Where Beowulf Gets a MG Makeover

Beowulf: Dragon Slayer by Rosemary Sutcliff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Rosemary Sutcliff is known for her historical novels and retellings aimed mostly at young readers (we would probably call most of them MG, but you could argue YA for them, too). And she was very successful at this. Here is the retelling of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, and I thought it was excellent. Not perfect, IMO, but definitely well done and very entertaining.

This is still a slim book--she hasn't made Beowulf into a long novel. More like a novelette, actually, and with the fine drawings it reads very fast. She has embellished the story somewhat, adding sensory details and some exposition that wasn't in the original, and I love it all. The land around Heorot seems like a place people live instead of a fairytale village. The hall itself is finally kind of visible to me. The battle with Grendel seems more plausible and real. And there are a lot of such details, none of which do damage (as always, IMO) to the original story.

She has removed a couple of digressions, and I think that's wise. They don't really work for a modern audience, especially young readers, and they only slow down the narrative. Otherwise, the whole story is here. The only thing I felt it lacked was a bit more added in; every ounce of world-building she includes improves the story, and I feel there was room for about twice as much as she did. In fact, the story rolls along almost too fast (here and in the original) and could have used a little more breathing space. It could have been 20% or 30% longer without doing the pacing any harm at all.

But what she did really works. The language is still stately and feels old fashioned, but it's nicely comprehensible for average to good readers of a young age. I found it entertaining as an old man who already knows the story, so I'm pretty sure this would work with a lot of kids.

Of course, the only reason I even know of this 1962 book is because it was put on the discard rack at the school where I taught and I picked it up. I think most of the other copies of this book have met a similar fate. Like so many books, I suspect a new edition with a modern cover could be successful again, but there's little chance of that.

Alas.

Recommended for MG (especially) or YA readers who like historical adventures with a touch of supernatural. Or for readers of any age, honestly. I liked it.

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Chaucer in prose is entirely adequate to the purpose

The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling by Peter Ackroyd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked reading this version of the Canterbury tales. I was looking for a prose translation, not just modern English, and this fit the bill. It is, of course, instantly comprehensible for a modern reader, and untangles some knots for me that I had left over from other versions, so I'm grateful the adapter went to the trouble.

I can't say it made me like the Canterbury Tales, which I thought it might. I had hoped that the language would sound more natural, maybe kinda funny, even, but it still sounds like rephrased poetry, coming at you in short, staccato sentences that retain too many of Chaucer's tics. (The phrases "What else is there to say?" and "There is nothing more to say" are used so often it becomes annoying.) I would have preferred if the author had taken more liberties with the text, maybe smooth it out, maybe give it more style. He did, at least, leave it pleasantly crude. F-bombs galore.

For readers who want to read Chaucer's stories without fighting the language or scowling through contrived modern rhyme, this is a nice choice, my disappointments notwithstanding. It's accessible and clear and non-sanitized, and Chaucer's dialogue and stories still offers nice insights into the lives of people in that time.

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