Grendel

by John Gardner

Other authorsEmil Antonucci (Illustrator)
Paperback, 1974

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Collection

Publication

Ballantine (1974), Paperback, 152 pages

Description

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

User reviews

LibraryThing member Widsith
This smallish book, published in 1972, is an interesting exercise in examining a well-known story from an unexpected viewpoint – in this case it's Beowulf retold by the monster Grendel. It could have been a bit naff, like one of those awful ‘reinventions’ that certain women novelists seem to
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knock off every couple of months, like Hamlet narrated by Ophelia. And actually I didn't really like it at first, for exactly the reason that it seemed a bit gimmicky. But by the end (and it's not a long book), it becomes clear that this has more substance than that, and the book's stayed on my mind since I finished it a couple of days ago.

It's not a total success by any means. Gardner clearly knows the original poem well, and expects his readers to, but his attempts to adopt an Old-English alliterative stylee are not very convincing. His sense that he is working from an epic poem also tempts him to get a bit overblown at times:

Space hurls outward, falconswift, mounting like an irreversible injustice, a final disease.

Blimey – it's just the sky. But if the language isn't quite there, it does at least have its own sort of momentum, so that by the end it's started to sound more reasonable, and build up some force. More to the point, Gardner's grasp of what Grendel means in the world of Beowulf is excellent. One by one, we see a series of descriptions or explanations of what it means to be a human being, with Grendel always used to provide a logical opposition to every aspect of ‘humanity’. Men seek companionship and sexual partners; Grendel's all alone. Men worship gods and invent abstract moral codes; Grendel, a born nihilist, sees that the world is meaningless.

If that sounds a bit cerebral, it's really not. It's actually quite tragic – Grendel can't help being the way he is. He hates humans primarily because they have hope for the future, whereas he does not. The more he kills them to try and break down their naïveté, the more they continue to put their faith in things like heroic ideals and the power of love – things which, to Grendel, are patently absurd. The fight with Beowulf himself – who is never named in the novel – is a clash of ideas for Grendel. He doesn't want to die exactly; but if a hero defeats him, then maybe it would mean humans have a point, after all, with their talk of heroism and justice? And secretly, wouldn't he love for them to be right and him to be wrong...?

The end, which we all know is coming, proves to be unexpectedly moving, and the last lines of the book linger. I would definitely recommend this one if you can find a copy of it.
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LibraryThing member baswood
Oh this is good fun. John Gardner subverts and reinvents the Beowulf saga. Gardner tells the tale from the monster Grendel's perspective. Mostly it is in the first person, but in typical modernist tradition this can change, for example an extract from a drama will suddenly appear:

I resolved,
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absolutely and finally, to kill myself, for love of the baby Grendel that used to be. But the next instant, for no particular reason, I changed my mind.
Balance is everything, sliding down slime........

Cut B

After the murder of Halga the Good
dear younger brother of bold king Hrothgar
(helm of the Scyldings, sword-hilt handler,
bribe-gold bender.......

Grendel is a nihilist monster, sort of stumbling towards some idea of why he exists, realising that there is no one in the world like him. Gardner does not evoke our sympathies for Grendel, but then the humans in the story hardly fare any better as we see them through Grendel's eyes: their pointless fighting, their pride and their lust for power. All of this means nothing to the monster but his frustration with them leads him to go on his killing spree.

There are many highlights as Gardner continues to play around, having fun with the genres of the modernist novel and the saga.There is Grendel's philosophical discussion with the dragon, where he is in fear of his life because he cannot grasp the dragon's thoughts. The dragon expounds his wisdom ie:

Limited to a finite individual occasion, importance ceases to be important. In some sense or other-we can skip the details-importance is derived from the immanence of infinitude in the finite

Of course Grendel fails to understand and the dragon keeps trying to simplify his ideas until finally he says:

My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it

There are witty asides on religion and the power of the story teller: the person who tells the story shapes the history and Gardner also gets on with the story in hand, telling of the arrival of Beowulf and the fight with Grendel. It is as bloodthirsty and as exciting as the original.

