Ragnarok: The End of the Gods

Author's Name: Antonia Susan Byatt

Ragnarok retells the famous Norse myth of the destruction of life in Asgard and the end of the gods themselves. Antonia Susan Byatt rewrites this dramatic, catastrophic conflict in all its intensity and glory. A young girl is exiled to the countryside as a sudden bomb attack rains down on Britain. She struggles to make sense of her new life in wartime. She receives a copy of the ancient Norse myth book, Asgard and the Gods, and both her inner and outer worlds are transformed. In the final chapters of the novel, the author depicts the events of the Battle of Ragnarok, with its bloody scenes and the accompanying changes in all environmental phenomena. In it, the gods lose the battle, making Ragnarok the myth that represents the end of all myths. It is the myth in which all the gods perish, and the world ends in a flat plain of black water, a sign of purification and rebirth.