Type II Summer 2026 Veronica Vadon
Grendel JOHN GARDNER
Grendel
Grendel Veronica Vadon Savannah College of Art and Design Alfred A. Knopf Grendel Design Publisher John Gardner
This book is an original design by Veronica Vadon. Copyright © 2026. All rights reserved. Original text is copyright by their respective authors. Grendel By John Gardner Copyright © 1971 Created at the Savannah College of Art and Design
CREATING MEANING IN YOUR LIFE, THAT IS OUR EXISTENCE. Existentialism
Contents APRIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 MAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 JUNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 JULY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 AUGUST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 SEPTEMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 OCTOBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 NOVEMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 DECEMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 JANUARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 FEBRUARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 MARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
APRIL Aries, the Ram 1 1GRENDEL
The old ram1 stands looking down over rockslides, stupidly triumphant. I blink. I stare in horror. I hiss. “Go back to your cave, go back to your cowshed--whatever.” 1 Grendel’s journey corresponds to the twelve signs of the zodiac. He cocks his head like an elderly, slow-witted king, considers the angles, decides to ignore me. I stamp. I hammer the ground with my fists. I hurl a skull-size stone at him. He will not budge. I shake my two hairy fists at the sky and I let out a howl so unspeakable that the water at my feet turns sudden ice and even I myself am left uneasy. But the ram stays; the season is upon us. And so begins the twelfth year of my idiotic war. “Scat!” APRILJOHN GARDNER2
“Why are we here?” I used to ask her. "Why do we stand this putrid, stinking hole?" She trembles at my words. Her fat lips shake. “Don’t ask!” her wiggling claws implore. (She never speaks.) “Don’t ask!” It must be some terrible secret, I used to think. I’d give her a crafty squint. She’ll tell me, in time, I thought. But she told me nothing. APRIL 3GRENDEL
MAY Taurus, the Bull 2 5GRENDEL
Iunderstood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly--as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe, blink by blink.-- An ugly god pitifully dying in a tree! Then voices, speaking words. The sounds were foreign at first, but when I calmed myself, concentrating, I found I understood them: it was my own language, but spoken in a strange way, as if the sounds were made by brittle sticks, dried spindles, flaking bits of shale. “The world resists me MAYJOHN GARDNER6
I said. “That’s all there is. The mountains are what I define them as.” Ah, monstrous stupidity of childhood, unreasonable hope! and I resist the world,” MAY 7GRENDEL
It wasn’t until later, when I was full-grown and Hrothgar was an old, old man, that I settled my soul on destroying him--slowly and cruelly. Inside the hall I would hear the Shaper telling of the glorious deeds of dead kings--how they’d split certain heads, snuck away with certain precious swords and necklaces--his harp mimicking the rush of swords, clanging boldly with the noble speeches, sighing behind the heroes’ dying words. Whenever he stopped, thinking up formulas for what to say next, the people would all shout and thump each other and drink to the Shaper’s long life. When he finished, the hall was as quiet as a mound. I too was silent, my ear pressed tight against the timbers. Even to me, incredibly, he had made it all seem true and very fine. † JUNE 3Gemini, the Twins 8
JUNE 9GRENDEL
shaperremains, The JULYCancer, the Crab 4 10JOHN GARDNER
though now there are nobler courts where he might sing. The pride of creation. He built this hall by the power of his songs: created with casual words its grave mor(t)ality. The boy observes him, tall and solemn, twelve years older than the night he first crept in with his stone-eyed master. He knows no art but tragedy--a moving singer. The credit is wholly mine. JULY 11GRENDEL
the world,” “He reshapes I whispered, belligerent. “So his name implies. He stares strange-eyed at the mindless world and turns dry sticks to gold.” JULY12JOHN GARDNER
A little poetic, I would readily admit. His manner of speaking was infecting me, making me pompous. “Never- theless,” I whispered crossly– but I couldn’t go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words--changing nothing. Grendel is desperate for connection. JULY 13GRENDEL
AUGUST Leo, the Lion 5 15GRENDEL
The dragon smiled. Horrible, debauched, mouth limp and cracked, loose against the teeth as an ancient dog’s. “Now you know how they feel when they see you, eh? Scared enough to pee in their pants! He he!” He looked startled by an unpleasant thought, then cross. “You didn’t, did you?” I shook my head. Now you know how they feel when they see you.” He had a point. From now on I’d stay clear of them. It was one thing to eat one from time to time--that was only natural: kept them from overpopulating, maybe starving to death, come winter--but it was another thing to scare them, give them heart attacks, fill their nights with nightmares, just for sport. “Fiddlesticks,” the dragon said. I blinked. “Fiddlesticks, that’s what I said,” he repeated. “Why not frighten them?” AUGUST16JOHN GARDNER
