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Beowulf Kindle Edition

by Bryher (Author), Susan McCabe (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
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Eighty years ago, the city of London became the target of a relentless bombing campaign by Nazi Germany during WWII that has come to be known as the Blitz. From the period between 1940-1945, over 20,000 Londoners were killed and half a million lost their homes. Bryher, who lived through a good part of those years in London, has provided us with an indelible portrait of day-to-day life from a variety of voices and perspectives from its regular citizens, humanizing the political backdrop of war with their pluck, humor, endurance, and courage. Her two female protagonists who own and operate the local teashop,The Warming Pan, become the heroes of the novel as they work to provide food and hospitality to the embattled community. The Beowulf of the title, far from the epic hero of the fundamental Anglo Saxon legend, is the name of the teashop's mascot: a plaster sculpture of a bulldog that they discover in the rubble after a heavy bombing raid that they make the centerpiece of their cafe. It becomes a symbol in turn for the fortitude and patient suffering of those innocent civilians caught in the maelstrom of war. Certain to appeal to all fans of WWII fiction, Beowulf is an unforgettable reminder of what it was like during that crucial time in Britain's and the world's history.
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  1. Print length
    180 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Schaffner Press
  5. Publication date
    October 14, 2020
  6. File size
    4357 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reading the book today, it feels urgent and absorbing... Beowulf makes for especially timely reading right now, proof of a surprising number of similarities, parallels, and echoes between the past and the present." LUCY SCHOLES The Paris Review

"Beowulf's stark humor makes it a faithful companion when times are uncertain... In republishing the work, [our] hope is that those in the twenty-first century will find their own "plaster" reflection in Beowulf, learning history's jolting repetitions-as well as finding in Bryher an insightful chronicler, observing the quotidian details of life in their most unreal and extreme circumstances." SUSAN MCCABE, PH. D Author of the forthcoming biography, H.D. AND BRYHER: A MODERNIST ROMANCE (Oxford University Press, May 2021)

About the Author

Bryher, née Winifred Ellerman, (1894-1983) was an author, philanthropist and activist who published several historical novels, of which Beowulf is the first, originally published in France in 1948 and subsequently in English in 1956 by Pantheon Books. Her other historical novels include The Roman Wall, Coin of Carthage, and The Player's Boy, as well as two memoirs, A Heart to Artemis and Days of Mars. She adopted the name Bryher after an island off the coast of England in order to disguise her gender as a writer. In addition to her own work, Bryher was best known as the lifelong companion of the imagist poet H.D.. Lesser known is the fact that before and during World War II, Bryher assisted a great number of artists, writers and psychologists to escape from Nazi-held territories, among them Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Walter Benjamin, Max Ernst, and many others. She also wrote and co-directed with her husband Kenneth Macpherson the avant garde silent film "Borderline," that starred Paul Robeson and H.D. Bryher and MacPherson co-founded the first english-language publication devoted to film criticism and theory, "Contact." She lived in Vevey, Switzerland. Susan McCabe was born in 1960 on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and has taught in Oregon and Arizona, and received her PhD at UCLA. She also taught and conducted research in her mother’s country of Sweden. She directed the PhD in Literature and Creative Writing Program (2006-2009), and has been President of the Modernist Studies Association. She is the author of four books, including two critical studies―Elizabeth Bishop: Her Poetics of Loss (Penn State University Press, 1994) and Cinematic Modernism: Modern Poetry and Film (Cambridge University Press, 2005)―and two poetry volumes, Swirl (Red Hen Press, 2003), and Descartes’ Nightmare (winner of the Agha Shahid Ali prize and published by Utah University Press in 2008). She is author of the upcoming dual biography: H.D. and Bryher: A Modernist Love Story, to be published by Oxford University Press.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09R346B9M
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Schaffner Press (October 14, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 14, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4357 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 180 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

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Bryher

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
11 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Patrick Odaniel
4.0 out of 5 stars Are We Really This Stupid?
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2009
As the prior reviewer noted--no, this is not the book some people might think it is. This Beowulf does not feature a fearsome Grendel but instead a plaster bulldog. One might have gathered that this was a different book after reading the first page about a superannuated artist trying to survive in London during the Blitz (indeed, this book is one of the best accounts of The Blitz to be placed alongside the WWII section of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time and Graham Greene's End of the Affair). Certainly, someone deserves a "one star" rating if this realization did not dawn until later.

So, what is Bryher's Beowulf about? First, you need to know that Bryher was the daughter of England's wealthiest man at the turn of the 20th century and went on to become a patron of the circle of modernist writers in Paris during the years chronicled by Hemingway in his wonderful A Moveable Feast. Which means this books has a somewhat dated modernist feel to it not unlike some of the works by Virginia Woolf. Oh, and Bryher was a confirmed lesbian, which explains the somewhat mysterious "partner" relationship between two of the main female characters who own a tearoom together, the Warming Pan. Well, that should whet your appetite. So, as long as you're not in the market for Viking swords and gore, I highly recommend this book.
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vladimir998
1.0 out of 5 stars This is not the Beowulf you might think it is!!!!
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2007
This is not about the Beowulf you might think it is. I was led by an online listing to believe that this was about Beowulf the famous hero of the Old English epic of the same name.

Big mistake.

Here, Beowulf is a little dog, the family pet. (Sigh)

I just wanted to warn away anyone who might have been mislead as I was.
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