SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

392 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
the saga, are subjected to a modern mind's understanding of their
psychology. Professor Einar offers reasons for behaviour beyond
those suggested or even implied by the saga-writer. "Perhaps they
(the sons of Njall) are handicapped by lack of experience in human
affairs, since Njall has always led them by the hand and has
made their decisions for them" (p. 149). This implies criticism
of Njall for not encouraging greater independence in his sons, and
criticism of his sons for not asserting it, but we have no evidence
that the saga-writer is thinking in these terms. Similarly the
view of Hallger1'5r as a woman of "sick and disturbed mind"
represents the imposition of a twentieth-century psychological
judgement onto the saga-writer's moral one.
But the danger of interpreting beyond the evidence is inherent
in any character approach to a work, and has rightly been pointed
out in other contexts than this in the years since A NjdlsbUo was
written. Professor Einar's work demonstrates more of the
advantages than the weaknesses of the approach. He is himself
so close to the saga that much of what he says is necessarily
illuminating to a reader who has lived with it neither so long nor so
intimately as he has. I cannot, however, feel that he has been
well served by his translator. Most people who read this book
will be familiar with the names either in their Old Icelandic or their
anglicized form, e.g. Hallger1'5r or Hallgerd. To use the modern
Icelandic form Hallgerour is simply perverse. Much of Dr
Einar's text is written in a vein of sentimental reminiscence which
is not without charm, but the translator overplays the
sentimentality. To render "pannig hafa pessi fjoll verin i ardaga"
as "thus have these mountains stood since the dawn of time" is to
introduce both archaism and jargon into a comparatively simple
sentence.
Yet Dr Schach is to be congratulated on giving us an English
version of this work, which may be considered not only a minor
classic of Icelandic literary criticism, but also a work of scholarship,
readable and lucid. Dr Allen's book "Fire and Iron" lacks
this clarity. What he hopes to achieve can be seen from the subtitle
"Critical Approaches to Njdls saga" and is defined more
specifically in his Introduction: "I have tried to avoid imposing
a single theory of interpretation on Njdls saga, indicating instead
what might be appropriate in a number of theories." He uses his
impressive knowledge of modern critical theory in a series of
chapters attempting to illuminate Njals saga from different angles,
but the result is an uneven work, moving backwards and forwards
between detailed analysis of the saga and wide-ranging generalisations
on such subjects as "foreground-style", "background-style"
and "archetypes". Dr Allen is by no means imperceptive, and