Beowulf & Grendel

[keilexandra]

Both of these were read for English class. Just some notes and thoughts.


Beowulf: A New Verse Translation
by Seamus Heaney (trans.)
213 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Poetry/Literary/Historical

I really like Heaney's translation, though Kennedy's strict adherence to the poetic structure is attractive. Here though, Heaney's voice shines through as he becomes the unnamed poet and writer of Beowulf.  (It was amusing when we did the scansion exercise and people were tapping or clapping out the rhythm and still getting it wrong.) I'm rarely in a poetry-reading mood, and it was a pain to read this as assigned for class when I yearned for some decent action prose, but that reflects not at all on the actual merits. The version I read had side-by-side Old English and modern translation, which was nice for linguistic curiosity.

For the record, I still think that Grendel was a real monster, not a metaphorical fear; he was probably a human outcast from the community, and exaggerated in the tale. Which brings me to...


Grendel
by John Gardner
174 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Historical/Post-Modern

In this novel, the idea of the Shaper really resonated with me. The Shaper makes Grendel more monstrous and the Danes more heroic; yet, he is the sole recorder of their society's history, as keeper of their oral tradition. His words change the meaning of the world for Grendel. And personally, I believe that words create (not only express, but create) meaning. The nihilism lesson was also mildly interesting, if sometimes only skim-worthy. It's a short novel and plays with intriguing ideas of structure and metastructure.

Comments

[ryuutsurugi.livejournal.com]

Grendel is just an incredibly emo monster with mommy issues.

My apologies. I just found it to be a frustrated read because while Gardner attempts to give Grendel an almost childlike view of humans, he instead creates a monster that the reader really can't relate to. It may have been to further Grendel's existential thought process, but I just found empty emotions and *wanted* him to die already.

Did your teacher talk at all about astrological signs in accordance to this book?

[keilexandra]

Yep, we had to copy down the reference sentence in each chapter.

Your reaction is interesting. I found Grendel sympathetic and his skewed perception intriguing--he's an unreliable narrator with obvious biases. I don't think I could read a longer novel in that style, but the length was about right for me.

[remarknj.livejournal.com]

You're a more mature sophomore than I was. I did not understand Grendel, not any of it. But now I'm strangely fascinated with nihilism, so I think I'll need to reread and mark it up.