Grendel

Grendel
John Gardner
5-stars

I'm amused by the angst of Gardner's critics. Many of them seem as misanthropic as Gardner's Grendel, and though many of the critics are respected colleagues, I find their review of Gardner's masterpiece to be skewed by their own prejudices, political leanings, or disbelief that any one would ever poke fun at a classical piece of literature. (Oh,what shameful disregard!)
Some have claimed that Grendel whines like a modern teenager. How do we know that wasn't Gardner's intent? As the artist, isn't it his prerogative to create his fictional landscape? And yes, the Dragon comes across like Timothy Leary on LSD but of course, that may exactly be the way Gardner wanted it to appear. One critique repines that Grendel's mother plays such a minor role in Grendel, and that unlike her revengeful and powerful character in Beowulf, she is reduced to a sleepy, unfit, and uncaring mother. So what! If Gardner portrayed her as a soccer mom whistling around Hrothgar's castle in a mini-van would that make you feel any better? Get over it! If he wanted, Gardner could have depicted Grendel's mother as a Dominatrix, outfitted in five inch stilettos and a Madonna cone bra, whipping the Danes senselessly, but appreciatively, in the dark dank corners of her cave.
What's important is this: Gardner is able to take a fairly dull minor literary character, breathe life into it, and make the character witty, funny, irreverent, and continually entertaining. The prose is clear and fluid like fountain water, and unlike the epic poem, the scenes flow quickly from paragraph to paragraph. For all its satire and macabre humor, the book is a quick and enjoyable read.
And yes, Grendel is a descendant of Cain, and the enemy of Christianity, but who amongst us hasn't seen an Unferth revealed in a Christian congregation? Like a lucid dissenting opinion, whereby the truth of an argument is clearly divulged, the hypocrisy of the Danes is exposed through the thoughts and utterances of Grendel, a creature supposedly incapable of even having a brain cell. His killing is cruel but how different are his murders from those of Hrothgar, his men, and the men of their enemies? Seems to me all the men did at the mead hall was eat, drink, and spray platitudes all through the air while plotting the destruction of those they feared and hated.
In Grendel's case, at least he thinks about what he does and questions it, mourns it, tries to seek a higher form of intelligence so he can understand it. The dim-witted men marching around the Hrothgar's castle do nothing of the sort. Regimented by the mores of their culture, they simply follow their senseless leader until a day comes forth where they all must bathe in their own blood.
As an aside, you would have thought, by the amount of leftists in this forum, that more than a handful or so of the reviewers would have drawn parallels to the Bush Administration. Certainly no liberal, even I can see Donald Rumsfeld cast as Hrothgar.
With regard to Gardner, there's no doubt he earned this masterpiece. This literary gem sits high on the bookrack at my home.

I was so excited when I saw this book at the library. I thought the concept of the story seen from Grendel's eyes was a fascinating one. But, I was unable to get into the story after 2 chapters. I'm not sure why, but the author was unable to connect with me and make me care about this Grendel...well, how do you care for a troll you might ask...well, I didn't even dislike him enough to keep going...does that make it clearer? Again, not sure why it didn't grab me. I wish it had.

I'm disturbed by the amount of people bashing _Grendel_. It's simply an amazing novel. Perhaps those offering sour reviews simply misunderstand the novel--Gardner, from my reading, isn't really attempting a retelling of the _Beowulf_ story. Instead, he's attempting to cast a philosophical statement *against* a philosophical school of thought that was, and still is, gaining ground when Gardner wrote _Grendel_: existentialism and nihilism, which is embraced by the dragon. Gardner just uses the Beowulf story to frame this social commentary. Consider Gardner's philosophical statement: in a time in history when so many were and are embracing the pointlessness of life, Gardner tells us that there is meaning and real in the world around us. Beowulf smashes Grendel into the wall when they finally meet and forces him to sing walls to prove to Grendel that there is meaning and that reality does exist. And what does Grendel do? He sings walls and sees a different kind of dragon. Grendel, throughout that whole novel, searches for something real, something that carries meaning, and Beowulf becomes that. People read this novel and think it's depressing--it's not. In the end there's hope. Yeah, we know Beowulf is going to die, but before he does, he's going to accomplish great things, and there will be other great rulers after him.

If you're looking for an action story, stick with _Beowulf_. But if you're looking for a philosophical novel to controvert the overwhelming onslaught of postmodernism and beliefs that we're in the world all by ourselves and should find gold and "sit on it" as the dragon tells Grendel, _Grendel_ is one of the finest craftings written to date.

Perhaps those who would denigrate _Grendel_ simply do not understand its intent; it's intent isn't to entertain you; it's intent is to teach you and force you to question. And on those grounds, it's really hard to argue that it's not a fantastic book.

As a fan of the epic _Beowulf_, Gardner's _Grendel_ was recommended to me by a colleague. The genre - re-writing a well-known story from the persepctive of another character is not new (see _Wicked_, for example), so I had a good idea of what I was getting into. Nonetheless, I was disappointed.

That Grendel is not the nasty brute portrayed in the epic poem was expected. The writing, however, was difficult for me get into. At times Gardner wrote in a first-person narrative, but inexplicably he would later change to a third person ("Time-Space cross section: Wealtheow. Cut A: It was the second year ...") It felt totally out of place and character for the story as it was being told. Gardner was also terribly repetitive. I get that he was, to some extent, imitating the style and form of the original - but he did so without the panache of the original, instead merely sounding ridiculous.

The action and interaction between Grendel and the thanes was laborious and frankly uninteresting; again, the original epic was able to keep and maintain my attention - Gardner, much less so. To his credit, Garnder paints a sympathetic Grendel and one in which readers get a clearer understanding of his actions and behaviours. Still, it is not a book I would recommend.

If you are like myself a high school senior reading this book for English class, GOOD LUCK! It is by far the least interesting novel I have ever read. Skip it and just look up the sparknotes.