Grendel

by John Gardner (1971) Published by Vintage. 174 pages.


Reviewed 18 January 2009

John Gardner’s Grendel is a monster who could only live in books. He goes on rampages and midnight raids, he howls at the moon and sneaks up on his enemies, drinks their blood and rapes their wives and does all sorts of other things that could be fodder for movies, but the main thing this Grendel does is to listen. He’s always keeping an eye on the goings on in the little community of Dark Age Danish warrior-folk that he preys upon, and whenever something significant happens he sneaks into the shadows and gets near the action, listens to the secret conferences of those in power, catches onto their petty resentments and feuds, feels glee at their defeats and laughs at their vanity.
John Gardner has taken the character of Grendel from the story of Beowulf, king of the Geats, a heroic figure who slays first Grendel, then Grendel’s mother, and finally kills a dragon. I haven’t read the story of Beowulf yet, but I do know that it’s sort of one of the root stories of English literature, one of the most ancient texts we have in English of any sort, probably one of the oldest poems. And so I understand what it symbolizes for a modern author to go back and revisit this story: by taking his subject from this ancient text, John Gardner is taking a look at the foundation of our culture, trying to track down some of the mysteries of how we came to be who we are. Some of my favorite and least favorite books work along these principles: Derek Walcott’s Omeros uses themes from the Iliad and Odyssey to wonderful effect; Ahab’s Wife, on the other hand, tries to explore the origins of American fiction and just winds up making an ugly mess of the whole thing.
The story of Beowulf is a template for sword-and-sorcery fantasy, and would seem to be a poor source of material for a contemplative book about humankind, but John Gardner makes the matter interesting by exploring the issue of why Grendel has such hatred of the humans that he terrorizes.
Grendel narrates the book in the first person. He’s a creature of monstrous form but with considerable intelligence. His mother is a huge, brutish creature who has nothing to offer him in terms of intellectual stimulation. Although he learns from watching the animals that move about in the wilderness where he lives, he recognizes that they are beneath him. Eventually, Grendel does come into contact with the Dragon, a creature who borders on omniscience. Try as he might, Grendel cannot penetrate the abstract philosophy that occupies the Dragon’s brilliant mind. His intelligence is comparable only to that of the humans who live near him, but because of his form Grendel knows he will never be accepted by them.
It isn’t just loneliness, though, that makes Grendel hate his human adversaries. The thing that really hurts him is the dishonesty that seems to lie at the heart of their society. Growing up, Grendel watches the battles for territory that are carried out as the Danes fight one another. Eventually one Danish warlord, Hrothgar, gains supremacy in the region. Shortly after reaching this pinnacle of power, Hrothgar’s meadhall is visited by a blind bard who has come to seek Hrothgar’s favor. The bard, called the Shaper by Grendel, sings a song that glorifies Hrothgar, praising his rise to power not as a story of pillage and victory of brute force, but as a tale of the triumph of civilization and virtue over “barbarianism.” Grendel is outraged to see that the Shaper’s song casts a spell over the people of Hrothgar’s kingdom, that even though they know the story to be false, they now believe themselves to be the heroic and noble warriors that the Shaper sings about.
In a sense, then, all of Grendel’s ravages against Hrothgar’s people can been seen as the rebellion of true human nature against the lies that we tell ourselves about our own special place in the universe. That’s a little bit too simple an interpretation, but it will serve to demonstrate one of the many wonderful possibilities that arise from this brief but fascinating little tale Gardner has written.