Odinn's Child

by Tim Severin

Reviewed by Coral

I am not really sure how to summarize this book, because I don't really think there was an underlying plot that was driving the story. The main character, Thorgils, is the illegitimate son of Leif Erikson, just sort of ends up wandering throughout the Viking world. I think it is only near the halfway point of the book before he ends up with a goal in mind, even though he strays from it more often than not.

At one point in the book he ends up in Vinland, the Viking settlement in Newfoundland. I have actually been there and it was hard to marry the image of what I saw and how it was described in the book.

Because the book is written in a diary format, the flow is kind of all over the place. Sometimes we get detailed retellings of events. Other times we've skipped ahead or it goes off on tangents and then we have to be caught up with a character, or we get an aside that some character has died.

There is always some suspense that is lost with book written in this format. As the narrator character is an old man recounting his life, we know he doesn't die. And, as he is looking back on his life, he can see things more clearly so we get lines about how this moment was important or would change his life and how a character - who is in the enemy's army - would become his closest friend, which I can handle in moderation.

Overall, it was a bland book.

Grade: C