Grendel

Beowulf is a famous anglo-saxon poem from around the 9th century about a warrior (Beowulf) who slays three monsters - Grendel, Grendel's Mother, and a Dragon. This book by John Gardner is a retelling of the first part of the story from Grendel's point of view.

It's said that you need to have read Beowulf, or be familiar with it, to be able to follow this book. The writer certainly intends this, but I think only a passing familiarity is really neccessary. The above paragraph of this very review would probably be all the prior information you would need, I never really knew all that much about the poem/myth before reading this book - and I don't think it hindered my enjoyment in any way whatsoever!

Now... let me just say this: Grendel is one of my most favourite novels ever.

It's a fairly slight book, almost a novella, but it's by no means a simple work. It's a very dense and complex book that uses the basics of a medieval myth to deconstruct humanity and some of the philosophies that power the very essence of our civilisation.

Grendel is a brutish and crude figure... he is cruel and ugly and every bit the monster he is portrayed to be in other versions of the tale Beowulf. Gardner has gone to great lengths to keep his protagonist monstrous in both appearance and personality. Grendel by no means stupid though, he is confused by his own existence and angered by the differences between himself and everyone around him. His own mother is a depraved and loathsome creature that he is unable to communicate with, the local Dragon is all-knowing but nihilistic and does little to help Grendel reconcile his point of view with the world, and the village of humans that Grendel spends twelve years of his life observing, molesting, taunting and waging war on are so far removed from his own understanding of life that they fuel his confusion to the point of outright fury.

The 'hero' Beowulf himself doesn't turn up until the last sequences of the book and remains unnamed. Grendel's confrontation with the village's saviour is so ambivilent that it makes my head spin. Grendel is a miserable and bored creature, neither superior or inferior to the little people he torments... he's the original anti-hero, and this book really pulls apart the foundations of concepts like 'heroes' and 'villains' in a big way.

I can't really put my finger on why I like this book so much other than that. Grendel's detached interpretation of the village's growth and advancement likens humans to a parasitic and stupid species, and his prime motivation for wreaking so much havoc amongst them is boredom and curiosity. How can you not like that?

Anyway, like I said, it's a fairly dense book. A lot of it is made up of Grendel's stream-of-consciousness and it's written mostly in present tense (something I found very impressive when I first read it, I'd never read anything in present tense before that I'd actually liked - I didn't think it could even be done without seeming like wank, but this book proved my preconceptions wrong). Aside from these technical achievements, it's also very entertaining, amusing and sometimes even tragic. I'm yet to find another book even remotely like it.