Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Ragnarok

  • The End of the Gods
  • By: A. S. Byatt
  • Narrated by: Harriet Walter
  • Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (51 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Ragnarok cover art

Ragnarok

By: A. S. Byatt
Narrated by: Harriet Walter
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £11.99

Buy Now for £11.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Loki Ragnarok cover art
Staying On cover art
Ratking cover art
Requiem's Song cover art
The Dragon and the Unicorn cover art
The Monstrous Child cover art
An Imaginary Life cover art
Anne of Green Gables cover art
Beowulf: The New Translation cover art
Tales from the Greek Legends cover art
Grendel cover art
She Who Remembers cover art
Taliesin cover art
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths cover art
Norse Myths: 34 Stories from the Famous Collection cover art
Tales from the Norse Legends cover art

Summary

Ragnarok is narrated by Harriet Walter and retells the finale of Norse mythology. A story of the destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves: what more relevant myth could any modern writer choose? Just as Wagner used this dramatic and catastrophic struggle for the climax of his Ring Cycle, so A.S. Byatt now reinvents it in all its intensity and glory.

Ragnarok is the story of the end of the world. It is a tale of destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves. What more relevant myth could any modern writer find? As the bombs rain down in the Second World War, one young girl is evacuated to the English countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new wartime life. Then she is given a copy of Asgard and the Gods - a book of ancient Norse myths - and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that A.S. Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Just as Wagner borrowed from this dramatic Norse saga for the climax of the Ring Cycle, so Byatt reinvents it for our time in all its intensity and glory.

Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark piece of storytelling from one of the world's truly great writers. Harriet Walter narrates with much feeling and integrity.

©2011 A.S. Byatt (P)2011 Canongate Books

What listeners say about Ragnarok

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    28
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    21
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • M
  • 26-12-12

Wonderful.

I’ve always found it difficult to read the myths: whether the Greek, Roman, Nordik - whatever - there’s something about them that makes them incomprehensible to me; I quickly get lost amongst all the names and creatures and feuds, and I always thought that it was because I didn’t have the background knowledge, or the ‘classics’ education, to be able to follow the stories. And that's just how it was feeling, once again, as I was listening to this ... I love the stories, and the sheer imaginative strangeness of the tales, but couldn’t help feeling I was missing more than I was picking up, and if the book wasn’t so short I probably wouldn’t have made it to the end - and that wonderful last chapter. In it, A.S. Byatt explains her own difficulty with the myths - even after a lifetime of reading, studying and retelling them - and she gives a beautiful account of how they've shaped her view of humanity, and her work too, and in so doing she made the whole tale of Ragnarok make (some sort of) sense to me ... Wonderful stuff. I'll definitely be listening to this again in the future. (It helped that the narrator was brilliant: perfect tone for this tale.) So, overall a very satisfying and enjoyable experience, and a thoroughly recommended part of the Cannongate Myth series - though I would say to listen to the last chapter first!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Listen to this story

Would you listen to Ragnarok again? Why?

I had kept this in my wish list until I had a cash credit and wish I had bought is months ago. It is definitely worth a credit. The story is, as it says in the review, based around Norse mythology from the perspective of a modern - 2nd world war -perspective. It is so much more. It contemplates 'the big questions' of creation and destruction using beautiful language and vivid imagery. the story is told from the view point of a child growing and developing in wartime. Her views and understanding shift and evolve as she assimilates classical mythology into her present reality.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Ragnarok?

There are a dozen or more lovely moments. The imagery is perfect; poetic thought inspiring but not to flowery. That said the use of common names for the 'flora and fauna' in the descriptions were very good. The seasons for flowers were correct - I'm a Botanist and it jars me, out of the story, when this sort of detail is wrong. I know nothing of Norse mythology this story made me curious.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

Personally I enjoyed the descriptions of the girl's walk to school. It brought back memories from my own -although different -childhood and captures the joy of playing outside, discovering and being a part of nature.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The story made me reflect and day dream. In fact I fell asleep listening to it, not at all because I was bored. I was so relaxed imagining the pictures painted by the words and excellent narration that I drifted away, odd really as some of the descriptions are quite gruesome. Definitely worth a listen.

Any additional comments?

The only bit I didn't like was the end, sorry. No need for the thoughts on myths bit.Metaphor is a better medium.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Deserves a second listen

Listening to the authors postscript made everything click into place and was very thought provoking. The story itself was reminiscent of my school days, listening to the teacher read a story to the class. As a whole the book is very cleverly written and once fully explained perhaps deserves another listening.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Hit and myth

Wartime Britain provides the starting-point for Byatt's retelling of the Norse tales of gods and the end of things. A mother and daugher flee the London blitz. The girl, referred to as 'the thin child in wartime', has as her only source of solace an academic account of the Norse myths written by a German professor (I'm sure this happened all the time). As the girl reads the book, we are drawn into the timeless tales of Odin, Thor and Loki; of Fenris wolf and Yggdrasil. Byatt is at her best when retelling the myths themselves, weilding her purple pen to produce abundant aliteration and countless catalogues. The weakest part of the book is the framing story, with the precocious 'thin child' coming across as a bit of a ghoul – virtually longing for the death of her soldier father. As a retelling of the Norse myths by a contemporary author, Ragnarok is thin gruel beside Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. Harriet Walter's narration is appropriately winsome.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!