Word: grendel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...story takes the shape of a thriller, replete with jail-break, murder, appearances and disappearances. But Medievalist Gardner doesn't stop here. The secretive dialogues of Hodge, an elusive and outspoken anarchist, with Batavia's strict law-and-order police chief (hence the title) are strangely reminiscent of Grendel's talks with Unferth in Grendel...
...Wreckage of Agathon, an old, muddled Athenian seer is imprisoned in Sparta for aiding the Helot rebellion. Using this one dominating character, set apart from the world, Gardner waxes and wanes between the philosophical and the lewd, providing an overview that is at once serious and hilarious. Again, in Grendel, the monster's ability to stand back and look at man from a unique perspective makes the novel both exciting and valuable reading. This remains true even after the novelty of relating the Beowulf epic has worn...
...dominating theme in both Grendel and The Wreckage of Agathon is individual freedom within a mass consciousness. Agathon chose total individual freedom, rebelling against the Spartans' strict sense of uniformity. And although he died, his ideals achieve a harmonious serenity with the hopes of his more worldly-wise student, Demodokos. Grendel, too, embodies a kind of selfhood, which is more barbaric and cynical: he believes completely in himself only because there is no hope of being accepted within a greater whole. It's hard to suppress sympathy for this Cain-like character, but in the end the victory of mankind...
When last seen in a fine short novel called Grendel, John Gardner was busy turning monsters into men-and vice versa. His highly compressed story sang and winced and gibbered in its metaphysical chains, but it said a good deal about the dark origins and necessary delusions of society. The Sunlight Dialogues, by contrast, is an enormous trick circus trunk out of which the author keeps taking new literary treasures as if they were so many fake bananas. A philosophical disquisition upon religion and justice? Yes. A compassionate portrait of America in the uneasy '60s? Yes. A Faulknerian melodrama...
...break up an evening's work, and the Square offers some comfortable, quiet places to sip and talk. The Pamplona (on Bow St. next to the Underdog) and the Window Shop (56 Brattle St.) are outdoor cafes--the Pamplona's chocolate mousse is very good. Grendel's Den (on Boylston St. across from the Hungry Persian) is a pleasant basement coffee house with canned music and arab food...