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  • (Translation) Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

    From James Nicoll@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 3 13:08:04 2024
    Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

    Noisy neighbours and an unresponsive HOA force Grendel to take
    matters into his own hands.

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/great-balls-of-fire
    --
    My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
    My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
    My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
    My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

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  • From Garrett Wollman@21:1/5 to James Nicoll on Wed Jul 3 17:04:44 2024
    In article <v63ifk$e9v$[email protected]>,
    James Nicoll <[email protected]> wrote:
    Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

    Noisy neighbours and an unresponsive HOA force Grendel to take
    matters into his own hands.

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/great-balls-of-fire

    So back in the, ummm, somewhat better days of social media, the
    translator was all over Book Twitter, and I figured I probably ought
    to read it one day. As it turns out, I was a member of the 2021
    Worldcon so I actually have an epub of it from the 2021 Hugo voter's
    packet. Perhaps I'll get around to reading it some day. (I'm doing
    badly enough on this year's nominees -- I blew through the artist
    categories because they're easy and don't require a lot of focus, but
    the I have not been able to get into the prose at all, let alone the
    zines and fan writing, and there are very few days left to vote.)

    -GAWollman

    --
    Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, [email protected]| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
    my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

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  • From Ted Nolan @21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed Jul 3 16:36:49 2024
    In article <v63sua$28ic6$[email protected]>,
    Cryptoengineer <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 7/3/2024 9:08 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
    Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

    Noisy neighbours and an unresponsive HOA force Grendel to take
    matters into his own hands.

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/great-balls-of-fire

    Though I certainly knew of the poem earlier, my first
    exposure to the story was John Gardner's 'Grendel', which
    tells the first part of the story from the monster's POV.

    I've seen it suggested that The Hobbit started off as
    Tolkien retelling the second part (stealing from a dragons
    horde) to this children, embellishing and extending the
    story.


    My father could read it in Old English and did his Phd on Beowulf,
    however it never made it into our bedtime stories (not that we ever
    fell asleep drunk in a meadhall). I gave him a copy of Anderson's
    version of Hrolf Kraki's Saga once, but I don't recall what he
    thought about it.
    --
    columbiaclosings.com
    What's not in Columbia anymore..

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  • From John Savard@21:1/5 to James Nicoll on Wed Jul 3 22:06:29 2024
    On 3 Jul 2024 13:08:04 -0000, [email protected] (James Nicoll) wrote:

    Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

    Noisy neighbours and an unresponsive HOA force Grendel to take
    matters into his own hands.

    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/great-balls-of-fire

    An occurrence is _fortunate_ when it brings good in its wake.

    An occurrence is _fortuitous_ when, in addition to being fortunate, it
    is a great stroke of luck, as it was highly improbable.

    While the apparent error in usage may have been intentional, since it
    _sort of_ goes along with the arch, ironic tone of the beginning of
    your essay, it is not entirely clear that this was the case, as the
    additional exageration it brings is not really needed for the ironic
    effect, and, instead, seems to mitigate against the suspension of
    disbelief needed for the irony to succeed.

    John Savard

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