Monster Grendel's tastes are plainish; for breakfast, just a couple Danish.

[cosmolinguist]

We talked about Grendel today. Janet asked us what we knew about him, and we started with, "Well, he eats people," and went on from there. But what really interested me were the passing comments people would make about him as we discussed this. Grendel is not very thoroughly described in the poem, so it leaves a lot to the imagination.

"I thought he was basically, you know, a person," said one girl, "until it got to that part about the claw..." (I think it says something about "heathen talons"; I found that really cool.)

I confessed that Grendel always makes me think of Gollum. "But Gollum's small," Janet said. I know, but other than that, he's perfect. I can't help but think of him (which, considering how much Tolkien thought and wrote about Beowulf, somehow does not surprise me much). If Smeagol had been something bigger than a hobbit before he was corrupted by the ring, maybe he'd have been a bigger monster.

A guy who warned us that he'd jsut read Dracula mentioned that he saw similarities there, which I also found interesting. Vampires sort of eat people, and they come out at night like Grendel, and they're pretty much ostracized from society. And they're really hard to kill.

Another girl mentioned that she thought of the abomidable snowman. "But he's hairy," Janet pointed out. "Is Grendel hairy?" The girl said in her mind he was.

Someone said he made her think of trolls. I think she was the one who was talking about him being green, too, and another girl added that she also thought he was brownish green. "Like a dinosaur," she added. That made me laugh. I wanted to ask how she knew dinosaurs were brown and green, but I knew better than to obviously add to the already-tangential nature of the conversational thread. Janet said it'd have to be a carnivorous dinosaur. Somebody else suggested that it should be a velociraptor, which sounded good to me. They even have claws!

Comments

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

I have to look up the title/author, but there's a book somewhere that's essentially "Beowulf," but written from Grendel's POV.

H

Here it is...

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

Grendel book on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679723110/qid=1081887728/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-8705526-9179003)

[cosmolinguist]

Cool. Thank you; it sounds like it'd be interesting.

[orgash.livejournal.com]

Grendel by the late John Gardner (died riding his motorcycle), who taught/discovered the great short-story writer, Raymond Carver. It took gardner almost 20 years to become a published writer. he also wrote a book about the process of becoming a writer. it's one of the best ever on that subject.

[opticnerves.livejournal.com]

In my mind, Grendel was always sort of lizard-y. Kind of like a dinosaur of some sort, maybe a chubby raptor.

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

>a chubby raptor

Am imagining a raptor in a striped shirt, shorts, socks pulled all the way up, with plump knees. Kind of like Ralphie Wiggum on "The Simpsons."

Socially maladjusted raptors - Jurassic Park with Pocket Protectors, bad haircuts, and personal hygiene problems. *giggle*

Helga
-who is rather chubby herself, but is grooving on the image of "Carnivores Anonymous - just say no to that third helping of bison..."

[opticnerves.livejournal.com]

Well then no wonder he's so mean! Grendel was just sort of a medieval Columbine kid.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Sounds pretty much like me, all things considered.

And what gives with disappearing as soon as I IM you, eh ? :-p

[cosmolinguist]

It'd explain why you sing like Tom Waits. :-)

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

I sing like Tom Waits in my dreams. When I try to sing like Tom Waits I actually sound like Bernard Manning with a sore throat

[ivana-duboise.livejournal.com]

I always thought Grendel was female for one thing, hairy, and scaley -- because of having shingles.

Not hairy all over though ... just the back areas. Back of the arms too.

[kratkrat.livejournal.com]

Given the prevalence of trolls in Norse myth, one might latch onto 'troll' as a good answer. However, it was a whole different kind of troll, really, than what a modern American might picture.

For me, Boris Vallejo's rendition of Grendel always did the trick.

Still, I'm wondering if perhaps a draugr was what the original story tried to evoke. Not sure if they lived underwater, though, as I seem to recall Grendel did. (If I'm wrong on that score, hey... it's been a while since I read the tale.)

BTW: the "for breakfast, just a couple Danish" line really had me laughing!!

[cosmolinguist]

He doesn't live in water. He just lurks around in the dark and such.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, and the "for breakfast, just a couple Danish" is a line my prof shared with us in class today. I Googled it this afternoon and found that it's from a book called ShrinkLits, which sounds interesting (it claims to be Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down to Size). So it's not like I thought that up myself. :-) Just in case you'd like to know.