John C. GardnerReviews

I adored Beowulf from the first time I read it as a little girl. My mother (I was homeschooled for a good chunk of my school years) assigned me this book as required reading (fairly rare, but then, I rarely needed to be told to read, even ‘classics’ or what my mother called 'nutritional' books) when I was about fifteen.

Possibly the worst part about this book was the utter betrayal it represented. I was actually really excited about this! And then. Oh and then. Then I . . . started actually reading.

I was so enchanted by the pitch – Beowulf told from the point of view of the ‘monster’? Grendel’s story? A familiar tale told from a new angle? That’s one of my favourite things! And one of my favourite stories!

This book is actually very short. 174 pages in a quite small volume. I wish I could say that was a blessing, but it took me roughly six weeks to read. (In that time I read about three dozen fantasy novels and about four other classics, including rereading some Wilde.) I dragged myself through every page, feeling like I was slogging on my knees through sand dunes. I even begged my mother to let me off reading this and replace it with literally any other classic she could name. I had never done that before – and never did after – so let it stand as a marker of how much I felt tortured by this book.

(I read classic Russian literature recreationally as a teenager. Depressing, dragging, dark literature was clearly not a deal-breaker for me even then. That was and is not my problem with this book.)

Grendel is depressing, and dark, and . . . well, it is ludicrously self-indulgent over those things.

The kind of ‘I am miserable’ where it feels as though the person complaining to one – which the book, in first person, reads as a kind of stream of consciousness internal monologue of revelling in despair and gore – is delighting in how miserable and awful they are. I’m a monster, you couldn’t possibly understand, everyone hates me and there’s nothing I can do but respond by becoming ever more monstrous feel my pathos while I howl dramatically and go kill and devour more people because what is the point.

I didn’t feel like I was reading the despair of a creature the humans refuse to – or can’t – understand, one who is forced into a corner and fights, kills, because it is all he can do against these creatures to whom he cannot make himself understood, nor understand in turn – which is how it was pitched. Instead I felt like I was hearing the joyously delighted, self-centred manifesto of a psychopath whose psyche’s only ‘torture’ is in the rare occasions he faces a consequence for his actions.

I was told that this book is about confronting the monsters within ourselves, and I see it listed that way in many lesson modules. I want to personally track down the person(s) who thought this book could teach this lesson well and shake them. Hard.

Grendel has no interest in confronting the monster within himself – he is that monster, and there is nothing else but the delight in blood and death, and the self-righteous anger and disbelief when he is forced to face a consequence – like a human that fights back rather than be shredded and eaten in large chunks. How dare they.

(Oh, and it’s also more grotesque and grisly than the original Beowulf, which is . . . delightful.)

I’ve read that Gardner wrote the book intending to ‘examine the main ideas of Western Civilisation in the voice of a monster’ from an already-written story rather than creating a new one, and ‘use the various philosophical attitudes, though Sartre in particular’. (Don’t ask me what ‘use the various philosophical attitudes’ means, I have no idea what he intended with that.) He also has said Grendel represented Sartre’s philosophical position, and that he borrowed much of the book from ‘Being and Nothingness’.

I won’t lie to you, when I read those claims from Gardner my first reaction was ‘oh, so the book was terrible because you were trying to be pretentious?’ and it really, really is – pretentious, that is, not reminiscent of Sartre.

After reading that it was supposed to be, I can see (sort of) the way that Gardner wound the theories of Being and Nothingness into Grendel. But it’s hardly recognisable and in Grendel’s mind comes off as yet another self-centred backdrop of ‘here is why I am such a miserable being, and why it is not my fault’.

I’m glad I was familiar with Sartre before finding out this work was supposed to represent his philosophies, and that it was not presented to me thus in high school, or I might very well have been soured on an entire school of philosophical thought by this ridiculously drab, entitled, self-aggrandising drivel.

For another perspective on Beowulf, I recommend staying to the fascinating essays many very interesting people have written, and away from John Gardner.½

Beowulf's Grendel telling its side of the story. Is Grendel a ferocious monster, a mess-up child of a inattentive mother, or something else? Gardner has kept me confused.

