Bibliomusings: The Thrall's Tale--Judith Lindbergh

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Thrall's Tale--Judith Lindbergh

Genre: Historical fiction
Year Published: 2006
Pages: 464
Rating: 3/5

This book wasn't bad, considering it was a random selection from a bargain bin in a bookstore. By the end I was ready for it to finish, but the story was interesting enough. It focuses on three women--Thorbjorg, a seeress devoted to the Nordic gods; Katla, a "thrall" or slave from Ireland whose mother taught her Christianity before she died; and Bibrau, an evil, demon-like child spawned of Katla's rape by her owner's brutish son. The three reside in the first Norse settlement in Greenland, sometime around 1000 AD.

I like historical fiction, especially that which focuses upon pre-Christian and early Christian religion. This book was interesting in that aspect. I was also interested in how Erik the Red led his people to Greenland. However, the characters were hard to like. Even Katla, who was delightful in the beginning, becomes (understandably) morose and unlikeable after enduring a horrific rape and beating which scars her physically and mentally. The child is almost imp-like, and has little mischevious fairy friends that provide entertainment, but her viciousness becomes hard to stomach by the end of the book.

While it wasn't a horrible read, I wouldn't read it again.

Challenge/s: None
Book a Week # 17

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Great Quotes

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (Atticus, To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee)

"But maybe the last part of the symphony was the music she loved the best--glad and like the greatest people in the world running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)

"Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." (The Road; Cormac McCarthy)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Douglas Adams)

"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity."

And he continued his confidences: "The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..." (The Little Prince; Anton de Saint-Exupery)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. (Betting on the Muse; Charles Bukowski)

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. (Tom Robbins)

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. (The Prophet; Kahlil Gibran)

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. (C.S. Lewis)

"For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who--one word--love." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)