Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #200850 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
First published in 1973 by the Hogarth Press, "Magnus" is George Mackay Brown's tour de force - his most poetic and innovative book. He links the twelfth-century story of the saintly Earl Magnus of Orkney's brutal murder at the hands of his cousin Hakon Paulson, to that of the philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis during World War II. A unique exploration of the eternal questions of guilt, goodness and personal sacrifice.

Customer Reviews

Medieval politics for today
Magnus is a powerful story of sacrifice. Brown uses several poetic devices to tell the tell. They include using language reminiscent of Norse sagas and placing his characters in a Nazi prison, where Magnus becomes Bonhoeffer. I'm not certain it all works, but Brown's poetic sensibility and eloquence make the novel compelling.

magnus martyr and a modern parallel memorably linked
In this novel, George Mackay Brown links the mediaeval story of St. Magnus, martyred on the Island of Egilsay in the Orkneys in a power struggle, and that of the philospher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. The story of Magnus is a most compelling one , and it is told here by a man with a poet's way with words ; the scent of the spray, the rich brown of the tilled fields, the distant songs of the monks and the social divide between the people and the Earls of Orkney in the time of Norse rule are all vividly present. Magnus expected to die and went to his death with a sense that it was necessary, head held high. The martyrdom of Bonhoeffer was a more squalid, hole-in-the-corner affair, but essentially its message was the same : that evil can destroy the embodiment of good physically but not the nature of good or our response to the courage and example of the martyr. Mackay Brown's story is only one of countless martyrdom stories, but it has a freshness and poignancy all its own.

Magnus
I wanted to find out about St Magnus, however, Mackay Brown weaves a tapestry out of words. Totally absorbing.