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Amadan

Amadan na Briona

Currently reading

Inherent Vice
Thomas Pynchon, Ron McLarty
The Best Horror of the Year Volume Five
Ellen Datlow, Laird Barron, Conrad Williams, Ramsey Campbell
Locus Solus (Alma Classics)
Raymond Roussel
Blackout (Newsflesh Trilogy, #3)
Mira Grant, Paula Christensen, Michael Goldstrom

Grendel

Grendel - John Gardner This is a clever but long-winded retelling of Beowulf from the monster's point of view. Grendel is brilliantly realized as a petulant child, a beast who fancies himself an intellectual, sometimes tries to overcome his brutish nature but inevitably succumbs to the temptation to act like a monster and then blames it on the universe. "See what you made me do?" Grendel seems to be saying throughout the book. The dialog is often clever, but I had the same problem I have with a lot of literary fiction: Gardner's descriptive prose sometimes becomes tedious, especially the interminable and largely irrelevant-to-the-story speeches from the dragon and the priest. I'd really only recommend it if you're a fan of the original Beowulf tale; otherwise it's just a story about a monster who occasionally goes on killing sprees between monologues and bouts of self-pity.