Grendel

Grendel is a great idea that I wish I liked more than I did.

Gardner retells Beowulf from the monster's side, turning Grendel into a lonely, foul-mouthed, articulate philosopher obsessed with the humans he terrorizes. The book's best achievement is taking a character who is essentially a force of evil and making him pathetic, funny, curious and desperate for connection. Gardner makes him recognizably human without ever letting him stop being a monster.

After a childhood encounter with a bull, Grendel concludes "I alone exist," and the book becomes his attempt to live with the conviction that existence is meaningless. The Shaper, a blind poet, offers art and the possibility that humans can make meaning. The Dragon offers nihilism. Unferth tests whether heroism can survive in an arbitrary world. Yet Grendel can't quite accept his own nihilism.

Much of this is great, especially when Grendel mocks human ideas about honor and glory. There's something moving about watching him encounter beauty and community while being incapable of joining either.

The problem is that Gardner doesn't trust the story to raise his questions on its own. Characters start delivering lectures. The Dragon especially feels like Gardner hijacking his own novel to explain existentialism. For readers who already know how Beowulf ends, there's little tension to carry those stretches.

Awesome concept, uneven execution. 3.25/5