Book Review- Beowulf

For the Classics Club, the literary movement challenge, alphabet soup challenge, pre-printing press challenge, author a-z (unknown) challenge, books in translation challenge, back to the classics challenge, full house challenge and the Mount TBR challenge I read Beowulf. Yes, that's a lot of challenges it counted for... but it needs to because I'm signed up for a lot of challenges. :)

Synopsis from Goodreads: The earliest extant poem in a modern European language, Beowulf was composed 400 years before the Norman Conquest. As a social document, this great epic poem reflects a feudal, newly Christian world of heroes and monsters, blood and victory and death. As a work of art, it rings with a beauty, power, and artistry that have kept it alive for more than twelve centuries.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. It was a pleasant mixture of the epicness of Tolkien and the format of Homer's The Odyssey. I whizzed through this in one day, something I did not expect to do. It actually kept me riveted the whole way through. I enjoyed the Christian aspect to it and the unquenchable bravery of Beowulf. If you like Tolkien I think you'll love this as well. Tolkien actually wrote a translation of it but unfortunately that's not the copy my family had. Someday though I'm sure I'll re-read it and be sure to get that copy. The translation I did read was from Burton Raffel.
Beowulf goes in the Medieval section of my literary movement challenge. I think it belongs there not only because of the time period within which it was written but also because various aspects of the story fit into that movement such as the anonymity of it, it's written in old English, and the poetic style in which it was written.
This was the first book I read for 2015, which was very exciting! I actually started it about 12:30 the morning of New Years just for the fun of it and then finished it that evening. :)
How are you all doing with reading this year? :)

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