This parallel/companion novel to the legendary story of Beowulf is told from Grendel's perspective. Grendel is a monster who lives deep in a cave with his mother, whose precise nature is unclear, though she seems to be large, slow-moving and unable to communicate (in my head she looked something like a giant, monstrous larva, YMMV). Grendel one day ventures beyond the cave to hunt, at which time he encounters humans for the first time. He spends hours, days, years observing them, fascinated — but, you know, being a monster he's also hungry, so he frequently attacks and devours them as well.

The question I kept wondering throughout the book is what exactly is Grendel? He's certainly large and powerful with the ability to tear men limb from limb as easily as snapping a twig. However, he's also impulsive, overconfident and quite childlike at times. Every now and then we get a glimpse of a conscience. As a reader I wavered between sympathy (is it his fault he is the way he is?) and horror (so much violence and gore). The narrative occasionally wanders into philosophical territory, where I have to admit my eyes may have glazed over temporarily until the linear narrative resumed. I approached Grendel with a familiarity of Beowulf limited to what I had gleaned exclusively via cultural osmosis, so naturally I'm now significantly more curious to learn more about the original work.

4.5/5 Having taught BEOWULF for a number of years to my sophomore honors, why didn't I have them read this, too? This book is not simply a retelling of BEOWULF from the monster's point of view; it is highly intellectual and philosophical as Grendel seeks to find some sort of meaning to his life. Drawn to and repulsed by humans, he reminds me of Frankenstein's creature, who also seeks the purpose to his existence. Several philosophies are explored here, most of which I can't wait to look into. The trope of reading a story from the supposed villain's point of view is not new, but it is absolutely heart-wrenching here. I dare anyone who reads this not to be touched by Grendel's utter isolation and loneliness. What a read.

Tentative rating. Will give it another try.

At the outset of John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain, Henry Soames owns and runs a diner by the side of a Catskills highway. He does a better job of that than of controlling his own giving heart; because of his charitable nature, he ends up not only married to a young woman who is pregnant with someone else’s baby, but also opens his home to a Jehovah’s Witness no one likes or trusts, and who may be an arsonist. The novel’s events swirl around Henry, its enigmatically passive-active agent at the center, and through it all the locals for better or for ill, prove that in Gardner’s hands, human nature is endlessly fascinating.

Also as fascinating are the apparent machinations of the gods, or impersonal forces with which humans must contend. A young would-be car designer and racer throws his dreams away and attends Cornell Ag school, as coerced by his businessman father. Henry’s bride finds him impossible to live with part of the time, but also unalterably admires his good acts. Other regulars come to Henry’s roadside diner and complain or shake their heads about nature, or the follies of their fellow characters, and nothing apparently changes over time. The town’s doctor, who doubles as its justice of the peace, carries around and expresses the anger and confusion for everyone’s benefit.

The tides of fortune and folly pursue all; no one is immune. Some suffer more than others, as usual, but through all the health challenges and commercial difficulties Henry wrestles with, his surprising wife and child turn out t be improbable blessings, even to the point of a comprehensive upgrade of his business. Gardner prepares us for certain confrontations which end up occurring outside the narrative, and it’s hard to find the purpose in some of the conflict on offer.

But the direct, persuasive, effective passage is always within the author’s repertoire: early on (at p. 66 of 454), as Henry emphatically blubbers on on some subject or other:

“But was he saying anything at all? he wondered. All so hopelessly confused. And yet he knew. He couldn’t do it and maybe never could have, but he knew. He was a fat, blubbering Holy Jesus, or anyway one half of him was, loving hell out of truckers and drunks and Willards and Callies—ready to be nailed for them. Eager. More heart than he knew how to spend.”