“Illusion,” he said. He stretched his mouth in a kind of smile, no trace of pleasure in it. “We see from the mountaintop: all time, all space. We see in one instant the passionate vision and the blowout. Not that we cause things to fail, you understand.” “So much for free will and intercession!” He shook his head. “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.”2 2 Grendel’s views of existentialism are now pushed towards nihilism. “ You want the word,” he said. “That’s what you’ve come for. My advice is, don’t ask! Do as I do! Seek out gold--but not my gold--and guard it!” Then: “You want to know about the Shaper.” I nodded. AUGUST 17GRENDEL
SEPTEMBER Virgo, the Virgin 6 19GRENDEL
Nothing changed, was SEPTEMBERJOHN GARDNER20
changed, everything was BY MY HAVING SEEN THE DRAGON. Idiscovered that the dragon had put a charm on me: no weapon could cut me. I could walk up to the meadhall whenever I pleased, and they were powerless. My heart became darker because of that. Though I scorned them, sometimes hated them, there had been something between myself and men when we could fight. Now, invulnerable, I was as solitary as one live tree in a vast land- scape of coal. Needless to say, I misunderstood in the beginning: I thought it an advantage. SEPTEMBER 21GRENDEL
I hunkered down at the edge of the forest, looking up the long hill at the meadhall lights. I could hear the Shaper’s song. I no longer remember exactly what he sang. I know only that it had a strange effect on me: it no longer filled me with doubt and distress, loneliness, shame. It enraged me. It was their confidence, maybe--their blissful, swinish ignorance, their bumptious self-satisfaction, and, worst of all, their hope. SEPTEMBER22JOHN GARDNER
SEPTEMBER 23GRENDEL
OCTOBER Libra, the Conciliation 7 25GRENDEL
There is no limit to desire but desire’s needs. The scent of the dragon. I will count my number- less blessings one by one. ‡. My teeth are sound. ‡. The roof of my cave is sound. ‡. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen. ‡. Yet. (Grendel’s law.) The monster laughs. OCTOBERJOHN GARDNER26
Time-Space cross-section: “We will give you gifts,” the young king said, “splendid tribute in sign of our great respect for the honorable Scyldings.” “I offer you my sister,” the young king said. “Let her name from now on be Wealtheow, or holy servant of common good.” She was beautiful, as innocent as dawn on winter hills. She tore me apart as once the Shaper’s song had done. As if for my benefit, as if in vicious scorn of me, chil- dren came from the meadhall and ran down to her, weeping, to snatch at her hands and dress. A bad winter. I couldn’t lay a hand on them, prevented as if by a charm. Wealtheow. OCTOBER 27GRENDEL
And yet I was teased--tortured by the red of her hair and the set of her chin and the white of her shoulders--teased toward disbelief in the dragon’s truths. A glorious moment was coming, my chest insisted, and even the fact that I myself would have no part in it--a member of the race God cursed, according to the Shaper’s tale--was trifling. And so, the next night--it was dark as pitch--I burst the meadhall door, killed men, and stormed directly to the door behind which lay the sleeping queen. I snatched her foot, and now her unqueenly shrieks were deafening, exactly like the squeals of a pig. I firmly committed myself to killing her, slowly, horribly. They were all screaming now, hooting and yawling to their dead-stick gods. I decided to kill her. OCTOBER28JOHN GARDNER
I would kill her, yes! So much for meaning as quality of life! I would kill her and teach them reality. Grendel the truth-teacher, phantasm-tester! It was what I would be from this day forward--my commitment, my character as long as I lived--and nothing alive or dead could change my mind! OCTOBER 29GRENDEL
It would be meaningless, killing her. As meaningless as letting her live. It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity. (End quote.) Grendel continues his turmoil with his views of existentialism and nihilism, he can’t go one way. He is as flawed as a human. OCTOBER30JOHN GARDNER
I let go her feet. The people stared, unbe- lieving. I had wrecked another theory. OCTOBER 31GRENDEL
How, if I know all this, you may ask, could I hound him--shatter him again and again, drive him deeper and deeper into woe? I have no answer, except perhaps this: why should I not? Has he made any move to deserve my kindness? If I give him a truce, will the king invite me in for a kiss on the forehead, a cup of mead? Ha! This nobility of his, this dignity: are they not my work? What was he before? Nothing! A swollen-headed raider, full of boasts and stupid jokes and mead. No more noble than Red Horse, Hrothu- lf ’s friend. No one would have balked at my persecuting him then! I made him what he is. Have I not a right to test my own creation? Enough! Who says I have to defend myself? I’m a machine, like you. Like all of you. Blood- lust and rage are my character. Why does the lion not wisely settle down and be a horse? In any case, I too am learning, ordeal by ordeal, my indignity. It’s all I have, my only weapon for smashing through these stiff coffin-walls of the world. So I dance in the moonlight, make foul jokes, or labor to shake the foundations of night with my heaped-up howls of rage. Something is bound to come of all this. I cannot believe such monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing! NOVEMBER 8Scorpio, the ScorpionJOHN GARDNER 32
