GRENDEL (JOHN GARDNER) HC/1S/1971/G-VG

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

GRENDEL (JOHN GARDNER) HC/1S/1971/G-VG:
$48.88

ITEM: Grendel, by John Gardner.

Today, much of author John Gardner\'s fiction is out of print; this winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and author of several bestsellers is now often represented onlyby a single volume in your neighborhood bookstore -- and that book is usually Grendel , his shortest and most postmodern novel.

In place of the insensate, man-eating Yeti of 12th-century myth, in Grendel Gardner gives us a literate monster who narrates his own tale with heavy irony and an almost paralyzing sense of his destiny. This Grendel is well aware that Unferth and Beowulf need him as inspiration for bravery and that the Shaper -- part poet, part PR man -- could not spin their exploits into myth without a truly loathsome foe. In very human fashion, Gardner\'s beast is torn between belief in the power of faith and the cynical pleasure of acting out his whims, which, in Grendel\'s case, tend to have gruesome consequences.

Gardner -- who died in 1982 as the result of a motorcycle crash-- shared much with his most famous creation. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, in his public assessments of some of his most esteemed fiction-writing peers, Gardner was as brutal and reckless as Grendel. In his scathing 1978 polemic On Moral Fiction , he calls Philip Roth \"creepy\" and dismisses Saul Bellow as \"an essayist disguised as a writer of fiction\"; Mailer, Albee, Vonnegut and many others come in for similar drubbings. Their work was not just bad, in Gardner\'s view, but dangerous.

Yet Gardner was, in many ways, indistinguishable from the brainy creatures he claimed to detest -- just as Grendel (in Gardner\'s reading) is more human than either he or the Danes wish to admit. A scholar and teacher with a passion for philosophy, Gardner was fascinated by the world of ideas; what else could explain his legendary late-night debates about literary theory or medieval verse? He borrowed some of the same experimental techniques he decried in other people\'s books, playfully breaking the \"vivid and continuous dream\" that he usually argued was fiction\'s raison d\'être.

If Gardner was, indeed, our \"Grendel of letters,\" then his raiding had a predictable end. Infuriated by the arrogance and hypocrisy of Hrothgar\'s horde, Gardner\'s Grendel tries to teach them a brutal lesson, but he is destined for a comeuppance -- an \"accident,\" as he calls it, but also an inevitability given his villain status. Likewise, Gardner\'s fall from literary grace, and ultimately from life itself,ironically seems anything but accidental.

With line illustrations by Emil John Gardner---

John Champlin Gardner was born in Batavia, New York in 1933; his father was a dairy farmer and lay Presbyterian minister, and his mother was an English teacher. Both parents instilled in him a love of classic literature. He also developed passions for cartooning and music, which his parents encouraged. His idyllic childhood was shattered, however, by the freak death of his younger brother Gilbert in a farming accident. This incident is reflected in Gardner\'s story \"Redemption.\"

After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Iowa, Gardner embarked on a lifelong teaching and writing career. He not only taught at a variety of colleges (including Oberlin, Chico State, San Francisco State, Southern Illinois University, Bennington, and the State University of New York at Binghamton), but spearheaded writer\'s workshops such as the annual Bread Loaf Conference at Middlebury College, Vermont. Big-hearted, hard-living and larger than life, John Gardner was married twice, first to Joan Louise Patterson and second to poet and fellow teacher Liz Rosenberg. He was preparing to make Susan Thornton his third wife in 1982 when he died as the result of a motorcycle accident in Susquehanna, PA.

Gardner\'s most impressive work of fiction is probably Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf story from the viewpoint of the monster. The Sunlight Dialogues, Nickel Mountain, and October Light met with the most popular acclaim (although he was definitely a literary writer rather than a \"popular\" one).

John Gardner\'s fictional works are often difficult and confound literary classification. Although he is frequently considered a postmodernist, he sharply criticized postmodernists such as John Barth and Donald Barthelme. He expounded on his philosophy of writing in his most provocative book On Moral Fiction (1978). In this work, he argues that literature that has no moral center has no reason to exist. The true purpose of art, he maintains, is to express eternal truth, that which uplifts without sentimentality and redeems without pity. His scathing criticism of contemporary writers did not win Gardner many popularity contests among his fellow writers at the time, but today he is remembered as much for his analysis and philosophy of literature as he is for his 1st edition hardcover is published by ALFRED A. KNOPF (1971...174 pages). NO DUST JACKET. The book is in good+ to very good condition showing age appropriate wear. (8 on a 10 scale).

The image(s) depicted with this listing is of the actual item(s) you will receive---NO STOCK/DOCTORED PHOTOS ARE USED.

U.S. SHIPPING ON THIS ITEM IS $3.99 FOR MEDIA MAIL ONLY/then $1.00 for each additional item when combined. AVERAGE DELIVERY TIME FOR MEDIA MAIL IS 7-15 BUSINESS DAYS. NO INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING---NO EXPEDITED SHIPPING. PAYMENT ACCEPTED VIA PAYPAL ONLY. ITEMS BEING SOLD ARE USED UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. response GLADLY LEFT UPON REQUEST. FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST AND PLEASE STOP BACK AGAIN... (L2)