Bifrost Toll Up Ahead: $.75

"The third gift - an enormous hammer" (1902) by Elmer Boyd Smith

I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t spent seventy five cents to find out how Loki was responsible for the creation of Thor’s hammer? I was ten years old, looking through books at the Kenwood Elementary Library Book Fair. My mother had given me change from what money she had. The library was empty except for some of the staff. I looked through the books by myself, trying to decide to which one I would surrender my money to. I found “Thunder of the Gods.” It was a kid’s book collecting stories of the Norse Gods, taken from the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. The book is not on my shelves today. I read through it frequently, leaving it behind in my 7^th grade science class two years later. A copy of the Prose Edda stands as substitute on my shelves. Those seventy five cents started me on a road of awe and pleasure with language and stories that has taken me to an obsession with William Shakespeare starting when I was seventeen, to Patrick O’Brian, Mark Twain, Cormac McCarthy, Phillip Pullman, Ray Bradbury, to Neil Gaiman. It only takes the right first taste to get things going.

DANDELION WINE by Ray Bradbury

I always tell people that this book has a Time Machine, a Happiness Machine, and witches, but there isn’t a single bit of science fiction or fantasy in it. Yet the book abounds with wonder in the perception of its main character, Douglas Spaulding, and his younger brother, Tom, as they chronicle the first time they do anything and what they learn and discover about the world around them during the summer of 1928.

“So, with the subtlest of incidents, he knew that this day would be different. It would be different also, because, as his father explained, driving Douglas and his ten-year-old brother Tom out of town toward the country, there were some days compounded completely of odor, nothing but the world blowing in one nostril and out the other. And some days, he went on, were days of hearing every trump and trill of the universe.”

The book is a semi-autobiographical work for Ray Bradbury, as Green Town and its inhabitants are all based on his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois. Bradbury channels as many sensations and memories from his childhood as he can remember, reliving and relishing them through Douglas. There is a scene early on where Douglas is in awe of simply becoming aware that he’s truly alive. The wonderful thing about Bradbury, if you’re in the young adult audience, is that he writes books that are also accessible to older readers. This makes the transition from reading young adult novels to adult novels easier for children as they grow older. The same can be said for Neil Gaiman, as the author’s work includes “Coraline” and “The Graveyard Book” for younger readers, along with adult fare such as “American Gods.”

WILLY AND HIS VERSES

I’ve read about twenty-eight of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as all of the narrative poems and the sonnets. If I had to recommend one of his works as an introduction for a first time reader, it would have to be his cycle of sonnets. I recommend purchasing an annotated edition of anything by Shakespeare, and The Arden Shakespeare series delivers a thorough edition.

You will, perhaps, find Shakespeare’s most personal work in the sonnets. These were not written for any pay, as were his plays. They were void of censorship, unlike his plays. While many are familiar with lines from Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” I’ve found the majority of people are not aware that many of the sonnets are addressed to a man. The speaker in the sonnets starts the cycle by trying to convince a beautiful young man to marry and have children, thereby granting immortality to the young man’s beauty through his offspring. The sonnets leading up to 18 express the speaker’s frustration at the young man’s reluctance to wed, eventually resigning himself to immortalizing the youth’s features through the sonnets. What follows is a chronicle of their relationship, as well as an affair the speaker has with a “dark woman” that virtually disgusts him.

LOKI AND THE BALD WOMAN

If you only read one book from all of the ones I mention here, let it be Michael Chabon’s “Maps & Legends.” It is a collection of essays that not only delve into some of Chabon’s favorite writers and their works,  as well as what drove him to write some of his books, it is ultimately an ode and defense to simply enjoying yourself and what you read. Regardless of what it may be, as Chabon mentions writers from Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy to Sherlock Holmes, and even an essay included in the paperback edition that explores the ideas of storytelling in superhero costumes designs. It is an attempt by Chabon to liberate the reader of prejudices that might hinder them from picking up a book they could enjoy, merely because it is not published in a genre that is considered literary.

As for Loki and Thor’s hammer, Mjollnir? The story involves a beautiful yet bald woman, and the rest you can find out in the Prose Edda. Let me know if you find it for $.75.

Here’s a link to Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day.”