Reviews

The Mabinogion by Anonymous

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lucy_9876's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I read this as part of a book club and it is something I would never have picked up myself but I thoroughly enjoyed.
The first 4 stories were my favourites with some of the later ones being a little long.

gabrielrobartes's review

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5.0

A vibrant, highly readable translation. Recommended and a good upgrade to my ageing Penguin Classics version.

tamlin_draper's review

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adventurous challenging informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

rissasreading's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

2.7 - I'm always hoping and expecting really old myths/lore to be this crazy insane thing with monsters or something really crazy but it's always just knights and marriages lol. This book definitely felt like reading a Tolkien novel however, as this had many elements of the fantasy genre we know today. It definitely felt like something I could've seen Tolkien read. I found this rather slow and dull for my taste but it's fascinating to have the ability to read tales this old nonetheless and I appreciate it for that.

rosekk's review against another edition

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3.0

The stories were interesting in terms of studying folklore, but they weren't particularly entertaining to read. Seeing ideas that are now staples of modern fantasy in the forms that may have inspired them was probably me favourite part - I enjoyed spotting magical items & similar tropes and trying to remember which modern stories I first saw them in.

Also I find Welsh names so hard to get my head around. No matter how many times I re-read the rules on how 'ff's and 'w's and 'll's are meant to be pronounced in Welsh names, I can never make a say-able word out of the letters collected on the page. My partners part Welsh, I have been to Wales plenty of times (in fact I bought this book in Wales), I have heard the Welsh language spoken, I've even watched videos, but the language remains impenetrable to me. So my experience of reading this was somewhat disturbed by trying and failing to make sense of the character names, and ending up with a kind of mental scribble in my mind whenever I came across one.

Also (again), I refuse to believe that any story-teller ever would have opted to have the great long list (2+ pages) of names which appeared in one of the stories towards the end of the collection. If the oral story tellers did that, they did it as a game to prove how great their memories were. Either than, or whoever wrote the story down was having their leg pulled.