The Gods of Pegāna
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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Publisher Description
The Gods of Pegāna, Lord Dunsany’s first published book, is a strange and wondrous creation. In it he creates the pantheon of gods who rule over the titular world. The prose alternates between being biblical, high-minded, and childish, with the gods frustrating their human subjects through their single-minded and often completely inscrutable actions. When they’re not busy being mysterious, they’re busy taking revenge on each other.
It’s possible these short tales were written to convey lessons about life, death, and the nature of belief, though the rhythmic simplicity of the prose and the strange and often petty nature of the gods leaves that up to debate. Regardless, The Gods of Pegāna is a fascinating and influential read.
Customer Reviews
A Foundational Work Of The Fantasy Genre
This, along with its companion book Time And The Gods, is one of the foundational works of fantasy. Lord Dunsany was the ‘Tolkien before Tolkien’, creating entire worlds and mythology’s a decade before Tolkien and showing him the possibilities of the invented world. The two Pegana books are full of wonder, mystery and awesome powers. The first book focuses on the gods and the creation of the world, the second on the humans of Pegana, a formula later used for The Silmarillion.
As this is Dunsany’s first work, the language is more archaic, but the wry (and surprisingly modern) sense of humor offsets that nicely. If you want to know where fantasy truly began, look no further than this book and its companion. This is the first true Secondary World, it showed the way for Tolkien who took the concept even further and made ‘world building’ what it is today. If you’re the type of person to look for the origins of the things you love, can enjoy older works and sometimes archaic language, then you’ll enjoy this.