Beowulf: A New Telling by Robert Nye Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Beowulf: A New Telling
Book Review: Sorry, but I just can't swallow it
Summary: 1 Stars
Beowulf, by Robert Nye is one of those books that really didn't appeal to me. In my opinion, it is a very exciting story that has been poorly written. For example, throughout the entire story, I didn't feel like the author put any effort into truly defining the characters. The way I interpreted it, the characters were either good or evil, and were never conflicted about what to do. That makes for very shallow reading. Beowulf was simply good. His character was too classically heroic for my taste. His characterization made the story seem like a fairy tale. In any form of storytelling, the teller usually adds some uncertainty in the characters to give the entire tale real meaning. For instance, I knew nothing about Beowulf, so the fact that he died just meant that I didn't have to read anymore. That generally isn't the sign of a book that has been greatly enjoyed. At the beginning of the book, the author has giving the readers a sort of genealogy rundown. That is not characterization! It doesn't really matter whom someone's mother or father is if they have no effect on the story! In my honest opinion, the piece of genealogical information gave better characterization than the whole tale put together. Unfortunately, those characters were not used, so the readers were not given something even slightly resembling character depth. Another gripe I have about this story is the gore. Normally I am not bothered by gory stories, but I find it very hard to read pointlessly bloody tales. The only thing the blood did for me was distract me from the lack of decent characters. Actually, if the blood had had some point, I would have probably loved the truly vivid imagery. This particular author seems to be very good at creating a scene, but lacks the ability to bring characters to life. I also thought that Grendel was a pointless addition to this story. All Grendel ever did was slaughter humans (there we get truly glorious, horrific imagery for the first time). And although it was a preamble to the rest of the story, I happen to think that that was the part I could actually consider somewhat akin to decent storytelling. The Grendel had no real motivation, true. But its profile was the closest thing to characterization anywhere in this story. But I continually found myself wondering why Grendel wasn't kept around longer, and why the author simply moved on to another piece of the story. Even if Grendel had to die at one point, I think that if the author had highlighted its part in the story more, the overall reading would be more pleasant. My ideal version of this book would have a more lengthy version of the battle with Grendel, and less of the creature's mother and the dragon. It isn't that the other two aren't major aspects in the story; it's just that, as I've said before, without characterization, their parts seemed pointless.
During one part of this story, I was actually able to feel the full effect of decent storytelling. It was near the end, when Beowulf is combating the dragon. I liked how his own bees not only killed the dragon, but himself as well. For some reason, it seemed like a fitting end: a hero defeats one last opponent, but in the process is defeated by his own friends when they assist him. If all of the book held quality such as that, I think I would have truly enjoyed this tale. But alas, that is not the case, and I am left feeling indifferent to the entire story. Overall, I found it a slightly weak story to begin with; weakness that is only magnified with this particular author's style of writing. I am not aware if this `new telling' corresponds with the original tale that was published a millennium ago, so I cannot truly judge the quality of the actual story. All I can judge is the telling of it, which I found quite unsatisfying.
Book Review: This Is An Awesome Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
I liked this book a lot. It converted ancient history into what people love to read these more modern days. I'm a 7th grade student in Indiana. I read all the time, but this is one of the best books i've ever read.it's really hard to believe this used to be ancient folklore. I recommend this book to all people who like a good book.Book Review: This is NOT Beowulf!
Summary: 1 Stars
Robert Nye has rewritten the Beowulf saga into a nice little stand-alone fable, but it is so far from the original text that it is a disservice to new readers. Nye had his own idea of what the theme of Beowulf should be, but the original text does not support his theme, so Nye rewrote it until it did -- and then he crams the theme down the reader's throat as though it's the central point of the entire Beowulf saga. Nye's theme is that we should embrace our weaknesses and thereby make them our strengths (huh?), and he demonstrates this through Beowulf's nearsightedness and disproportionately short legs, neither of which are in the original text.Nye's liberties with the original include making the Dane warrior Unferth a villain -- in the original, Unferth is at first jealous of Beowulf's courage until he sees it first-hand, at which point his jealousy turns to respect, and Beowulf respects him in return. In Nye's version Unferth is a treacherous villain throughout -- for example, in the original it is Grendel's mother who kills the king's friend Esher, but in Nye's version Unferth stabs him in the back. According to Nye, Unferth is then killed by Grendel's mother; in the original Unferth gives Beowulf his own sword to fight Grendel's mother, and this is the scene where Unferth and Beowulf become friends. Nye took a great supporting character and turned him into a cardboard villain.
I could go on listing ways in which Nye damages the saga, but I will instead cut to his most heinous crime -- Beowulf versus the dragon. In the original text, Beowulf gathers a band of his best warriors along with his friend Wiglaf to battle the dragon. When they see it, the warriors turn and run away in fear, and Beowulf attacks the dragon with only the loyal Wiglaf behind him. Beowulf succeeds at the cost of his own life, and dies at Wiglaf's side. In Nye's version, Beowulf is a part-time beekeeper, and he kills the dragon by having a bag of bees fly down its throat and sting it to death from the inside (I'm not making this up). There is no battle. Beowulf is never injured. Beowulf then simply dies on the mountain for no apparent reason other than his age.
I bought this book to read to my kids, but there is no way I will ever read it to them. It is a very easy read -- Nye tells a lively little tale, and his idea of using bees to kill the dragon is smoothly set up throughout the story -- but the major points of this so-called "new telling" are all Nye's, and run counter to the themes in the original. Anyone who reads this and thinks they've read Beowulf is VERY sorely mistaken, and their mistake will be immediately obvious to anyone who is familiar with the original text.
Book Review: Understanding The Making of a Legendary Figure
Summary: 4 Stars
The story of Troy, Alexander the Great, or the Illiad has nothing on the story of Beowulf. It has been retold by Robert Nye so that children can grasp it. This story held my class captive as we experienced the adventures of Beowulf.The children gained recognition of the differences between fact and fiction, which becomes entangled in the minds of men as their love and admiration for a hero grows and thus a legend is born.Book Review: Who says a classic has to be boring?
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a particularly arresting retelling of one of the great seminal works of Western literature. In our Performance English Program (CRDG The University of Hawaii), we use it as an entry-level introduction to this classic at the 7th grade so that when students re-encounter the story in the more conventional translation by Burton Raffel at the 12th grade they are predisposed to enjoy it in spite of its considerably greater difficulty. Students have been known to ask if they could skip assemblies so they could continue our in-class oral reading of the Robert Nye version without interruption. Lively narration, wonderful characterizations, great imagery. This story lives