of several interwoven plots found there. But Janoda has teased it out and put flesh on the bare saga bones, creating a rich and compelling modern novel of real human beings contending with one another in a harsh and unforgiving land. In the process he has recreated that world in all the rich detail and grim coloration that is only limned in the traditional sagas.

The beauty of what he's done is seen from the start as we enter the mind and heart of Ulfar Freedman, former slave of a local farmer who ekes out his livelihood on a holding that lies precariously adjacent to Arnkel Thorolfsson's steading and that of Arnkel's father, the brutal and vindictive Thorolf Lamefoot. Arnkel has his chieftainship as the result of a deal in which his father, Thorolf, sold Ulfar his property in order to buy Arnkel his position (chieftainships could be bought and sold in old Iceland). But Arnkel, who is not only proud and fierce but a good deal cleverer than his father, sees that his chieftainship came at a very great cost, the break-up and diminution of Thorolf's land holdings, thus impairing Arnkel's future inheritance. Arnkel is not prepared to pay that price and wants his full inheritance back. In fact, Thorolf, Arnkel's father, actually gained his formerly vast landholdings by killing Arnkel's grandfather in a duel after brutalizing and abandoning Arnkel's mother, the old man's proud and arrogant daughter, Gudrid. Gudrid, for her part, desperately wants her father's lands back in their entirety, too, wishing only ill on Thorolf, her former husband and tormentor, and has raised Arnkel with these things in mind.

And thus the hapless and somewhat timid Ulfar finds himself an unwitting pawn in a struggle that pits Arnkel against his father, and both of them against Ulfar's own former master, Thorbrand and his six sons. Though neighbors of Arnkel godhi, the Thorbrandssons are aligned with the famous Snorri of Helgafell, in hopes of counterbalancing Arnkel's growing strength in the district. Old Thorbrand, Ulfar's former master, also has designs on Ulfar's farm since, under Icelandic law, it reverts to him as the former master, if Ulfar dies without an heir. But Ulfar has found himself a wife and has thus inadvertently set in motion the wheels that will grind him into dust between these harsh men.

The story unfolds with much greater focus and depth than is found in the original sagas and this is part of its genius. Janoda has found what may very well be the true story of human struggle, in its endless complexity, that lay beneath what is merely a brief sub-plot in the original Eyrbyggja Saga. There the story is tersely told. It's not always clear who has done what to whom, or why. But Janoda has fleshed out the events with real people including Auln, Ulfar's betrayed wife and Halla, the arrogant daughter of Arnkel who has inherited the domineering persona of her grandmother Gudrid but who can't help desiring Thorbrand's youngest son, Illugi.

The complex game plays out as these people strive for primacy over one another, destroying lives and hope for those around them in the process. The sagas are wonderful in the richness of the stories they have to tell and it's Janoda's great strength that he has found the rich vein of human greed, folly and striving that is buried deep within the best of them. Here he has dug out the ore and refined it to purest narrative gold. If you like sagas and the novels that derive from them, this is one of the best.

SWM

author of The King of Vinland's Saga

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Storytelling at its best!, June 14, 2005

By 

Anita Gordon (Parker, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saga: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND (Hardcover)

Jeff Janoda proves himself to be a master storyteller as he brings tenth-century Iceland brilliantly to life. SAGA is a powerful and absorbing read, rich and authentic in detail, sharply insightful, and brimming with finely rendered characters whose lives are intricately bound through the ties of loyalty, kinship, duty, and above all, the Law. Janoda deftly handles the complexities and harsh realities of life in the early Free State, peeling away layers of motives and shrewd cunning that drives men's actions -- be it born of wisdom, high ideals, and ethical strength; greed and a lust for power and land that leads to treachery, betrayal, and bloodshed; or a more basic need to appease the gods and dark spirits that haunt the land and even, at times, the restless wanderings of the dead. This is storytelling at its best. In short SAGA is superb!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST Historical Fiction I've Read!, May 29, 2007

By 

Andrew Freborg (Stow, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Saga: A NOVEL OF MEDIEVAL ICELAND (Hardcover)

This is one of those books that you get so into while you're reading that you don't want it to end. Janoda has fleshed out a portion of the Eyrbyggja Saga, giving depth and dimension to the Snorri Gothi, Arnkel Gothi, and Thorbrand factions feuding, scheming, betraying and killing for possession of two farmsteads and a precious birch forest on a peninsula in 10th century western Iceland. The saga has everything a Norse and medieval history buff would want, including some really "creepy" stuff with a vengeful ghost and dark elves who live in the shadows and feed off the evil the Norse perpetrate.

Janoda's prose is fluid and effortless, and he writes as a master storyteller. I HOPE HE WRITES ANOTHER BOOK LIKE THIS ONE ON ANOTHER OF THE SAGAS!

Highest Recommendation