Grendel by John Gardner (1971)

The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, tells his own side of the story in this frequently banned but much lauded retelling of the epic.

In the original Beowulf epic, Hrothgar, an ancient Danish warlord-king, builds a mighty palace and mead hall to stand as a tribute to his greatness. But his peace is troubled by the embittered monster Grendel, who comes nightly to pick off Hrothgar’s thanes and drag them back to his lair to eat their bones. Then the Goth warrior Beowulf arrives (from Västra Götaland in Sweden) and, after some mead-fuelled boasting, engages in deadly battle with Grendel.

Gardner’s trick in Grendel is not merely to turn these events inside out and give them a straight retelling from the monster’s perspective, but to give the story a fresh philosophical gloss, bringing a decidedly postmodern outlook to this pre-modern story. In Gardner’s hands, Grendel is not merely a monster but a sort of alienated, existentialist antihero, struggling to grasp the meaning of life, his consciousness, and the brute reality of the world he perceives around him. Through beautiful language, this short novel deftly juggles metaphysical notions while telling a diverting tale.