A constitutional inarticulateness afflicts the hero Henry: his compelling ideas, in the midst of his trying to express them, become amorphous as he loses his way. In spite of the mental and emotional challenges, he blunders ahead anyway, and comes out somehow ahead of the game. This, and the plain, direct, and vivid descriptions the author gives the other characters and their misadventures, drive the narrative, and attract and reward the reader. It’s all a mystery, and the Henry Soameses of the world, for all their difficulty in expressing it, know it better than the rest of us.

https://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2023/09/nickel-mountain-by-john-gardner.html½

on morality of art

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this. Turns out, it is very much a fairy-tale, though written for adults (heads getting chopped off, first three characters meet on their ways to commit suicide, etc.) I really liked the illustrations... and it was a good read (1 hour? 2 hours, max.)

Foundational. Absolutely foundational. The friendly kick in the arse I needed to finally convince myself to get my head down and write something which is completely trite, derivative and without merit.

How do writers do it? Have thoughts so strange and put them in words so powerful? I read a book of Gardner's long ago (October Light) and thought it remarkable, but it was nothing like this. One short text to encompass human existence and meaning. Or was it just a story?

Read chapter 1-4 for class and completed a few of the exercises. Gardner has a very traditional outlook on writing but the book is also very old. I would love to see a woman and man person of color write an updated modern take on this book especially with the references and examples. As a woc I have virtually no idea about a lot of the examples he used and the importance besides when he told me. I didn't like shakespeare or none of the old white male writers of classics. I find it boring and unrelatable and sometime plain horrid. I did agree with some things he stated but otherwise a god textbook or reference for writing.

Low key novel about ordinary small-town life in the Catskills. Henry Soames is a good-hearted man with health issues. He owns a diner. He hires Callie Wells to work for him. She is seventeen and pregnant. Her boyfriend leaves for college. Though vastly different in age, Henry and Callie marry. She has the baby. They take in an odd evangelical man whose house has burned down. A good friend visits on occasion. A few deaths occur. There is little to no plot. It seems to be about living and dying. It has a melancholy tone. I cannot rave about it, but I enjoyed reading it.

The author has stated that this book is intentionally a philosophical book meant to poke fun at society at the time. Because of this, the book is incredibly confusing and isn't at all a good read if you are looking for a good story.

A retelling of Beowulf from the viewpoint of the monster.
Retellings are a tricky business, I think. You have to stay true to the spirit of the original while also making the story your own and using it for your own purposes. I know this one has received high acclaim, and while I started out with high hopes, in the end it just didn't work for me. Gardner is clearly using the tale to engage with Big Philosophical Ideas (I mean the whole thing is lousy with Sartre), and that's fine, of course, but it just feels like the story gets lost somewhere along the way and there's more interpretation and metaphor than retelling, or for that matter, telling at all. Plus, it's so very grim. It's dark without the depth of actual feeling of the original, which mean we're left with just dreariness.

Grendel by John Gardner takes the Beowulf story that some of us read in high school and turns it on its head.
If you think you know who is the hero here, keep reading.

Grendel is an articulate monster, curious about life and art and his role as "Brute Extant" and mead hall wrecker. He wants to fit in, He wants to understand. He's lonely.

The Shaper - the King's blind harper - sings of a world of noble warriors and a benevolent God. Grendel knows better. He sees the world as a place of random violence and greed and lust and savagery. He's not the only "Monster" here.

The Thane's government, seen as wise and merciful, is just the way that the rich and powerful STAY rich and powerful. Sound familiar?

There is a curmudgeonly and know-it-all dragon, who pokes holes in all of Grendel's illusions, and Beowulf himself, who shows up late in the book to carry out his assigned role in the history. (Free will? Or pre-destination? You decide).

It's a advanced seminar in Existential Philosophy wrapped up in breathtakingly beautiful poetry, asking questions that are still valid and still important. Who shapes society? The Poets -- who lie? Or the monsters -- who by being "evil" teach men how to be "Good".

You want Answers? Talk to the dragon.

My Beowulf journey continues. I first read this book in the late 1970’s and loved it then. I thought the idea of telling the story from Grendel’s point of view was brilliant. And It was my gateway to reading many more of Gardner’s works.

And in my re-read of it now, I love it even more.

