Monthly Connections October, Grendel and Other "Parallel Stories"

I've never been a fan of sequels unless the storyline was designed to be in a series of novels. But I'm not too fond of book series either, with the exception of Harry Potter. So I ask myself, why would anyone want to write a "follow up" novel to the poem Beowulf? To begin with, Beowulf was written long ago and it wasn't written in a modern language. I believe that there is a reason why writers write what they write and there is a reason why some things are left unexplained and why stories end where they end. The rest is open to interpretation.

The first problem I have with Grendel is the way it is written. It appeared to me that the author was trying to write in a style that was similar to the flow and diction of Beowulf. Except, he didn't really succeed. The wording just didn't match up for me. One of the biggest problems I had regarding this was the use of swears. These words didn't exist when Beowulf was written so why would an author use them in a novel that was supposed to take place during the same time? I can understand the use of swears in literature when someone is talking or when it is written on the wall like in The Catcher in the Rye, but I feel that it shows a limited vocabulary if the writer can't find a better word or phrase to use other than a swear.

Another problem I had with Grendel is when we were discussing it in class. Everyone made it sound as though this is actually how Grendel is in Beowulf, but it's not. This is only one person's interpretation, it's not exactly what the author of Beowulf intended for the character of Grendel. So I wonder to myself, why are we interpreting it as though it were? It would be like writing the Boo Radley version of To Kill a Mockingbird and depicting him as a total pervert until the very end when he saves Scout and Jem because he's had a sudden change of heart but then going beynd the story and making him kill everyone because really he's a psychotic killer. Not only would this be untrue to the story, it would be one version of how the story truly ends and it would be a version that not many people would like.

So how does this observation tie into "my life, media, or on a larger scale to something happening in society or the world?" Well, there are many books that have been published without the author's direct consent as informal sequels or follow ups or "sister stories" to previously written novels. In my mind, these people should not be writers because they are taking an unoriginal thought (the previously written novel) and putting a spin on it to make it their own. Why is it that Geraldine Brooks has to tell me what really went on to the Mr. March from Little Women in her novel March? I filled in the cracks for myself and I find it almost disrespectful that an author would believe that her version is so great that it should be published and readers of Little Women should just accept her version as the true version. And who the hell does John Clinch think he is to go out and say what "really happened" to Huck Finn's father in his novel Finn? Once again, he is trying to rework a classic and say that his version is true. There are so many informal sequels to the novels Pride and Prejudice and Gone With the Wind, and I find it overall insulting to the readers of the original text. Any "writer" who goes out and publishes an informal sequel--in my mind-- believes that the readers of the original novel are too stupid or too dumb or too uncreative to come up with an epilouge that they like. Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Margaret Mitchell, and any other writer who has written a story that someone created a spin-off of, ended the story or left out certain parts for a reason-- for the reader to decide for himself. Anyone who has accepted spin-off stories as true is a fool.

I was watching the new Beowulf movie that came out this morning and I took note of many inconsistencies between it and the book. Most people do realize that movies are usually altered when they have been created from books. This is not the case with novels. In class, we never discussed other possibilites of what made the character of Grendel from Beowulf behave the way he did. Well, we did but it wasn't in-depth to the point that we were saying that he had human qualities and could talk and was friends with this dragon that eventually kills Beowulf. The way I pictured him was as a monster who was evil and had to eat so he ate people. John Gardner told me I was wrong, he said Grendel is this guy who really just wanted to be friends with humans but they tried to kill him so he instead killed them, and oh by the way, he can talk and is capable of complex thought, and he's really not a bad guy at all. He just kills people because, well, they made him mad once. And even though he's some kind of creature, he's basically better than all of he humans in the novel. This was not my interpretation at all and I refuse to accept it because Beowulf has absolutely nothing to do with whatever John Gardner wrote.

I can understand when a writer wants to come back with a follow up or sister story to another novel they wrote, but I do not appreciate other authors telling me how a story ends when they didn't write it to begin with.

All of these novels should come with a big sticker on the cover: WARNING: this novel was written without the consent of (the author of original) and in no way expresses his/her beliefs.