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what we might read as an early version (a “pre-write”) of Beowulf. One
of the most maddeningly interesting questions for Beowulf scholars has
been that of authorship, and Oldham constructs a satisfying “answer”
with this fictional storyteller.
The distinction between a “work” and a “Text” is particularly
applicable to Oldham, for it is clear that she views the “Text” of Beowulf
as a physical space which can be occupied, felt, smelled, seen, and
unraveled. Through the scop" (pronounced “shope”), Oldham offers us
sensory descriptions of the world of Beowulf The Text’s questions and
ambiguities can be pulled apart and examined from its interior, from the
perspective of a participant in the events. On the inside cover of the
novel, Oldham describes her reaction (quoted below) to first reading the
Beowulf Text as more visceral than intellectual, referring to how her
dreams had been haunted by Grendel. According to Barthes, “the text is
experienced only in an activity of production” (Barthes 902), and
Oldham’s dreams of Grendel can be seen as a mode of unconscious
“production,” in a Barthesian sense, but writing the novel also offers her
another way to produce the Text by placing herself inside the textual
world of Beowulf and engaging in simultaneous reading, writing and
production.
The action of The Raven Waits begins just before Beowulf
arrives at Heorot and ends just after the defeat of Grendel’s mother. The
2001 edition of the book is a slim paperback of one-hundred and seventy
pages. The cover displays the book’s title in yellow, fog-like letters. A
raven is perched upon the word “The” and a sword is entwined by the
final letter “s.” In the background is a drawing of a misty twilight
battleground strewn with bones, and a battered helmet and shield in front
of a thatched Anglo-Saxon hall. The inside cover page of the book
features this statement from Oldham:
I have always considered the story of Beowulf to be one
of the best — full of terror and courage, darkness and
beauty, loyalty and fellowship, and dramatic, outlandish
fights. Deciding to make a novel out of it, I chose to
write from the point of view of the young prince,
Hrethric. Because I knew exactly how he felt: the manmonster Grendel had long threatened and stalked
through my dreams. {Raven Waits title page)
Oldham asserts that her novel is told from the point of view of Hrethric,
the son of the Danish King Hrothgar, whose hall the monster Grendel
attacks. However, Oldham in fact privileges the viewpoint of Angenga,
the scop who befriends Hrethric. The scop then observes the key events
of the poem and records them in song. Like Dante, Chaucer, Joyce,