Title: The Mabinogion
Author: Unknown, but translated by Jeffery Gantz
Genre: Fantasy-Fairy Tale
Length: 320 Pages
Weight: 0.6 lbs
Date of Completion: March 15, 2013
Thoughts:
This book was suggested to me by my Amazon book account. Obviously, I buy an absurdly large amount of books online through them, so whatever algorithm system tracks my account knows my taste in books fairly well. The combination of Welsh/British culture that I love so much mingled with fairy tales was a perfect match--Medieval Welsh prose tales that contain a twist of the ancient but a common theme instantly recognizable. Add in a pleasant bit of Arthurian escapades and you have a winner. I really enjoyed this book and it was a fairly quick read (I have to excuse myself on the time it took to read it as I tried to get into a book in the middle of mid-terms right before spring break. Bad idea.) I have so many thoughts about reading this books, but I will try to organize them into some sort of coherent stream.
My first, and overarching thought is that I wish I had read this book in an English Lit class. With few notable exceptions, I have always enjoyed literature classes. Not only because I love to read, but also for the opportunity it gave for in depth discussion and analysis. Those classes helped to build a foundation of thought on which I could pursue literature with a higher degree of skill and comprehension. Thankfully, this book has a long forward to the body of the work that explains much of the historical context and importance of the branches of the work.
There are still so many things that were unclear; why were certain stories included? The context of several plot layouts and much of the symbolism was lost. While the cultural content of most of the stories was understandable in the context of the story line, they were filled with completely foreign concepts. I didn't find a Sparknotes for the book (Yes, I use Sparknotes for books I read for pleasure), so I wish that I had access to more than just an internet search. English professors, especially those who have a specialization in a topic you are particularly interested in, are a veritable wellspring of information.
My next thought sort of stems from the above topic. There were several things that I found strange when reading this. In one of the branches (stories), the brothers-in-law of the antagonist were given his conquering armies to wreck havoc wherever they pleased as a reward for their assistance. When they were finished killing and rampaging, they and their men came home with all of the loot (money and women). To keep the women from contaminating their language with their foreign words and accents, they cut out their tongues. And this was all written with the same jovial tone as the rest of the story. I can understand that the traits of conquering and domination through quests was a large part of proving one's worth as a man, but the tongue thing caught me off guard. It was just thrown in at the end of the story and I had to re-read the passage several times to make sure that I wasn't mistaken in my understanding. Apparently this barbaric act of permanent silence is acceptable, even commonplace in the ancient world. Maybe this is just a Welsh thing.
Speaking of Wales, I am supremely grateful that Mr. Gantz translated the Mabinogi into English. At the beginning of the book, there is a pronunciation chart to help with all of the Welsh names. Now, I have ancestry in Wales and a lot of experience with foreign cultures and languages, but I could not decipher how to say most of the character's names. For the most part, I had to resort to the simple and childish method of simply associating the organization of letters to a person without any effort to make sense of them. This was highly effective, and only became difficult when several characters had similar names, or when a character re-appeared in another story. Even with the pronunciation guide, I'm still hopeless. At the very least though, this was a minor inconvenience; it didn't detract from the stories at all.
Examples:
Pwyll, Prince of Dyved
Manawydan
Penn llwyn on Bwya
Annwvyn
Arllechwedd
In conclusion, I'm a big fan of fairy tales, both original and retold. It is always interesting to see how our modern versions differ from the original forms. I have so many comments about the strange characters and stories, but I think I'll have to end this post with one last thought. This book was a lot of fun, and I think it is extremely unique and undervalued. If you can get your hands on this edition (don't go with Guest's), it is well worth the time to read.
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