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| Grendel | 
 enlarge | Author: John Gardner
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $11.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  164 reviews
Sales Rank: 12586
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 0679723110
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679723110
ASIN: 0679723110
Publication Date: May 14, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: This book has writing and/or highlighting - in some cases a lot, sometimes just a few pages* If you can deal with the writing/markings, this is a great deal! * If this does not have writing and highlighting, it is probably a former library book * We carefully inspected this * Great customer service * Satisfaction Guaranteed!
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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.
Product Description
The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic BEOWULF, tells his side of the story.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 159 more reviews...
 View the old epic from the monster's point of view April 22, 2003
76 out of 83 found this review helpful
What if you could see into the mind of Grendel, the terrifying creature of the night from Beowulf? Well, with this book by John Gardner, you can. Brutal at times, irreverent at others, and very cynical at others, Grendel wanders around for many years watching the development of the various human tribes and the emergence of Hrothgar as a sort of king among them. He spends twelve years in a unique relationship with the king, trying first to make friends with the Danes (he is attacked) and later making raids and killing the most drunken of Hrothgarys thanes. The notorious coward Unferth (the one who later insults Beowulf) is also developed here--Grendel has such contempt and pity for Unferth that he will not kill him (thus giving him a heroys death) despite Unferthys repeated attempts to fight him.
In the poem Beowulf, Grendel is a very flat character. He is, in fact, the epitome of evil, unfeeling and cruel. He comes, he kills and eats people, he leaves. Then he comes back. This book gives Grendel a personality. He knows he is a member of the fallen (Cainys) race, and accepts that fact. He is lonely, and cannot even get companionship from his mother, who has long ceased to communicate. In fact, his only real yfriendsy are the Danes he kills. Still, he knows he is dependent on Hrothgarys survival. yIf I murdered the last of the Scyldings,y he muses, ywhat would I live for?y
This book gives excellent insight into the character of Grendel, and will definitely change the way you look at the poem Beowulf. Gardnerys Grendel is a creature who determines to kill Beowulf for the honor of Hrothgar, so that his thanes will not have been outdone by a newcomer. I highly recommend this short work for anyone interested in the great old English epic.
"Find a pile of gold and sit on it." March 25, 2001
27 out of 37 found this review helpful
The late John Gardner was a most talented writer, filled with contradictions. He railed against the likes of Pynchon and Barth for their "excesses", while praising the more conservative style of Fowles, and yet probably his own best stuff was his adventurous experiments, such as OCTOBER LIGHT. GRENDEL, the best book ever written about existentialism, is supposed to be a devestating critique of that philosophy. Instead, the compelling tenacity of the existential view guarantees that Gardner will not soon disappear from university bookstores. Certainly one of my favorites.
Grendel by John Gardner The Monster's veiwpoint February 28, 2000
25 out of 28 found this review helpful
Grendel, a historical literary figure. John Gardner has created a powerful human piece from the monster's point of view. Grendel is the evil monster slayed by Beowulf. But in John Gardner's book, Grendel is the protagonist and the reader sees the story from his eyes. The monster is tormented by what he does to the people, but at the same time loves the delicious killing. It's what he has to do. He watches the Danes, speculates, kills and mames, but I think at the same time, he loves them. They give him purpose. Of course Grendel is a story about the powerful forces of light and dark within ourselves and finding meaning in life. Is there a higher power protecting the world? The monster endures great lonliness. He is an outcast. That is his role. He inflicts great pain and suffers pain. Grendel is more poetry than prose. The language captures the senses. Even when one is not always clear on the meaning, it is worth the read (and more than once).
 Tired, pedantic, pretentious, overwrought and (mercifully) short. December 28, 2005
20 out of 42 found this review helpful
Maybe this made more sense in the 70s. That's the only excuse I can think of for this pitiful mess of a book. Its best feature is that it's short and it ends soon. Gardner takes the ur-monster story known as Beowulf and...well, he doesn't really do much with it, does he? The book is hawked as Beowulf told from the monster's point of view, but that's tremendously misleading. This self-pitying existentialistic rant could come from just about anyone in any period. The depth, the majesty, the tone, the art of Beowulf is reduced to mere set dressing. Anyone looking to understand Grendel's motivation, his origins or why he acts like a monster will find no answers here. Instead, we have a long and stylistically warped stream-of-consciousness rant that can be summed up as a single, tired cliche: "The world is a big, lonely and scary place and I don't understand where I fit in it. That's why I'm evil." This is the epitome of teen (or perhaps 1970's English major student) angst and it's bulls**t whether it comes from a sullen teen or a savage beast.