There is much to enjoy here and particularly if you have read the Beowulf saga, this is sure to amuse and delight
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LibraryThing member kant1066
“Grendel” is, of course, John Gardner’s wonderful re-telling of the great Anglo-Saxon (i.e., Old English) poem “Beowulf” (c. 675-1025 CE). It is one of the few truly successful parallel novels – the literary form that reconfigures the action of a story that the audience is already
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presumably familiar with – that I have ever encountered. Gardner was a medievalist by training, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was familiar with the Anglo-Saxon of “Beowulf,” too. The book makes it clear that he has lived inside and with the character of Grendel for a long time, which only results in a richer, fuller reimagining of Grendel’s sense of deep curiosity and existential despair at his own position in the world.

This could have been a simple, straightforward narrative account of the action of “Beowulf” through Grendel’s eyes, but Gardner imbues Grendel with all the philosophical wonder and bewilderment of a human being, which makes him all the more poignant. When Grendel sees the Shaper (a literal translation of “Scop,” the Anglo-Saxon bard who sings in Hrothgar’s mead-hall) sing songs of heroic victory, he becomes incensed at how the Danes contort reality for their own purposes in their songs. “Why do they lie to themselves like this?” he asks. He encounters a brilliant dragon who happens to have a keen grasp of medieval Scholastic philosophy who explains to him that the job of the Shaper is to convince humans that their reality is in fact real. Out of this conversation comes some beautiful revelations about the art of mythopoiesis, the nature of storytelling, and art itself. When Grendel is unable to accept the dragon’s fatalistic view of the universe, he characteristically storms off, angered, confused, and in denial.

Since raw, brute power plays a not insignificant role in the Anglo-Saxon world, it’s no surprise that there is a discussion of political philosophy, too, in which the Hobbesian view eventually wins out. Grendel defends his relentless attacks on the mead-hall by saying that he is the force in their lives which gives them meaning, and therefore it is only his continued carnage against the thegns of Hrothgar’s hall that continues to let the Shaper sing the stories he sings, and therefore allows them to remain human. Regardless of what you think of this rationalization of violence, you have to admit that it has a sheer logical force of its own. To think that those in the mead-hall only feared his strength and size when they should have feared his power of reason makes for a truly formidable monster. Later, there is another conversation on the nature of religion with a priest, which again fills Grendel with a sense of existential dread.

Behind all of these characters rests Grendel’s mother – a minor but wholly compelling figure - holding down the marshy fen as only a protective mother could and whose inability to speak frustrates her son, reminding him of his distance from humanity, yet of the persistence of his reason.

I waited until I read “Beowulf” to read this, and while “Grendel” would be enjoyable for anyone, it will be more wonderful still to someone who has invested themselves in a careful reading of the original poem; it provides a narrative framework which allows the reader to focus less on the action of the story – really not the most important part of Gardner’s version by far – and instead focus on the tender, passionate humanization of Grendel himself.
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LibraryThing member danconsiglio
Amazing when I was fifteen and pissed off at everything that moved! Shitty now that I am twenty-nine and a pleasant human being! Oh, well.
LibraryThing member sturlington
Grendel is a retelling of Beowulf from the monster’s point of view. The monster is an outsider who spies on men from trees and cliffs, able to understand them and even speak a rudimentary form of their language, so he knows he is related to them. But when he tries to join them, he is attacked and
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driven away. He finds the cave of an ancient dragon, and they have a conversation. Because the dragon can see all time at once, rather than linearly, he shows Grendel his bleak fate, as well as mankind’s ultimate end, which he says no one can change or prevent. Caught in an existential malaise following this conversation, Grendel goes on a years-long killing spree and delights in humiliating his victims. Yet he seems almost relieved when an unnamed hero arrives from the sea with the sole aim of hunting Grendel down.

Although short, Grendel was a tough novel to get into. As a solitary character, the story takes place mainly in Grendel’s head, and sometimes his philosophical meanderings are hard to follow. But after Grendel talks to the dragon, I became fascinated. The discussion about time, fate and free will touches on themes I’ve been reading and thinking about a lot lately (such as Slaughterhouse-Five, Watchmen, The Children’s Hospital and even Lost). I could identify with Grendel’s inner turmoil, and I wanted to know how — or if — he would resolve it.

