Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site osiris.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!osiris!rob
From: rob@osiris.UUCP (Robert St. Amant)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Grendel
Message-ID: <336@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-May-85 15:10:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: osiris.336
Posted: Fri May 17 15:10:28 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 19-May-85 07:38:51 EDT
References: <368@linus.UUCP> <393@bu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 22

> >Anyone who has read Beowulf would probably be interested in reading 
> >_Grendel_ by John Gardner.  (I think.)  It's the whole story from the
> >monster's point of view, and I found it far more entertaining than
> >the original, possibly because the style of the latter was so wooden.
> 
>                            . . . . The Beowulf saga is portrayed inter-
> estingly enough, but the monster embarks on several monologues and
> "dialogues" with non-speaking creatures, the subject and style of which
> seemed to me to be too modern for the setting and too distant from the
> narrative to serve a storytelling purpose.  However, they do allow Grendel,
> an outsider as far as humanity is concerned, to make several observations
> on the "human condition."
> 
> Cameron C. Carson

One reason that the monster engages in the dialogues with the various
creatures is to advance a strange device that Gardner uses in the story.
There are twelve chapters (I think) and in each chapter Grendel
encounters the appropriate sign of the zodiac.  It's fairly well done--
at least, not obtrusive.

				Rob St. Amant