Bragg, Lois. Oedipus Borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga. Madison:  Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004. 302 pages, $45.00, Hardcover 0-8386-4028-1.

Reviewed by Julie Passanante, George Washington University

Lois Bragg's Oedipus Borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga combines excavation, narrative analysis, and criticism to form a "history of social thought" about the aberrant body (p. 9). The tales that follow are incredibly rich, and Bragg's analysis is informed by recent ideas from Disability Studies. Hobbling heroes, blind prophets, and queer monsters wander the mythic landscape, and Bragg demonstrates quite persuasively that within the mythic logic of the stories she surveys, the marked body and the heroic body are often mutually-constitutive, offering a stark contrast to modern ableist narratives that pair disability with victimization or "overcoming." Unfortunately, in spite of Bragg's faith in the "good will" of the reader to wander "scenic routes" and decode "nonlinear argument[s]," organizational problems and a lack of engagement with scholarly literature often obscure her analysis (p. 20).

After providing useful shorthand to those unfamiliar with Disability Studies, Bragg defines the "aberrant body" as an outsider that can appear in texts as disabled, queer, physically marked, or otherwise socially deviant. She then elaborates her major social-constructionist argument: that in selecting "outcasts" to reify social norms, humankind has not always viewed "misfits" as we do now, with "fear, scorn, or impatience," rather some looked upon them "with awe" (p. 11).

Turning first to the more familiar Oedipus the Tyrant of Greek mythology, Bragg identifies two "motif clusters" that she will later track in Icelandic literature. The first is the marked foot and its mythical association with "intergenerational transgression," a grab-bag of deviant behaviors such as infant abandonment, patricide, and incest (p. 18). The second, epitomized by Tiresias, the blind seer, is the pairing of disability and superability as aberrant twin-figures joined within the hero.

The rest of the book focuses on Icelandic texts, mainly Gylfaginning and Egil's Saga, penned by Snorri Sturluson. Oedipus Borealis labors intensely to resurrect these lively tales, which are passionately rendered by Bragg. Bragg works most intensely with Egil Skallagrimsson, the most well-known Icelandic saga hero. Arguing that Egil's "greatness" as a father and poet is demarcated by his menacing, abnormal body, Bragg notes that "Snorri's Egil" appears as "a monster of a man" (p. 137). While Egil's lineage is rife with intergenerational transgressions similar to those found within Oedipus—miscegenation, attempted infanticide, and deviant sexuality—in the end, Egil's "gifts of a long life, warrior prowess and grand accoutrements, and poetic talent" are fulfilled only "in tandem" with his "atavistic ugliness...dishonorable behavior, and a failure to reap benefits from the god-given poetic eloquence" (p. 175). Although constantly juxtaposed with his affable, fair-haired brother, Thórólf, Egil does not become the "quintessential Icelandic founder-hero" by overcoming his aberrant body, as in modern day "supercrip" narratives, but rather his aberrant body becomes a mythical sign of his hero status.

Bragg traces the ubiquitous myth clusters of aberrance, intergenerational transgression, and heroism through myriad dynamic characters within Icelandic literature and concludes her text by returning to issues of disability in modern society. Lamenting that we are "far from the mythic view of lameness as the sign of greatness" that characterized these early Icelandic texts, Bragg hopes that in closing "our evolutionary eye" we might come to "see disability as one more expression of both the diversity and the commonality of humanity" (p. 279).

While the tales are inherently mesmerizing, this reader would have appreciated a sustained engagement with scholarly literature about Disability Studies and Icelandic literature. Although Bragg places her work within an ongoing study of representation of disability in her introduction and conclusion, these sections are largely divorced from the rest of her text, which focuses mainly on compiling a list of marked heroes and establishing a structural pattern of motifs without referring back the pattern's relationship to her initial Disability Studies framework.

Moreover, although her introduction states that she will make "no attempt to survey or review any secondary literature" on the Icelandic texts she studies, it is precisely in the few moments that she does engage secondary criticism that the urgency of her argument becomes most salient (p. 13). For instance, certain critics of Icelandic literature identify the blind warrior, Höd, as "'pathetic'" in his "'fumbling movements'" because "'it is obvious that to be blind in human society is a grave disadvantage,'" but Bragg offers vehemently that "battle blindness" is a positive trait for great warriors like Höd, as good warriors can "transport themselves" during battle to become more efficient killers (p. 116-117). In confronting fundamental misreadings of mythic logic resultant from ableist bias, Bragg importantly highlights inherent ableism within literary criticism of the texts. However, these critiques are hidden within numerous pages of plot summary, as Bragg's literary excavation often dominates, making her analysis difficult to follow. The inclusion of introductions and conclusions to individual chapters to centralize analytical points might prevent them from being lost within these captivating stories.

An interesting read for folklorists, literary critics, and Disability Studies scholars, Bragg's text is a lush compendium of unfamiliar characters that attempts to restore a sense of "mythic wonder" to the present, which is littered with unimaginative modern medical narratives of disability. Moreover, it suggests a fundamental alteration of our concept of masculine heroism and offers a hopeful glimpse at a moment in literary history when aberrance was not seen as hindrance but rather as heroism. Unfortunately these offerings will have difficulty reaching their intended audience, because the work of compiling evidence from primary texts so completely overwhelms any contextual analysis.