Renee’s Reviews > Grendel > Status Update

Also the dragon: "Personally," he said, "my great ambition is to count all this"-he waved vaguely at the treasure around him-"and possibly sort it into piles.

This retelling of Beowulf is so great. The dragon is a philosopher and is talking to Beowulf about the role he plays in humanity: "Ah, Grendel! You improve them, my boy! Can't you see that yourself?... You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last. You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves."