Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

I actually read this book a couple of months ago, before I revived this blog, so my grasp of the plot and its details is going to be a little loose. Once I go back to review a lot of the books and films and video games that I've experienced in the past two years, I'm going to run into that problem again and again. For this particular work, however, it's okay - because I don't really have anything bad to say about it.

I went into Eaters of the Dead knowing full-well that it was a retelling of Beowulf. I can't imagine what it would have felt like to read it and not know it, and then to finally realize that it was (I'm sure it wasn't an Earth-shattering revelation, but it probably would have been pretty cool). Crichton alludes in the end notes that this novel was more or less conceived on a bet that he couldn't make one of the old "classics" interesting to read to a modern audience. He picked Beowulf, and he succeeded.
The characters are engaging, the action scenes are well-constructed and the fear of the protagonist as he travels with these barbarous vikings is palpable. His change from cowardly merchant to budding warrior is believable and exciting to read.

The format is what does it for me, though. Written in the style of a false document, the story is taken from the "journals" of a Middle-Eastern merchant as he travels throughout the continent, eventually being taken on by a group of Nordic warriors. Inevitably, he goes with them to confront a group of "monsters" and their "queen", meant to be Grendel and her followers, but explained by Crichton in his in-world notes as a group of relict Neanderthals. Even though techniques like this may have the tendency to come off as some sort of gimmick, a la "Beowulf the history book", I think that if it's done properly it can really enhance a work. The first example that jumps into my pop culture-addled mind is the "documents" that come in between chapters of Alan Moore's Watchmen. At times these in-universe documents can really help with character development and emotional resonance. The pirate comic book in Watchmen is a great example of this, but my favorite is the Rolling Stone-style interview with Ozymandias before the final chapter of the novel.

While Crichton's adaptation of Beowulf isn't quite as epic as Watchmen, it definitely succeeds in revitalizing a more or less "old and boring" classic. The false document style can even be seen as a commentary on the work that Crichton himself is commenting on. By writing a novel about an academic analysis of a merchant's mysterious northern expedition and it's anthropological implications, Crichton is reemphasizing that the classics are important, even if they need a little dusting off and polishing every once in a while.