John Gardner is almost a mythical writer for me. I read and loved his dark but funny fairy tales as a children, such as Dragon, Dragon: “Dragon, dragon, how do you do? I’ve come from the king to murder you.” Gardner died young in a motorcycle accident, and now these books are very hard to find. Because of my childhood love for Gardner’s writings, I felt that his most famous novel, Grendel, deserved a very careful read, and I think it paid off.

You will probably most enjoy Grendel if you are already familiar with Beowulf. If you like books that expound on classic works of literature and present a different point of view, or books with challenging philosophical themes, then you shouldn’t overlook this gem.
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LibraryThing member mariacfox
I first read Grendel by John Gardner in my senior year of high school. The novel is written from the perspective of Grendel, the monster from the epic Beowulf who terrorizes the Danes and is eventually defeated by the hero Beowulf. It takes place in the last year of Grendel's war with the Danes,
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but frequent flashbacks provide background on the character and story.

I immediately enjoyed the book for its sarcasm and defeatist humor. Let's just say, Grendel is crazy. He is a nihilist, meaning he believes that everything is meaningless; he frequently states that "I alone exist." This philosophy permeates the novel and Grendel's observations of the world around him. Several characters also help shape Grendel's cyncial attitude, including his grossly lazy and inhuman mother, a wise old dragon, and the Shaper, who influences Grendel's idea of art as illusion.

Gardner's writing in this novel is biting and descriptive. He frequently uses quirky epithets to describe things, such as a description of himself as "a shadow-shooter, earth-rim roamer, walker of the world's weird wall." The black humor of the novel also drives the writing and forces the reader to think like Grendel. Grendel states how he enjoys ripping off men's heads for pure enjoyment. It's a bit disturbing, yet completely entertaining. The pure insanity that is Grendel's final fight with Beowulf brings a new light to this feud and makes you feel sorry for Grendel and his pathetic, evil existence.

I fell in love with this crazy, depressing book the first, second, and third time I read it. There's something about this novel that I think is beautiful, in a creepy sort of way. From Grendel's sheer enjoyment in wreaking havoc and utter disappointment in the world, you get an in-depth look into the mind of the renowned monster.

Lastly, my favorite line (and also the last) of the book: "'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all.'"
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LibraryThing member FicusFan
This book had an interesting idea, but never pulled it off. It ended up being a rather boring slog.

It was the retelling of the Beowulf story from the the POV of the monster Grendel. The writing was spastic at best, there was not enough background depth to flesh out Grendel, or explain his
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observations, and the 'story' was fractured.

Gardner couldn't decide if he was going to focus on the Beowulf story from Gerndel's POV, or if he was going to write about existential angst, about the seductive power of nihilism, or the nature of forcing your life into a meaningful pattern in the face of an indifferent universe. He tried to do all, and it made the book a choppy mess. He also interspersed the story with poetry/songs in homage to the original work (Beowulf). Rather than work all the above into a seamless whole, and make an interesting story, it was served up in individual scoops that had to be powered through.

I wasn't interested in Grendel, the other people in the story, or what happened. When you know how its going to end, you need to focus on the journey, and make it outstanding. The journey here was very average, and the story was so lacking that I could only read a few pages at a time, put the book down, and didn't want to pick it back up.
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LibraryThing member mstrust
The epic story of Beowulf had always been told from the human side, the side of good. This is the story of the monster, Grendel, in his own words. He remembers his first discovery of men, his fear of their numbers and recognition that they could communicate with each other which created a jealousy
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in him, as he could also speak but had only a dull-witted mother for companionship. Grendel relays how the dragon put a charm on him so the humans couldn't kill him, how he spent years watching and listening to the goings-on of the meadhall and especially watching the decline of the king, Hrothgar, with glee. At times Grendel finds a human to admire and minutes later that admiration will drive him to a murderous rage. He is so filled with anguish by the blind musician who sings of the monster cursed by God, recognizing it as himself, that he comes to the meadhall to plead for help, but is attacked by the frightened people. Grendel knows that he will never be accepted, so he spends his years making the humans pay.
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LibraryThing member Nazgullie
I love this book. I don't know if I can put into words just how much I love it. Gardner has done more than just spin a story in this novel. He's taken an ancient myth, and recreated a philosophy within it. The mythic beasts in Grendel, serve as the philosophers of the story. They reveal all the
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ugliness, and hypocrisy that lies within the human world, but also all the beauty. There is a great sadness to this book, and I'm sure that every time I read it, my eyes will be opened to new meanings in the work. This book is absolutely excellent, and flawless.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
I really like how it's not only a double roman a clef, where at first you're like "The Zodiac! And he's having fun with Plato, ha ha!" and then you're like "Oh" and I don't have anything like the philosophy background to tell you much more than that - I like how it's not only that, I was saying,
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but also so chilly and visceral. And emotional. And, like I obvs just finished discussing, intellectual. This book aspires to be the classically perfect human, in other words, even if a lot of it's essentially cosmetic - Gardner picking up and putting down ideas without doing much of substance, but taking you along for a cool existential ride, in the way of the era in which this book was written (1971).

