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Grendel
by: John Gardner

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679723110
ISBN: 0679723110
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: May 14, 1989
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: May 14, 1989
Sales Rank: 5508
Studio: Vintage

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic BEOWULF, tells his side of the story.

Amazon.com Review:
Grendel is a beautiful and heartbreaking modern retelling of the Beowulf epic from the point of view of the monster, Grendel, the villain of the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon epic. This book benefits from both of Gardner's careers: in addition to his work as a novelist, Gardner was a noted professor of medieval literature and a scholar of ancient languages.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Distrubed....
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 ... Read More

Rating:

- Disappointing
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.

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Rating:

- If you are a high school senior...
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.

Rating:

- Terrible Book
I thought this book would be kinda cool to read since I'm a big fan of Beowulf and have read it several times. Man was I wrong. The writing is terrible. Grendel isn't a monster, he's a cry baby. A story from the "other perspective" has so much potential, but this author didn't use any of it. After reading this book, I wondered if John Gardner read Beowulf at all.

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