Beowulf Through the Eyes of Women

Let's face it: A retelling of Beowulf will never appeal to the masses the way that Nicole and Keith's new baby or a new Will Smith movie will. But make no mistake, Vanderbilt editor Ashley Crownover's Wealtheow: Her Telling of Beowulf (Iroquois, 195 pp., $13.95) not only offers an intriguing take on the epic, but does so in a way that will interest even those who missed last year's film version and whose knowledge of Beowulf is thus only a vague memory from sophomore lit.

In Crownover's retelling, the narrator is Wealtheow, wife of Hrothgar. As a young girl, she is married to the king to play the role of "Peaceweaver" between the Danes and the Helmings. Luckily, her marriage is also a love match, and their life together turns out much as she expected.

Then Grendel attacks. As Wealtheow says, "We went to sleep that night with peaceful hearts and easy minds. When we woke, our lives as we knew them had ended, and a nightmare had begun." Crownover documents well what the monster's siege means to the Danish women: constant mourning for the men who are torn apart by Grendel, taking care of suddenly fatherless children or mourning the fact that there will be no children now that a husband is dead. The great hall of Heorot becomes a deserted place ruled by a seemingly invincible monster. As the years go by, this horrible life becomes the new normal. "The adults remembered fondly, brokenly, the old days, but our sons and daughters understood only the present onerous existence. What was cruel to us was to them merely the way of life."

In Crownover's story, Grendel's mother Ginnar was betrayed by Wealtheow's parents, and Wealtheow recognizes there is more than one villain in this tale: "Years of misguided magic—spells cast with evil in mind—would have been necessary to create what her malformed babe had become. And yet it was not all the doing of a wounded mother with a gift of enchantment. The decisions made by my people—my mother, my father, my community—had helped to create this terror." Wealtheow's mother and Ginnar exert their power the only ways women could: through influence over their men or by living outside of society all together. Neither ultimately succeeds. But Wealtheow learns from their experiences when she must also stand up for the defenseless.

A skillful weaver of words and motifs, Crownover adds layers of magic, psychology and feminism to the legendary Beowulf. She is also a gifted storyteller. No degree in English is needed to enjoy this novel—just the liking of a good tale.

Ashley Crownover will read 7 p.m. at Davis-Kidd Booksellers Tuesday, July 29.