felis_ultharus: The Pardoner from the Canterbury Tales (Default)
[personal profile] felis_ultharus
so I'm reading Beowulf, and trying to puzzle out the Anglo-Saxon before I cheat and read the the translation on the opposite page.

I think the Old English word "snotor" -- meaning "clever, wise, or prudent" -- most appeals to my inner 12-year-old. I keep thinking that Snotor was that mutant rejected by all leagues and societies of superheroes and supervillains because his powers were too disgusting, and is now reduced to robbing banks.

Meanwhile, I've developed a lot of sympathy for Grendel. I mean, here's this guy who's had a pretty hard life -- I mean, if living in a lake isn't low income housing I don't know what is. And he lives with his mother, so he's either a) a kid, b) a slacker who's bounced back home, or c) looking after an elderly mother in her declining years. Either way he gets my sympathy.

So the Yuppie-Danes move in, build a fancy new building that likely drives up the property values and rents, and then proceed to party late into the night, every night so that Grendel Jr. and Mrs. Grendel can't sleep.

Their options for recourse are few. There won't be a police force to call about this sort of thing for a good thousand years, so Grendel climbs up the hill to have a word with the Danes. What happens next -- well, we only have the Danes' side of the story.

(I'm suspicious of the bias of any version where the author feels the need to often describe the villain as evil, and repeatedly traces a lineage for them back to Cain.)

And Mrs. Grendel's situation is even more understandable. Who wouldn't snap after the loss of a child?

ETA: Also, I added the Facebook app iRead, because it's one of the few apps that looks interesting. It allows me to see the books my friends with the same app are reading/have read. Right now it's displaying 1984, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and two different editions of Lord of the Flies. My friends are cheery bunch, aren't they?

(no subject)

Date: 2008-05-17 11:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sugar-spun.livejournal.com
I've only ever read snippets of Beowulf, and the Seamus Heaney translation doesn't inspire me to make any overtures. There's just something about him I don't like. I do feel sorry for Grendel and Mrs Grendel, though. It's not as though they were being unreasonable.

In case you're interested, I'm rereading The End of Mr Y. It's not cheerful but I really like it.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-05-17 11:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] felis-ultharus.livejournal.com
I actually like Heaney's poetry -- though a lot of it's about Ireland, and as you've actually lived in Ireland, you'd know better than I would if it rings false from experience.

I've never heard of The End of Mr. Y, and I'm always scared to Google/Wiki books for fear of having the good parts spoilt. What's it about?

(no subject)

Date: 2008-05-17 12:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sugar-spun.livejournal.com
It feels a lot like the sort of mystic business that sells well outside of Ireland, but has so little to do with the experience of people who have to do actual things that it doesn't feel relevant. The bogs are beautiful, and they do stir up images of the past, but ... I can't really explain my problem with the images he uses. They feel very contrived to me, very calculated to do well in the US.

The End of Mr Y is about a book that's so rare there's only one copy known to be in existence, and everyone who was involved in the publishing died mysteriously. Everyone who's ever read it has died, in fact, so it has the reputation for being cursed.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-05-19 10:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] felis-ultharus.livejournal.com
That sounds really cool.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-05-17 01:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] montrealais.livejournal.com
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground! We 'ad to go and live in a lake.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-05-19 10:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] felis-ultharus.livejournal.com
Yeah -- I was thinking of that as I posted.

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felis_ultharus: The Pardoner from the Canterbury Tales (Default)
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