The Saga of Beowulf - Popin's Lair Review

This is my fifth review of The Saga of Beowulf, and the first not to receive a full five stars, netting only four instead. However, I will say up front that I feel this is deserved and fair, given what is said in the review. I'm frankly surprised that this lengthy tome has received such high praise thus far, and have been waiting anxiously for someone to come along and knock it down a peg (or star, as the case may be).

Some months ago I did an interview on Popin's Lair, where I also held one of my first drawings for a copy of the book. I gave the author of the blog a copy to read as well, and have been waiting for her review, especially given it's been listed on her "currently reading" panel for almost a month, and several other books have come and gone on that list meanwhile. But it's a long book, I know, and the holidays as well. But at long last here it is (slightly doctored for grammar):

Great Read ****
By Popin (Canada)

Beowulf is one of the oldest stories known to man, an epic that has captivated many generations. Many of us had to read some of Beowulf in school. I think in one of my classes we had to take a small section of the poem and translate the Old English into the English that we know today. It was hard...and it took me away from the story. I did my job, handed it in, and promptly forgot about it.

When the CGI movie of Beowulf came out, my interest in Beowulf peaked. The graphics were nicely done and while the story strayed from the original poem, I liked it well enough. So when I heard about The Saga of Beowulf, I knew I had to read it. That, and I wanted to see how someone would fare translating the long, long, LONG poem into today's English. I got bored and I only did a small paragraph, so I thought it would be interesting to read the book and find out.

I expected the book to be big, and at a massive 640 pages of small print, I wasn't disappointed. I was a little nervous in reading the book, but found that once you got into it, the story flowed very nicely. That doesn't mean that there weren't times when I was hit with a dry spot, because that does happen. The beginning and ending of the novel were fast paced and had a lot of action, but there were times in the middle portion, after Beowulf defeated Grendel and the story goes into politics, is where I felt the story started to slow down. The politics between the nations, while interesting, didn't have the same pace as the other parts of the novel, so it was a little hard to read.

Another problem that I had was the ending. I know I just said I liked it and I did, it was an awesome ending to the story of Beowulf, I just wish there was more of it. The events leading up to Beowulf's last battle were interesting, but when the actual battle happened, I was left with a feeling of, "That was it?" I wanted a little bit more description of what Beowulf was going through and how it was affecting Hæreth, Beowulf's lover. I know how this sounds - I wanted the book to be even longer. But for this particular scene, I felt like it was crucial to find out more. There is one scene where it shows what Hæreth is going through, but I just wanted more.

One thing that I did love about this story was the character of Beowulf. I liked the CGI movie but their Beowulf there, is completely different from the Beowulf here. In the movie, Beowulf is shown to be an arrogant, brass, thickheaded, brute, if you will; but in the book, he's compassionate, kind, strong. He's more human and doesn't let his achievements get to his head, which is great, since he has a pretty crappy life. If he wasn't portrayed as such, I don't think I would have felt as bad as I did for all the depressing things that happened to him.

If you are a Beowulf fan, I think you'd like The Saga of Beowulf, and if you are not a Beowulf fan, then I think you might like this as well. I had a fun time reading this.

So you'll like it one way or the other, fan or not. That's my kind of review. Buy the book already! You can't lose.

I thought this was a particularly insightful review, not least of all due to it's honesty. Don't get me wrong, I love my five star reviewers to death, and want to take them all out to dinner; but as a writer it's almost more useful to discover where your weaknesses lie than your strengths. You already use your strengths - what you need to work on is the rest.

But this review brought up another interesting point for me, apart from what was said of the book itself, which is that with the print-on-demand technology that I'm using to produce this book, I can make any changes that I want to at anytime without a hassle and for little cost. So if the reader wants more story at the ending, I can give it to them.

This particular comment struck me most profoundly due to my own inherent sense that I hadn't really fleshed out the final chapters as well as I would have liked. And this was due to nothing else but that I frankly ran right out of steam after working on it for so long. I also felt that the ending came too soon and that the final scenes could have had a bit more depth. But I didn't listen to my instinct and let it go, if for no other reason than the page count had already grown unwieldy by that point. This, of course, brings up the notion that perhaps I should also go back in and trim some of those "dry spots" out while I'm at it.

But I think before I do I'll wait a bit until a few more of those pending reviews pour in, so that I can add their thoughts to the process. So here's your chance to be a part of the next revision. If you've read the book and have some ideas that you'd like to share, please feel free to send them in. I'd be more than happy to take them into consideration.

Pacing is probably one the hardest things to handle in a lengthy novel, or any work of fiction for that matter, because the writer is completely incapable of being objective about it, knowing from the first how the story will all turn out, which the reader does not, even in an adaptation such as this. Wanting to know "what happens next" - and finding out - is what keeps you turning pages. But when you already know the answer there's no real way to tell if that equation is being fulfilled, except by guessing. The best you can do plot the trajectory of your story carefully, so that hopefully there is always something interesting going on. But then, as Popin points out, even "interesting" isn't always enough to keep the story flowing. Action, it seems is also necessary.

Now, this is a pretty action-intensive tale, I have to say, with seemingly (to me) nonstop battles start to finish, including multiple wars and fights both with men and demons. But there is also a great deal of dialogue and static content - what they call in movies "talking heads" more or less. And there are a lot of heads, too. Some hundred or more "speaking roles" and scenes with upwards of thirty or more of these involved at any given time. A lot of talking for such men of action. Maybe I should just cut out their tongues and have done with it.

Still, it's an encouraging thing to have a reader, after 640 pages of gruelling narrative, come away still wanting more. And that says more to me than all the rest of the review.