The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Beowulf by an unknown author. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.
I should start off my review of this story with the premise that I do not generally like stories that are written in "Old English" or something close to modern English, such as Shakespeare. They take too much for me to get invested in the story personally and I find that detracts from my enjoyment. The story of Beowulf is about a famous man who slays several monsters and eventually gets killed while taking down a dragon. The story is rather difficult upon first reading because of the illusions created by the author. Unlike The Divine Comedy though, the illusions are not related to contemporary concepts but it is more of a figurative language. For example, instead of saying "ocean" it becomes a "whale-path." So a first reading can be rather a rather arduous task but future readings present more opportunities for understanding. Overall, the story itself is very simplistic but I believe it is the rich language which is used to describe the story which caused it to be placed on the "100 Greatest Books of All Time" list. Overall, this is not a particular favorite of mine, mainly because the language is such a barrier for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment