A New Telling About Beowulf

I think that the novel Beowulf a New Telling is not worth taking up needed time and money to read. The story is about an unusual hero named beowulf who admits his weaknesses to become stronger than most. He uses his gifts fight undefeatable monsters with his bare hands. One reason I dislike this novel is because the logic is flawed in more than one occasion. Beowulf a New Telling tries to cram three adventures into only one hundred and three pages of book reducing the quality of the novel. This story is not worth going out of your way to read.

The book Beowulf a New Telling is about a man named Beowulf who goes to save the land of denmark ruled by Hrothgar and Wealhtheow from the terrible monster Grendel. Once Grendel is killed by beowulf the beasts mother strikes Hall Heorot killing the despicable unferth. Beowulf manages to kill grendel's mother despite the fact that “She was too much a part of death to ever die.”p54 Later in the novel Beowulf is forced to defend his own kingdom from a fire dragon. Beowulf's plan to kill the fire dragon succeeds, However Beowulf is killed in the process.

The logic in the book has several flaws.

For example Beowulf is able to kill grendel's mother even though it was previously stated that “She was too much a part of death to ever die.”p54. Also when grendel's arm was ripped off by Beowulf, Beowulf’s arm should have been ripped out before grendels. Another instance of flawed logic is when Beowulf and Breca had a contest to see who could swim the longest carrying swords it souldn’t have been possible for either of them to swim nonstop for five days. “we were both good swimmers, and we went on and on, for five days and five nights, neither willing to admit defeat”p.31 These are some pretty serious flaws with the

logic.

Beowulf a New Telling crams too much into too little space. For example each of the three fights should be put in their own books instead of cramming them all in one novel. The fact that it is all crammed into one story means that there is no room for any good descriptions. The space between the fights is short and doesn’t give time to enjoy the book. It feels like the Robert Nye tried to cram as much as they could in as little space as possible this caused the book to be less interesting than it otherwise could be. Beowulf a New Telling is a good start but needs fine tuning to be a good final draft.

I was not overly excited by the novel Beowulf a New Telling. One reason was that the story had serious logical fallacies. Also the novel is crammed with three stories leaving no room for detailed descriptions. The novel is about a man who has weaknesses and learns to overcome them, making him stronger in the process. The book is a good rough draft but needs some major improvements to be worth reading. These are just a few of the reasons I believe that Beowulf a New Telling is not worth reading.