Word: beowulf
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...life. In 1966, the first paperback edition of the three volumes of the Ring sold close to 500,000 copies in the U.S. Scholars and critics had at first admired his books, while tracing down literary influences that ranged from Buchan (the chases, the praise of friendship) to Beowulf. Then, with such popularity, the story was denounced as escapist fantasy, its success owlishly attributed to "irrational adulation" and "nonliterary cultural and social phenomena." Attempts to straitjacket Tolkien's story as contemporary allegory were updated too. In the '50s, critics averred, Sauron was really Joseph Stalin and fumbling, heroic...
...possibly penetrate all of the levels of this great metaphysical mess. Surely, traditional critical approaches are useless. Gardner has demonstrated in his novels his disapproval of rendering the world as it is. Grendel set about to reshape the Beowulf epic into the same philosophical query, using the skeptical monster as its prime agent. The small scale of that work, and its ingenius conception made it much more approachable. The came the Sunlight Dialogues, a very lengthy piece of prose with over 100 characters. Here, a great conglomeration of metaphysics is structured along the lines of a modern Grail Quest...
...Beowulf epic has once again risen from its grave; but even the Christians knew better than to resurrect the dead more than once. Still not content, Gardner spices his novel with allusions to Arthurian legend. And to all this he adds his own version of that classic Faulknerian tale of the decay of the proud and respected Compson family. It is all done in the same battered, albeit rigid, multi-consciousness point of view...
...lewd, providing an overview that is at once serious and hilarious. Again, in Grendel, the monster's ability to stand back and look at man from a unique perspective makes the novel both exciting and valuable reading. This remains true even after the novelty of relating the Beowulf epic has worn...
GRENDEL, by John Gardner. Beowulf from the monster's viewpoint, in which the Norse heroes of the epic are revealed as bloodthirsty murderers, thieves and hypocrites...