Beowulf: (The Book)

Beowulf
Caitlin R. Kiernan
Transworld Books

As many of you will have heard, the epic, anonymous, Old English poem Beowulf has recently been made into a film with the screenplay co-written by Neil Gaiman. The film has been having it's fair share of criticism -- I haven't seen it yet, so I'll reserve my opinion! -- mainly about the choice to take the 300 route -- filming real actors and then animating them -- and also purported anti-Christian sentiment.

The book version of Beowulf, re-imagined by Caitlin R. Kiernan, an award-winning dark fantasist who I must admit I'd never heard of -- though Robert from Fantasy Book Critic had, and was jumping for joy! -- is a dark, and entertaining new look at the ancient legend of the Scandinavian hero, Beowulf, who slays the beast Grendel and then, following the untimely demise of Hrothgar, King of the Danes, takes his place as lord and master.

After the death of Grendel, however, Beowulf is forced to confront Grendel's mother, the last, and most dangerous, powerful and cunning of the demonkind left on Earth. And also the most seductive. From then forward, he will be haunted by the choices he made that day ... and forever cursed...

Caitlin Kiernan's story retelling is, as in the original poem, rich in Norse mythology, a mythology which is, at least in my opinion, one of the most brilliant, poetic that has ever existed. The Norse ideas of the birth of the universe, the gods, etc were brilliantly interwoven into the story, and it was interesting to see Beowulf's hardships as king when people where suddenly abandoning their millennia-old religion for the new Roman god, Christ Jesus. From the book, I didn't get any sense of anti-Christian feeling, more Beowulf's lament of change and the caprice of his people, and his feeling of being left behind in an old world filled with monsters and magic which people were forgetting.

Kiernan also brought to life, more than any other depiction I've read, Grendel. A monstrous thing, surely, but I felt a certain sympathy for him, much as I did with "the monster" when I read Frankenstein. Beowulf himself was certainly an interesting character, at the beginning an arrogant, boastful man, and towards the end of the book, acceptant of his fate, and prepared to die to save a nation; "his name will live forever".

The book was paced excellently and Caitlin R. Kiernan has a talent for realistic dialogue, writing in an interesting way I've not seen before. I'm going to have to get hold of her other work ... after I've taken her advice given in the glossary and gotten hold of Norse Mythology (Oxford University Press)! Very well written. 8.5/10.