Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton

Eaters of the Dead

Michael Crichton

I have a phone call into the English Department at Northern Michigan University to revoke my Outstanding Senior of 1981 since I did not recognize this as Beowulf until at least halfway through.  Shame on me.

This novel appears to be another of the many attempts to rewrite the famous poem, whether to explain the spookier elements or simply make it entertaining to modern readers.  (If you listen to Seamus Heaney's translation and his own reading, you won't need that.  It does it all b itself.)

You may recognize the story as the basis for The 13th Warrior, a movie starring Antonio Banderas.  I honestly cannot decide which I think you would like better.  They each have their attractions.  While the great deal of pseudo-scholarship Crichton  laces throughout the novel adds a great deal to it, it is less certain that you will find the narrator's storytelling style fascinating or annoying.  Crichton is telling the story from the point of view of an Arab court functionary from Baghdad.  Somehow while traveling to Bulgaria on behalf of his Caliph, the Arab is conscripted into a band of Northmen from Russia who set out to save a kinsman from Mist Monsters who are devastating the land.  The Arab takes a sort of skeptical scientific approach until, as he says over and over, "I saw it with my own eyes!"

Take the basic Beowulf story, arrival at the hall of the inept king Hrothgar who brought the visitations on himself, the attack of the monster on the hall and Beowulf's success in pulling off the monsters;s arm, and the attack by and destruction of the monster's mother, and you have Eaters of the Dead.  There are two major differences.  One is that Grendel is now a whole host of Neanderthals who sneak up on the Northmen when the mist comes down from the mountain.  The dragon, who shows up early in this version, is just a line of these Neanderthals carrying torches down a mountainside.  Grendel's mother far from being Angelina Jolie is a greatly aged Neanderthal Venus of Wilendorf.  The sed is that you get to know several of the warriors who, however unflattering Crichton's portrayal, inspire admiration in both the Arab and the reader.

This is a short novel.  I borrowed the cassette audio book from my local library, and it was on only six cassettes.  My favorite part of the book is that it is written as if by a scholar presenting an old and much analyzed and debated account, written by the Arab whose name I obviously do not know how to spell having listened to the book.  The author, or the character portrayed as the author, frequently interrupts the "manuscript' to comment on scholarship about it and to add notes about historical and archaeological facts related to the tale.  i finally caught on to this when a scholar named "Joseph Cantrell" was obviously meant to be Joseph Campbell.  The reader needs to realize the scholarship itself is fictional every bit as much as the Arab's tale..  Don't start quoting Cantrerll in paper's for your Old English Lit class.

All the same, this made for a different sort of reading, entertaining and enlightening at the same time, and extremely well done.