Grendel [Hardcover]

John. GARDNER (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Knopf,, NY: (1976)
• ASIN: B002A6AWSM
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (195 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,637,284 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it Now!, March 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Grendel (Paperback)

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.

88 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars View the old epic from the monster's point of view, April 22, 2003

By 

bixodoido (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grendel (Paperback)

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 Hrothgars 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 heros death) despite Unferths 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 (Cains) 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 friends are the Danes he kills. Still, he knows he is dependent on Hrothgars survival. If I murdered the last of the Scyldings, he muses, what would I live for?

This book gives excellent insight into the character of Grendel, and will definitely change the way you look at the poem Beowulf. Gardners 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.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading, October 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Grendel (Paperback)

I recently read Grendel for a high school course and found myself shocked from the beginning at the quality. The normally distasteful nature of reading assignments aside, Grendel was a stunning book. Though Grendel is always physically described as a monster, I know people whose mental state is very nearly the same as his. Reading the pain of such a despicable creature that hits so close to home was stomach-wrenching and breathtaking-- unlike the epic poem, Beowulf, Grendel made it difficult not to see the characters as real. Despite Grendel's purportedly evil and inhuman nature, I couldn't help but see him as someone I knew, feeling what he went through. By the end of the book I loved and hated him, and was given a good bit to think about with the Danes and Geats, and especially the dragon. A definite must-read for would-be philosophers (no, not that annoying high talk you may have been forced to read while "studying philosophy") and anyone intrigued by the darker side of human nature.