Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, #6

Over halfway through my first goal of ten book in the first month of this challenge. Six books down and it feels good to be challenging my mind in a way I've neglected since college. I forgot how much reading does for the mind.

Beowulf was one of those long poems assigned in highschool and 3 times in college and I never quite finished it. I always read it in a rush trying to finish the assignment or find a point to argue in a paper. Which saddens me because when I read Beowulf this time, the conversational style took me in and made me ponder things. Beowulf is an adventure, a moral story, soemthing to aspire to.
There is a mead hall terrorized by Grendel, a monster, who Beowulf kills. Grendel's mom is killed in a macabre underwater death scene after she tries to avenge her son's death. They are happy for a minute then there's a dragon! Which doesn't end as well.

But the interesting thing are the lessons...there is a high value put on strength and morality. It's very inspiring to also read about Beowulf traveling as far as he did to help out the Danes who made the mead hall Grendel terrorized. I almost wanted to be a sword wielding Geat defending a mead hall, the romance of Beowulf's life were so awe filled.

The only thing I had a hard time following was the flashbacks. Sometimes in the poem they would flash to an earlier time to set the scene or fill in the story line. If I didn't read that close enough I had to reread a second or two again wondering how we were talking again about the earlier rival of the Geats (Beowful's clan) to the Swedes. Besides that there was great moral take away for me.

And I kind of wonder what mead tastes like. Not to mention this kind of story is exactly what my husband loves...just like Lord of the Rings. Mystery, dragons, quests, lairs. In many of these ancient books and plays I'm reading for the challenge I find many similarities to the newer quest and fantasy stories around. It's funny how creativity seems to have a cyclical nature.

6 down...194 to go! I'm almost ten in!