Tormented existentialism.

I wanted this book to be a hacked up slab of meat, dribbling blood, slapped down onto a filthy rustic table for me to attack in a snarling frenzy.

Instead, ‘Grendel’ is a fine dining experience for an erudite reader. Yes, it’s a delicate cut with complicated sauces and unfamiliar flavours. Rather than a plate (so passé), it’s served upside down on an eccentric sculpture as a clever reference to so-and-so.

All this fancy schmancy just left me starving for a story.

‘Grendel’ is a modern retelling of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, from the perspective of the villain Grendel.

I was looking forward to discovering a deeper complexity to the character, and eager to devour some literary action and gore. But this novel goes further to make Grendel an intolerable philosopher. It is very introspective, heavily inspired by classic intellectual discussions on the nature of existence, the self, and the universe.

I wish I could read this novel and smugly say, “Ah yes, Sartre’s concept of Nothingness”, but I can’t. I’m not that sort of reader, and it’s not what I’m looking for in a book.

At times my lower self did find Grendel’s thoughts relatable, in the darkest sense. His desperation to overcome loneliness and rejection manifested into grotesque anger, and made my black heart shrivel.

Eat beforehand if you don’t find high end intellectual morsels filling!

1 out of 5 tormented shrieks into the abyss.

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For another depressing and meandering pursuit of philosophical enlightenment you will surely enjoy ‘Beast’ by Paul Kingsnorth:

Review: Beast by Paul Kingsnorth

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