Although reading Beowulf
seemed extremely confusing at first, it turned out to be an exciting story
where the courageous Beowulf fights with beasts and dragons to secure kingdoms’
peace.
To begin with, I just have to say that the writer of
this had to be insane. More than three-quarter of the characters’ names begin
with the letter “H”. Because I got confused after seeing every single name in
the novel (apart from Beowulf, that was very different from others), I had to
keep flipping back to the last page in order to figure out who the character
was. These issues with names made me stop so often I couldn’t read the story as
smoothly as I wanted to.
I really liked the plot. Even though the story was a
bit repetitive as Beowulf fought with Grendel, his mother, and the dragon, I
thought the battles nicely conveyed Beowulf’s strong pride as a warrior. In the
beginning I thought Beowulf was over-conceited, but the way he died to defend
his own kingdom was very impressing. The sacrifice he made in the last battle
proved that he was a “hero” instead of being one of the “historical figures”.
Overall, the book was very thoroughly detailed as if
I was actually there to witness Beowulf’s great deeds. Even though I personally
do not like reading poems, I enjoyed reading how Beowulf rose from a common
fighter to a savior of two nations.
Your first point made me laugh, but you have to keep in mind there's no one author to blame (or praise) here--this was an oral tale passed down through the ages, and eventually written down. The reason there would have been so many similar names has to do with the naming traditions of ancient Scandinavia, where names needed to connect to one's father and tribe, and so there would be a lot of similarity of letters and sound.
ReplyDeleteI felt like I should read your post Maho since you read mine (even though you thought it was someone else's post :P). I personally don't know what was confusing, it seemed pretty straightforward to me. Maybe it was the structure of the story? Or the grammar? Kind of like how Austen is hard to read in my opinion. I would definitely have to agree on the battle scenes. Yeah repetitive whatever, they were awesome. Well to be fair they were different, sword for Grendel's mom, bare hands for Grendel, etc...I totally also get what you mean about reading poems, luckily this didn't seem so much like a poem, but rather a book.
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