Absolutely beautifully written short novel about Grendel, the first antagonist of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. It's almost like prose poetry in some places, a sort of study of isolation and the passing of ages. In parts, however, it jars to painful standstill when Gardner puts a sort of academic philosophising into the mouths of characters like the dragon - these interludes interrupt the rhythm of the prose for no good purpose, as far as I can tell, but it's absolutely worth slogging through them for the rest of the writing.