And even if your protagonist and his adversaries are all darkly imperfect. I think Hrothgar almost comes out best, even if he is a viking shithead. But you feel for Unferth and you fear Beowulf, who's like industrial slaughter with the cold eyes of the action hero in a world that's still too full of dread and caprice for him to seem anything other than monstrous - and you recoil from Grendel, and thank God they didn't make him all "gentle hill giant" or whatever, but a sulky skeptic with needle teeth, a singular character. If he'd been born human he wouldn't have been a misanthrope, and if he'd not been strong enough to crack a bear's back with his arms, it wouldn't matter - he'd have died in a ditch and been mounted on a wall. And then that's what happened anyway. It is enough to drive a freaky manwolfbearcat megalothing to philosophy, isn't it?
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LibraryThing member weird_O
In [Beowulf], the mythic epic of battles in ancient Scandinavia, Grendel is a grisly monster that terrorizes the kingdom ruled by Hrothgar. Grendel is without thoughts, character, ethics; just a horrible creature that lives deep underground, venturing out to feed on wildlife, cattle, and humans,
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collecting bodies to drag into any secluded spot, then crunching them up, hair, bones, flesh, and all.

John Gardner, in this novel published in 1971, gives Grendel a life beyond mere animation, as well as a voice. The story, as he tells it, is unlike that of the poem. Men are not very smart and they are not fearless warriors. For his own part, he's bored and puzzled by his own existence.

…"Why are we here?" I used to ask her [his mother]."Why do we stand this putrid, stinking hole?" She trembles at my words. Her fat lips shake. "Don't ask!" he wriggling claws implore. (She never speaks.) "Don't ask!" It must be some terrible secret, I used to think. I'd give her a crafty squint. She'll tell me, in time, I thought. But she told me nothing…

He speaks of his discovery of a sunken door that allows him to escape the den and explore the outside. "I played my way further out…, cautiously darting from tree to tree challenging the terrible forces of night on tiptoe." His first confrontation with men happens when he catches his foot—inextricably—in the crotch of a tree. He survives an assault by a bull, though one leg is gored and ripped. He sleeps. Awaking, he sees and hears men, and realizes he can understand that they are saying. What follows smacks of a Monty Python sketch, in which Grendel is judged to be a fungus growth on the tree that must be chopped away to save the tree. Then he's seen to be a spirit, a hungry one, hungry for...pig! Yes, but also a scary spirit. The men hurl spears and like weapons at him. When his mother appears, coming over the ridge to save her baby, the men run away.

As he continues to grow and mature, Grendel spends most of his time observing the humans, hiding himself in the treetops or outside the huts, peeking through and listening at gaps between logs.

In the beginning there were various groups of them: ragged little bands that roamed the forest on foot or horseback, crafty-witted killers that worked in teams, hunting through the summer, shivering in caves or little huts in the winter, occasionally wandering out into the snow to plow through it slowly, clumsily, after more meat. Ice clung to their eyebrows and beards and eyelashes, and I'd hear them whining and groaning as they walked. When two hunters from different bands came together in the woods, they would fight until the snow was slushy with blood, then crawl back, gasping and crying, to their separate camps to tell wild tales of what happened.

The time comes when Grendel emerges from hiding.

