The Tower of Beowulf

Rating:
Summary: Tower of Beowulf
Review: A humanist retelling of the story of Beowulf.

This is a decent novel, though not as good as Godwin's more detailed work. It suffers from sticking too closely to the original text: Grendel, an attractive POV character here, dies early, and we skip from Beowulf as an interesting young man to an old one who has come to terms with all the personal issues that made him interesting. A less close adherence to the manuscript might have served the author well.

I didn't find Godwin's conception of Norse deities appealing; they are comic-book figures, with no numinous qualities at all. Boring.

The recasting of myths and legends in humanist terms is a tradition of speculative fiction, and I certainly think it's a valid one. However, I'm a bit tired of characters who constantly question the values and mentalities of their times -- lamenting the cost of being a hero, and so on. I feel that theme's a bit done with, and it lends itself to anachronism. My interest in the character of Beowulf here was tempered by my weariness with the "I don't wanna be a warrior" theme.

I don't entirely understand Godwin's need to insert Christianity into every historical setting.

Despite my quibbles, I think that overall this is an enjoyable book, lighter entertainment than some of Godwin's others but a reasonably good retelling.

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: after reading the original this provided a very interesting view of the story. It facilitates a deeper understanding of the poem by exploring different interepretations than I would have found myself.

Rating:
Summary: Tower of Beowulf
Review: I'm not quite sure what to make of this work. It is an adaptation, in novel form, of the epic of Beowulf. It some ways, this works very well, while in others it doesn't work well at all. Parke Godwin specializes in retelling legends (Robin Hood, Arthur, St. Patrick, Beowulf), in a historical context, or at least a more realistic, lucid form then usual.

This book taught me more about the Viking religion of Odinism than I really wanted to know (at least, I think it did, as I have to take the book's word that it is accurately portraying it). It got into Grendel's head, into the dragon's head, into Beowulf's head. While they were all dynamic characters, at times there just wasn't enough. The story would skip forward twenty years, and fill in the intervening, sometimes relevant, events in just a few paragraphs. By the same token, the book would build up to confrontantions, only to have them be extremely short and abbreviated.

Still, Godwin did a masterful job showing us what {he thought} the values of sixth century northlanders were. He also manages to tie in Christian influences, add more depth to power stuggles, politics, and international relations. And the opening sentence says it all, "Before men reasoned such things could not happen, when all men knew they could."

An interesting, at times slightly boring, but ultimately satisfying book, this is worth reading if you can find it.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Take
Review: I'm not quite sure what to make of this work. It is an adaptation, in novel form, of the epic of Beowulf. It some ways, this works very well, while in others it doesn't work well at all. Parke Godwin specializes in retelling legends (Robin Hood, Arthur, St. Patrick, Beowulf), in a historical context, or at least a more realistic, lucid form then usual.

This book taught me more about the Viking religion of Odinism than I really wanted to know (at least, I think it did, as I have to take the book's word that it is accurately portraying it). It got into Grendel's head, into the dragon's head, into Beowulf's head. While they were all dynamic characters, at times there just wasn't enough. The story would skip forward twenty years, and fill in the intervening, sometimes relevant, events in just a few paragraphs. By the same token, the book would build up to confrontantions, only to have them be extremely short and abbreviated.

Still, Godwin did a masterful job showing us what {he thought} the values of sixth century northlanders were. He also manages to tie in Christian influences, add more depth to power stuggles, politics, and international relations. And the opening sentence says it all, "Before men reasoned such things could not happen, when all men knew they could."

An interesting, at times slightly boring, but ultimately satisfying book, this is worth reading if you can find it.

Rating:
Summary: A realistic hero
Review: Taking on such an old and simple story and making it interesting to an modern audience is a hard task. Beuwulf comes across as very realistic at the same time as he battles a "troll" and a dragon while the Norse gods are lurking behind the scenes. Grendel is not a raving mad swamp troll but a thinking and emotional being. Being Swedish and having quite a diffrent veiw of the barbaric Vikings (than in many other countrys) I find this book written by an American exiting. This is not what the old Scandinavia was like but Godwin makes it very belivable.