Beowulf: A New Telling by Robert Nye Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
(Click here)
Book Reviews of Beowulf: A New Telling
Book Review: What a waste of time
Summary: 1 Stars
This book is a total waste of time an money. I have to read it with my English class for 7th grade and it is just plain stupid. Trust me there is alot of other books out there that are much better than this. This is the worst book I have read in years. It is just so unrealistic, Beowulf defeating a monster Grendel (which has already killed hundreds of men) not using his sword but his own hands ?!? How naive and stupid is that? Besides I think I heard a story like this a hundred times before. Trust me, you don't want to waste your time, or your monwy on this book.Book Review: Beowulf: A New Telling
Summary: 4 Stars
I used this book with my sixth grade class to explore our theme of ancient heroes. Nye's retelling kept my class totally entranced with Beowulf and his adventures. ALthough it does not follow the original it does introduce young students to the hero, and those students who were more enthralled read other versions. When Nye's retelling is compared with the orginal it opens up discussions...even for sixth graders!!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: 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: Beowulf
Summary: 4 Stars
The story Beowulf should be like a role model for other books. This books is very interesting and exciting for most of the book. It is like a roller coaster of thrill. You're on the edge of your seat all the time. I would give it 4 stars out of 5 because it has a couple flaws. For one it seems on the cover of the book and the review on the back the whole book would be about Beowulf fighting Grendel, but that is only half of the book. Also it gets pretty dry and dull at the end. It seems that the author started using less and less detail at the end of the book. Other than that I say this is a great book and recommend it to anyone who wants to read a great book.