...I come through trees and towns to the lights of Hrothgar's meadhall. I am no stranger here. A respected guest. Eleven years now and going on twelve I have come up this clean-mown central hill, dark shadow out of the woods below, and have knocked politely on the high oak door, bursting its hinges and sending the shock of my greeting inward like a cold blast out of a cave...The thanes in the meadhall blow out the lights and cover the wide stone fireplace with shields. I laugh, crumple over; I can't help myself. In the darkness, I alone see clear as day. While they squeal and screech and bump into each other, I silently sack up my dead and withdraw to the woods. I eat and laugh and eat until I can barely walk, my chest-hair matted with dribbled blood...

Then Beowulf enters the story...
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LibraryThing member gazzy
Grendel, the monster from Beowulf gets to tell its side of the story. No fun, unless one is familiar with source material. I could be wrong, but this might be the first to create the genre of derivative fiction (i.e. "wicked" "wind done gone")
LibraryThing member ksmyth
I liked Grendel, but somewhat less than I thought I would. I enjoy the story of Beowulf, and was attracted by the idea of the story from the monster's perspective. Gardiner's Grendel is interesting and erudite. His interview with the dragon is wonderful. Nevertheless, for a slobbering monster
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unable to make himself understood, he certainly goes on a bit more than I like.

Interesting characters--the Shaper, Unferth, and the rather unflattering view of his mother.
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LibraryThing member 1morechapter
I didn't like this book. AT ALL. I absolutely love Beowulf, and I highly recommend reading or listening to Seamus Heaney's version. Whereas Beowulf could almost be considered a Christian work, Grendel is nihilistic. Enough said.
LibraryThing member danahlongley
Amazing! Experience Beowulf from the point of view of the monster. And such a delectable, thought-provoking villain he is! I hadn't read this in at least 10 years and I had simply forgotten how mind-blowingly entertaining and visual this novel is. Highly recommended.
LibraryThing member kaelirenee
At times, this book is a compelling look at the philosophy of what truly is a monster. I recall learning that Grendel is suppose to symbolize the devil, and this book takes that and considers what could make it so. Of course, you have the idea that the monster isn't really the monster; it's man who
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is so terrible-kind of an inevitable conclusion. There are many passages that seem too overblown, though. However, because of the excellent job Gardner did in paving the way for other well-done reexaminations of classic tales (such as Gregory Maguire's works), I have a great deal of respect for the book.
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LibraryThing member keylawk
Beowulf from the Point of View of the monster, the devourer. Comic, grotesque, sad. Compares the values of beings, and finds the human wanting -- fused with betrayal, unworthy. The truths are darker. John Grigsby makes a point of this in his study of England's Oldest Legend. Grigsby explains how a
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cult migrated to England bringing with it a practice of human sacrifice. The violent suppression of this cult in the fifth century may underlie Beowulf's deeds. The recent Opera gives Grendel the figure of a sympathetic creature in many ways, except for his dining habits.

Gardner (b. 1934) taught medieval literature at University of Southern Illinois.
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LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
I have mixed feelings on this way. I feel that at times it gets lost, and that at times it's longer than necessary, but in the end I also feel like it's an interesting book with a worthwhile look at another side of the story of Beowulf and his Grendel. If you're a fan of Beowulf, read it certainly,
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but don't set expectations beyond what a summary leads you toward. The writing and the imagination and the philosophy are all there loosely, but in the end, I believe it leaves most readers wanting a bit more.
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LibraryThing member NativeRoses
Fabulously intoxicating blend of folklore, myth, philosophy, naturalism, and fantasy.

When Gardner wrote this in the 70s, words had lost credibility. The rhetoric of Hemingway (understatement so the reader will believe you) and Faulkner (frenzied prose so the reader will be swept away) had given way
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to cynicism toward language itself. Borges made jokes of the fact that language, pictures, concepts are not a means of piercing through to reality but are themselves part of what walls us in. (all from Wittgenstein)

Words, like pavements and political systems, are simply stuff, more matter. The can blind. Or so the theory goes. For example, take Barth's Lost in the Funhouse. Or look at Barthelme: the calculated cliche, the intentionally boring phrase, equivalent to "camp" in art. This is similar to Grendel's monstrous sense that in talking to himself he is imprisoning himself (spinning a web of words).

Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member mnobookclub
A retelling of the Old English classic Beowulf from the point of view of the monster.
LibraryThing member paulsikora
Beowulf from the monster's point of view, from within his ugly, warped, discerning skull.
LibraryThing member John5918
I've always enjoyed this dark, classic tale.
LibraryThing member tctruffin
One evil deed missed is a loss for all eternity.
–Grendel

Before Wicked turned Oz on it’s head and explored the life and times of the West’s wickedest witch, there was John Gardner’s Grendel. The 1971 novel by America’s moral fictionist delves into the mind and life of English
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literature’s earliest monster.

It’s not an easy task. Whereas Gregory Maguire was tackling an essentially human character and writing in a time when pop-psychology family dynamics provide all sorts of explanations as to why the Wicked Witch is so wicked, Gardner tackles a creature only presented as a monster, an animal, a force to be defeated. Interestingly, the one human element provided Gardner by Beowulf is one he discards: Grendel’s mother. She becomes a doddering, dementia-ridden, voiceless, creeping thing in the cave that Grendel finally sets “aside–gently, picking her up by the armpits as I would a child” (158). It’s a sad commentary that the recent Beowulf film adaptation did more of interest with Grendel’s mother than Gardner. To be fair, cast as a first-person narrative, Grendel’s story neccessarily ends before Grendel’s mother really becomes a force in the tale. But the jump from demented hair pile to vengeful she-beast seems a bit much to believe in Gardner’s telling.

Nihil ex nihilo, I always say.
–Grendel

If, as Wikipedia asserts, Gardner was weary of contemporary authors indulging in “‘winking, mugging despair’ or trendy nihilism”, what then does he bring to Grendel? Perhaps it’s a non-trendy nihilism. Or, perhaps, Gardner’s portrait of Grendel is his portrait of contemporary writing: there is no real heroism, there is only power; the self is only defined in pushing against the not-me. Throughout the novel, Grendel seems to ask what it is he is here on earth for, but never really engages in any true searching. His early stumbling attempts at interacting with humans are met with hostility, so he quickly abandons that avenue. The rest of his life therefore becomes a wallowing in a naturalistic, materialistic hell. Is it because of his reception? Is it because of a lack of intelligence?

Whether Gardner is shackled by the source material or a lack of imagination, his exploration into what turns the creature against mankind pales in comparison to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Both creatures blame are aware of their evil ways; both creatures blame their evil on the hypocritical failings of humanity; but Shelley is able to scribe that arc with much more precision and pathos. Perhaps Gardner’s choice to write Grendel in first person trapped him in a mind unable to comprehend the metaphysics needed to parse the cruel world in which he’d been set. Or perhaps Grendel is, in the end, nothing more than a physical manifestation of the nihilism described by O’Connor’s Misfit: No pleasure but meanness.
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LibraryThing member Sean191
You've heard the expression "there's two sides to every story?" Well, John Gardner heard it too. He gives us the story of Beowulf from the side of the monster Grendel. Or more precisely, he gives us the story of Grendel with a cameo by Beowulf at the well-known ending of Grendel's story. The book
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is funny, thought-provoking, and probably not for the overly squeamish. Blurbs from Newsweek and New York Times sing its praise, while The Christian Science Monitor compares it to Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies (I can definitely see the latter). A reader might get the sense that Grendel was a bit misunderstood and not really a monster. Of course, that reader would be wrong - he is a monster and a horrible one, but through the tale, the question arises, is he any more horrible a monster than man? And if he's not, does that lessen his monstrous status?
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LibraryThing member jdgarner68
A good piece of work by Gardner. Just to remind you, Grendel is the beastly nemesis in the epic Beowulf. Gardner explores Grendel's side of the story in this witty account of a creature tormented by his own daemons, lurking in the shadows and hatching sinister plots that change the outcome of human
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history. I definitely recommend this book, even if you aren't a Beowulf fan.
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Language

Original publication date

1971

Physical description

152 p.; 6.7 inches

ISBN

034524303X / 9780345243034
Page: 1.5862 seconds