Loki: WICKED, VISCERAL, TRANSGRESSIVE: Norse gods as you've never seen them before

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That reading was for me a fun and enthralling experience, the Norse myths being dismantled and reassembled with a very modern sensibility. Indeed some of the overtly "religiously" aspects are presented in what was for me, as a Christian, a very suggestive way - clearly, for all his confinement, Loki has a good knowledge of the modern work. Take for example Thor's passion, dying nailed to a tree before descending to the Underworld and arising again, bearing the scars of his experience. This was a very horrifying, but also moving, account, as much so for me as any Easter passion. Other elements touch on the modern understanding of gender fluidity, with one of the gods (I won't say who, because spoilers) challenging the rigid, patriarchal regime of Thor and Odin with their developing understanding of their own identity. I will finish this book, purely out of my respect to Loki. But I’m also sorry that another piece of pop culture involving him as a main character is such a crap. As a Norse (Dane) I've been wanting to read more books inspired by/retellings of Norse mythology, but they're not as easy to come by as certain other mythologies *cough* Greek *cough*, so I was excited when I came across this one - and it's also told by one of the best Norse gods, Loki (I'm not biased.. you are)! Give a dog a bad name they say, and never was there any dog with a name worse than mine. I am a bad person, I expect. You will begin with your suspicions about me and I don’t expect to convince you otherwise.“ Are there any other mythological figures that you’d like to explore in fiction? And what are you working on next?

I’m doing a Fane event about the 25th anniversary of Junk and the launch of Three Bullets – details in the panel on the right. Burgess is conscious he is not best placed to write from a trans character’s viewpoint. He gave his text to some trans readers, and yes, he made a few changes. Also, turning the “let’s throw things at Baldr” game into an orgy of transphobic violence is absolutely nutso to me. So too is all the fixation on Baldr’s penis, which really seems to reinforce some super transphobic tropes. Burgess recounts Loki's genius . . . with great gusto, pulling together many tales into one sometimes beautifully lyrical masterwork.' SFX MAGAZINE As someone who has in the past been castigated for corrupting young minds – reviewing Doing It in 2003, Anne Fine called the book “filth” and said the publishers should be “deeply ashamed” – does Burgess think parents today still worry about what their children are reading?The relationships Loki has with his fellow gods and giants is the crux of the story. This is a story about the characters, rather than the plot, and their importance in Loki's life, whether positively or negatively. Especially his relationship with Odin. In recent years, thanks to marvel, Loki has been associated with Odin as his adopted son, and whilst that does make for a compelling dynamic, the relationship between them in the mythology is more like brothers, as shown in this book, being sworn brothers. Have a listen to the opening, when Bea first discovers her powers. http://melvinburgess.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-Lost-Witch-Chapter-1.m4a

My most overwhelming thought while reading this was, ‘this is bizarre!’. I mean myths and gods are always kinda weird but some of this was like what on earth!?? The story of human origins and the reader consequently being referred to as, ‘arse born’, was a particular highlight of weirdness. That slipperiness makes Loki, for all the modern enjoyment of a morally grey character, hard, in the end, to actually like. We can empathise with him, yes, especially when some really awful things happen to him, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say he is morally conflicted - Loki is always guided at the time, when push comes to shove, by what's best for Loki, even if he expresses sadness after. Mistakes were made, he seems to be saying, but it wasn't, really, my choice.Finally, this book is so incredibly nastily misogynistic in its portrayal of women almost exclusively as hysterical sex-crazed harpies. It super grossed me out, as did the completely unnecessary aside about Thor raping Angrboda before murdering her. It’s still a book I can imagine teenagers enjoying, either because of or despite the sex scenes. These include Loki and Baldr becoming lovers, problematic in Burgess’s fundamendalist version of the gods’ kingdom of Asgard, which has outlawed same-sex relationships in a reflection of the 69 countries today that criminalise homosexuality. But Burgess does not stop with a gay love affair: he turns Baldr into “an androgyne deity”, in a first for Asgard. This is no help to the lovers but it does enable Burgess to explore a character who transitions from a man to a woman. There’s a lot of lying bastards about, politically, and Loki seemed a way to explore the nature of lying Pete, Tariq and myself were interviewed by A M Dassu in the Portico Library’s Pathways to Publishing, part of the Manchester City of Literature, Festival of Libraries. You can listen to it here.