Beowulf by Unknown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Obviously this is a difficult read, aside from the poem itself. The details of the exact wording the original author (unknown) intended is of course unknowable, but Tolkien, being quite the expert, was attempting to get as close to it as possible. His difficulty arose from having to attempt to translate what the scribe actually wrote, but the scribe was actually less an expert on the original poem or language than Tolkien himself. While this is a good thing for modern-day scholars, for lay-people it gets a bit esoteric and perhaps more involved than we actually want. I'll leave it up to actual scholars to judge Tolkien's accuracy in translation (although there may not be any qualified to argue against the man himself; he certainly wasn't shy about declaring other experts wrong).
As far as the translation of the poem, some will doubtless find it difficult and unnatural, but it captures the cadence and style of the Old English he was attempting to translate. He wanted to make it readable to modern English-speakers, obviously, but he also wanted it to feel transported back to that time. I enjoyed it, others will have to judge for themselves.
This is not a book for people who only loved Lord of the Rings, or especially only loved The Hobbit. If you liked The Silmarillion, this may indeed be a book for you, and for anyone who is a Beowulf scholar of course it's going to be on the menu.
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