I’ll leave it to others to explicate how Gardner wove the 12 Zodical signs into its structure (e.g. read The Twelve Traps in John Gardner’s Grendel), or infused Satrean nihilism into it. (Love the dragon: “Know how much you’ve got and beware of strangers!” [P.S. advice Grendel ultimately ignores]). And it seems a thorough exploration of Macbeth’s “life’s…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

But in connection with the poem Beowulf, I appreciated the perspective of a sentient being trying to make sense out of the customs and artifacts of what was to it a foreign community. Not unlike the archeologists trying to make sense of the culture found in artifacts discovered at Sutton Hoo.

So I think I’ll add the audiobook reading by George Guidall others have highly recommended to my list. I need to mull whether I’ll add Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to that list.

Update: re-read Andrew DeYoung’s “Grendel at 50”.
Lithub. And gmail.

This is the book that made me an author; John Gardner, his ghosts and his magic. "Art creates Life" he said, and so it is. In Mickelsson's ghosts, the mystical meets the Sons of Dan, the historic Mormon assassin squad, and literary adventure ensues. There's something important hidden in MIckelsson's house, and as it turns out, among the rare documents department of The Rush Rhees library where John Gardner's papers resides. I found something there, in the Gardner papers and I wrote Enoch's Thread where John Gardner gets chance to take on the Son's of Dan one more time.

"Tedium is the worst pain."

Gardner gives Grendel a voice that is difficult to ignore. It drills away slowly into your conscience, working its way deep into your subconscious and making residence there. His voice is sharp, eloquent, and persuasive to an offensive degree, to say the least.

I highly recommend this book for literary nerds (and Beowulf fans). For others, I suggest you read a chapter (on Amazon or elsewhere) before deciding to dive into it.

Grendel is a heavily philosophical novel, and a pretty interesting read. It also has a lot more blood and guts than I would normally seek out in a book, but my fifteen-year-old son raved about it after reading it in school, so I had to give it a try. I love that John Gardner thought to turn Beowulf on its head by telling the story from Grendel's perspective. Although Grendel offers an empty alternative and I often found living in his head repellent, his critique of the war-making society and heroic idealism of his time (and perhaps several forms of human folly in general, too) felt painfully current at times. Well done.

This book is a bit scattered, and seems incomplete, like no one really bothered to edit it. Much of it is the author's attempt to take down the fiction of his day, but only by making very broad generalizations about another author's entire oeuvre.

The crux of his argument is that art should be moral. And by this he means, "Moral art in its highest form holds up models of virtue, ... heroic models like Homer’s Achilles." Using Achilles as a model of morality or virtue seems to miss much of the point of the Iliad.

But, Gardner does make some good points. The most important thing I took from him is, "without real and deep love for his “subjects” (the people he writes about and, by extension, all human beings)—no artist can summon the will to make true art; he will be satisfied, instead, with clever language or with cynical jokes and too easy, dire solutions like those common in contemporary fiction."

From the monsters point of view.

This had the *longest* sentences. It's a rolling, conversational read from one of the greats. The book is ostensibly geared toward newer writers, but frankly I think it would have been a bit much if I'd read it at that stage. As it is, I enjoyed the reading quite a bit--particularly the last chapter, titled "Faith"--and recommend it to writers at pretty much any stage of their abilities or career.

It's a shame Gardner is no longer with us. He's vastly opinionated in this book, and I kept wondering what he'd have to say about the pandemic.

Amazing book - really brings something to life. Shame the author died (motorcycle accident) as I'd like him to have written more.

Monster with deep thoughts
when he's not talking nonsense
he's biting off heads.

Maybe I'm not fair to this book or this author, if it comes to that. It was raved about to me by somebody who read books for a bit in their youth and never after. Like they have established their credentials and could rest on them.

I prefer my books to be recommended by people who READ. Is that unreasonable?

To me, a non-reader telling me this book is the best, is like one of those people who can't cook at all, but think they do a mean lasagne because lasagne is so easy. Sorry. IMPOSSIBLE. Avoid this lasagne at all costs.

I feel a bit like this about the book, but I really wouldn't take my word for it.