I have thought up a horrible dream to impute to Hrothgar. Hrothgar speaks: I have dreamt it again: standing suddenly still In a thicket, among wet trees, stunned, minutely Shuddering, hearing a wooden echo escape. A mossy floor, almost colorless, disappears In depths of rain among the tree shapes. I am straining, tasting that echo a second longer. If I can hold it. . . familiar if I can hold it. . . A black tree with a double trunk--two trees Grown into one--throws up its blurred branches. The two trunks in their infinitesimal dance of growth Have turned completely about one another, their join A slowly twisted scar . . . that I recognize. . .. A quick arc flashes sidewise in the air, A heavy blade in flight. A wooden stroke: Iron sinks in the gasping core. I will dream it again. NOVEMBER 33GRENDEL
DECEMBER Saggitarius, the Archer 9 35GRENDEL
December, approaching the year's darkest night, and the only way out of the dream is down and through it. DECEMBER36JOHN GARDNER
Something is coming, strange as spring. I am afraid. DECEMBER 37GRENDEL
JANUARY 10Capricorn, the Goat 38JOHN GARDNER
is sick. The Shaper The scent of the dragon is a staleness on the earth. JANUARY 39GRENDEL
The future is as dark, as unreal, as the past. Because now the Shaper is dead, strange thoughts come over me. I think of the past- ness of the past: how the moment I am alive in, prisoned in, moves like a slowly tumbling form through darkness, the underground river. Not only ancient history--the myth- ical age of the brothers’ feud--but my own history one second ago, has vanished utterly, dropped out of existence. The one person that began his longing for connection, gone. JANUARY40JOHN GARDNER
The future is as dark, as unreal, as the past. Because now the Shaper is dead, strange thoughts come over me. I think of the past- ness of the past: how the moment I am alive in, prisoned in, moves like a slowly tumbling form through darkness, the underground river. Not only ancient history--the myth- ical age of the brothers’ feud--but my own history one second ago, has vanished utterly, dropped out of existence. The one person that began his longing for connection, gone. JANUARY 41GRENDEL
FEBRUARY Aquarius, the Water-Bearer11 43GRENDEL
Theology does not thrive in the world of action and reaction, change: it grows on calm, like the scum on a stagnant pool. And it flour- ishes, it prospers, on decline. Only in a world where everything is patently being lost can a priest stir men’s hearts as a poet would by maintaining that nothing is in vain. For old times’ sake, for the old priest’s honor, I would have to kill the stranger. And for the honor of Hrothgar’s thanes. Theology creates meaning and masks existential dread. FEBRUARY44JOHN GARDNER
We wait. Frost shall freeze, and fire melt wood; the earth shall give fruit, and ice shall bridge dark water, make roofs, mysteriously lock earth’s flourishings; but the fetters of frost shall also fall, fair weather return, and the reaching sun restore the restless sea... FEBRUARY 45GRENDEL
It is time. The king retires, and his people leave. The Geats build up the fire, prepare to sleep. And now, silence. Darkness. FEBRUARY46JOHN GARDNER
FEBRUARY 47GRENDEL
MARCH 12Pisces, the Fish “Accident,” I whisper. I will fall. I seem to desire the fall, and though I fight it with all my will I know in advance that I can’t win. I look down, down, into bottomless black- ness, feeling the dark power moving in me like an ocean current, some monster inside me, deep sea wonder, dread night monarch astir in his cave, moving me slowly to my voluntary tumble into death.3 3Grendel has fought Beowulf, regretfully, as now he is dying.JOHN GARDNER48
MARCH 49GRENDEL
Is it joy I feel? MARCH50JOHN GARDNER
The long pale dream, m h falls a Iam slick with blood. I discover I no longer feel pain. Animals gather around me, enemies of old, to watch me die. I give them what I hope will appear a sheepish smile. My heart booms terror. Will the last of my life slide out if I let out breath? They watch with mindless, indifferent eyes, as calm and midnight black as the chasm below me. They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction. "Poor Grendel's had an accident," I whisper. “So may you all.” wa y . istory y † MARCH 51GRENDEL
This book was designed by Veronica Vadon, and printed with Blurb Inc. This book uses John Gardner’s Grendel as its primary text, alongside annotations and exte- rior analysis provided by Veronica Vadon. This book was composed and designed within the Adobe Creative Suite, such as Adobe Photo- shop, and in Adobe InDesign. Typefaces are also sourced from Adobe Fonts. Typefaces included: the body text is composed of Bressay, in addition to formatted headings of Hanken Grotesk. Images are sourced from Adobe Stock and edited with Adobe Photoshop. Pages are in 6”x9” format, maintaining varying margins on each side. The interior paper is printed on Standard Color (70# White Uncoated, 105 GSM), with a matte finish. This book is one of one.
Originally met as a highschool assign- ment, Veronica Vadon takes Grendel by John Gardner creating an expressive typographic spin to the story. I appreciate my high school teach- ers introducing me to Beowulf as well as Grendel, as the themes have had a profound impact on my life. When a story truly sticks with you, it turns into something like this.