We learn nothing about WHY Grendel does what he does. He's angst ridden for no good reason that we are shown. He has suffered no horrific trauma as a child that we can see. He hasn't even been attacked by the humans who share his environment. So why does he go back to the longhouse night after night to kill men and torment Hrothgar? Well, because, like, he can. And he's bored, and stuff. Or something. Grendel, the ferocious horror who has been the engine behind every other monster in English literary history is here reduced to a whiny teenager sullenly breaking windows "'cause he ain't got nothin' better to do, man." It's a relief when Beowulf finally rips his arm off while he whines pathetically for his mommy.
Looking back at this, I may have actually given you the impression that this is somehow interesting. And you know, it could have been. Portraying Grendel as a whiny, misunderstood teenager might have been intriguing, but that's not what Gardner does. We don't get an image of Grendel as a misunderstood and tormented creature - we get him as a whiny psychopath. And not a particularly scary one, either. Wading through the pages and pages of his pathetic whining is not in any way enlightening. Maybe it was supposed be 'edgy' and 'radical' back in the 70s, but now it just comes across as tired and pathetic.
Of course, this is only one of Gardner's crimes against Beowulf. There are many others. One is the horrific attempts at stylistic diversity. Sometimes Grendel talks to himself, sometimes he lapses into flashbacks and sometimes the book segues wildly into a very bad attempt to emulate the heroic sagas in verse. Why is this done? Damned if I know - it doesn't do a single thing to advance the story or the characters in any meaningful way. Gardner also adds the character of the Dragon for no particular reason. What value is added by the nihilistic, semi-coherent 1st-year-philosophy-student ramblings of this creature are a complete mystery to me. His sole purpose in this story appears to be his magical gift of making Grendel immune to weapons. It is never explained why he does this, how he does this, when he does this or why we should care. Was this just a convenient deus ex machina Gardner threw in to make Grendel's weapons immunity somehow more believable? By the time it comes up, the reader neither knows nor cares.
Finally, Gardner simply ruins Grendel's mother. This creature was the true horror in Beowulf, the vastly more powerful, vicious and evil monster the hero needed to overcome. She paved the way for millions of tales in which our heroes thought they had defeated the monster only to find out that the challenge was just beginning. In Beowulf Grendel loomed large as the evil presence known to most men, but Grendel's mother was the true horror that only the greatest hero dared to confront, let alone acknowledge. But in this book? Gardner reduces her to a blubbering, senile and ineffectual creature sleeping her way into decrepitude. Grendel scorns her and regards her with contempt. Of course, the story is told from his point of view, so we never see her in action - Grendel dies before she exacts her revenge. Again, another point that could have been interesting, but Gardner drops the ball once more.
So, what can be said about this mishmash of philosophical blather, whiny deranged protagonists and stylistic mistakes? Well, I always try to start my reviews positively, so I'll repeat what I said above: maybe it all made more sense in the 70s. But I doubt it. This is a hackneyed attempt to tell Grendel's story that comes off as revoltingly pretentious. It's been done better by better writers many times - go read one of those stories and avoid this dreck.
Read it Now! March 12, 2000
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
Of all the novels on my bookshelf, John Gardner's Grendel is the most dog-eared, highlighted, and thorougly enjoyed book of the lot. After reading Beowulf for a high school british literature class, we read Grendel and I fell in love. Haunting, beautiful, captivating and at all times mysterious, Grendel is able to capture the essence of our collective struggle to understand - to understand our reason, purpose, and meaning (if we indeed have any). Life is Grendel's great burden and he draws the reader into his world of confusion and hypocracy. At times utterly heartbreaking, at others sublimely beautiful, Grendel should be read over and over and over again.
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