Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley
When Tessa Thompson was cast as Valkyrie in Thor Ragnarök , some people got upset because Thompson wasn’t a blond white woman, like how Valkyrie is in the Marvel Comics. You know, because Marvel Comics is so accurate when it becomes to the portrayal of the Norse myths; I mean Loki’s horse child that he got when he was a mare, is in there, right? Hel is his daughter, correct? But the thing is Tessa Thompson was Valkyrie in all the important ways. It is not difficult to imagine Thompson portraying the historical figures that Brown writes about in her book.
Brown’s point of departure is to speculate about the life of a woman who was buried in Birka and for over a century was said to be male.
Nope. She is a she.
Brown’s book is part history, part criticism of the sagas where she looks closely at the role of women. Much of the book is speculation, and to Brown’s credit she is totally up front about this. She also makes a very good case for re-examining burials and the assumptions that many people make about the Vikings.
The book is a strongly needed corrective to such assumptions, though it cannot correct all of them nor should it be excepted to. It can be frustrating because of the subject matter, much of the book is speculation. While the speculation is grounded in fact, you do wonder about some of it. For instance, just because it was okay for a boy to challenge authority doesn’t necessary mean a girl could.
Each chapter starts with part of what might have been the life story of the woman warrior, making this history also partly a work of historical fiction. Paradoxically this is both the book’s strong point and its weakest. If you prefer straight forward history, this will be maddingly. If you want straight historical fiction, you will enjoy it and then get frustrated at the breaks. At times, it does feel like the story is designed to cover all major historical points or aspects that we do know about. This makes it possible, but also makes the reader wonder about likely.
If you have read the Sagas, or Brown’s other books, there isn’t much new here, but it is worth the read for the discussion of the various sagas.
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