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A review by mediaevalmuse
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
5.0
This book was perhaps the best adaptation/retelling of Beowulf I’ve ever read. I was wary at first, because I’m not a huge fan of novels set in suburbia, but the setting actually worked out very well, probably because I could see the author working with the themes of the original poem rather than strictly replicating the narrative/action. I’d recommend reading Beowulf before this book, since a lot of the things that happen in The Mere Wife take on new significance if you’re already familiar with the original text, but overall, this was a wonderful read.
Things I Liked
1. Prose: The prose isn’t quite stream-of-consciousness, but there are a lot of free associations, often expressed with a type of poetic quality that alludes to the feel of the Beowulf poem without adopting the same techniques. I think I appreciated the prose so much precisely because so many adaptations/retellings leave the feel of poetry behind, and the feel of the poem is just as important to the experience as the narrative. This novel expertly brought a sense of poetry to the story and making it integral in its telling, without being chained to kennings, alliteration, etc. It’s updated to reflect modern aesthetic tastes, and I loved it.
2. Female Lens: A lot of retellings, I’ve noticed, tend to focus on the macho warrior ethos, but this book frames the story in terms of motherhood and female subjectivity. Yes, there are chapters that focus on male characters’ perspectives, but overall, most of the story has to do with motherhood, and women are dominant characters.
3. Narrative Voices: I was delighted that POV characters were sometimes named women, such as Willa and Dana, but other times, we saw the story through the eyes of the collective perspective of Willa’s mother/mother-in-law/suburban housewives of the previous generation. Other times, we read the story from the perspective of the forest/nature spirits which move through the area. I loved these more abstract points of view.
4. References to Original Poem: As I mentioned before, the novel isn’t so much replicating the plot as the themes, and some of my favorite moments where when I could see the influence of the poem on the novel in more abstract ways. True, there were plot points that were the same: an arm was detached from a body at one point, the Beowulf character was a swimmer in his youth, etc. But I especially loved moments where Headley takes the sense of the poem and translates it to a modern-day context: Dana feels ostracized from her own homeland, Gren is an outsider in part because of his obscure origins (but also, the suggestion that he may be mixed-race), the golden dragon on Dana’s watch (suggesting that the poem-dragon is time?). Things like that made me very happy.
4. Definitions of Hwaet: Beowulf opens with the word “hwaet,” which is notoriously difficult to translate. I loved how Headley took all the various definitions (Listen, Attend, So, etc.) and organized sections of the book around them. For example, the first section is called “Listen,” and every opening line of a chapter begins with the word “Listen.” She does this for every section, and every definition. It was pretty neat.
Things I Didn’t Like
1. Part Three ("the Dragon"): Maybe this is me being picky, but I wasn’t exactly enthralled by part three. Maybe it was the way the story ended - I did love how the relationship between Dylan and Gren developed, but I’m not sure the way everything ended sat right with me. This critique might be personal preference, though, so keep that in mind.
Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in Beowulf, medieval retellings, suburban drama, motherhood, and parent-child relationships.
Things I Liked
1. Prose: The prose isn’t quite stream-of-consciousness, but there are a lot of free associations, often expressed with a type of poetic quality that alludes to the feel of the Beowulf poem without adopting the same techniques. I think I appreciated the prose so much precisely because so many adaptations/retellings leave the feel of poetry behind, and the feel of the poem is just as important to the experience as the narrative. This novel expertly brought a sense of poetry to the story and making it integral in its telling, without being chained to kennings, alliteration, etc. It’s updated to reflect modern aesthetic tastes, and I loved it.
2. Female Lens: A lot of retellings, I’ve noticed, tend to focus on the macho warrior ethos, but this book frames the story in terms of motherhood and female subjectivity. Yes, there are chapters that focus on male characters’ perspectives, but overall, most of the story has to do with motherhood, and women are dominant characters.
3. Narrative Voices: I was delighted that POV characters were sometimes named women, such as Willa and Dana, but other times, we saw the story through the eyes of the collective perspective of Willa’s mother/mother-in-law/suburban housewives of the previous generation. Other times, we read the story from the perspective of the forest/nature spirits which move through the area. I loved these more abstract points of view.
4. References to Original Poem: As I mentioned before, the novel isn’t so much replicating the plot as the themes, and some of my favorite moments where when I could see the influence of the poem on the novel in more abstract ways. True, there were plot points that were the same: an arm was detached from a body at one point, the Beowulf character was a swimmer in his youth, etc. But I especially loved moments where Headley takes the sense of the poem and translates it to a modern-day context: Dana feels ostracized from her own homeland, Gren is an outsider in part because of his obscure origins (but also, the suggestion that he may be mixed-race), the golden dragon on Dana’s watch (suggesting that the poem-dragon is time?). Things like that made me very happy.
4. Definitions of Hwaet: Beowulf opens with the word “hwaet,” which is notoriously difficult to translate. I loved how Headley took all the various definitions (Listen, Attend, So, etc.) and organized sections of the book around them. For example, the first section is called “Listen,” and every opening line of a chapter begins with the word “Listen.” She does this for every section, and every definition. It was pretty neat.
Things I Didn’t Like
1. Part Three ("the Dragon"): Maybe this is me being picky, but I wasn’t exactly enthralled by part three. Maybe it was the way the story ended - I did love how the relationship between Dylan and Gren developed, but I’m not sure the way everything ended sat right with me. This critique might be personal preference, though, so keep that in mind.
Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in Beowulf, medieval retellings, suburban drama, motherhood, and parent-child relationships.