Eaters of the Dead

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Do not let my earlier paragraph fool you for this is no cultural study. Right from the onset of the tale, it is abundantly clear that this is a light read in the vein of a historic action thriller. Crichton relies on the travels of a man Ibn-Fadlan into the lands of the Vikings and mixes into it the soul of Beowulf. What comes out is a small but swift story of sword fights and a hero-quest. I quite liked the rather crazy idea that there might be still a small tribe of feral and cannibalistic band of primitives in the last outposts of humanity who can wreak havoc in the psyches of a yet evolving culture. The mist monsters that Crichton conjures up here were to me equal parts Grendel and humanity's fear of the unknown. There is also the fact that the narrator Ibn-Fadlan is a very prosaic and pragmatic narrator and at times his exploits read more like a trade agreement than a dramatic rendition of a bloody conflict. Such a dry-as-dust style in fact works to the benefit of the story and was quite enjoyable. Encuentro este libro francamente desconcertante en su propósito. Es como si prologo y libro sufrieran de esquizofrenia: incapaces de ponerse de acuerdo, el segundo omite todo lo que el primero defiende, o intenta defender. I finished high school and went on to college and Eaters of the Dead mostly receded from my mind. But some part of it, the part that had unconsciously jibed with my artistic and intellectual sensibilities, stayed on. While I had been confused and unimpressed with the book at first, I never hated or disdained it—a sure sign that there was something there I had missed.

So when I found this third printing June 1976 HC novel in a bargainbin it was a no-brainer to buying and reading it. Crichton makes fun of his own “pedantic” footnotes in his author’s note, but – as always with Crichton – the details at the margins of the narrative enrich this adventure. He especially hits on something good after the story’s completion in the appendix, where he digs into a scientific explanation for the beastly but vaguely human wendol. One thing about the Vikings’ behavior that does evoke an ancient era is that they don’t spend much time talking, thinking or being afraid. They fight because that’s what they do. And this is why I had a hard time distinguishing the individual warriors (not that we need to); they are all smaller versions of Buliwyf.The outcome of the film's production disappointed Omar Sharif so much that he temporarily retired from film acting, not taking a role in another major film until 2003's Monsieur Ibrahim: But there’s something disappointing about the fact that the supernatural isn’t real in “The 13 th Warrior.” There’s a little too much evoking of lore for the villains to simply be men. Couldn’t there be a little extra twist? It’s the same in the novel, but it’s not as disappointing there because there are so many delicious descriptions from Crichton to latch onto. Ibn Fadlan was actually Ahmed Ibn Fadlan (In Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāšid ibn Ḥammād, 921–22) and was sent out to report on the peoples of the areas in the far north of the Muslim consciousness, by the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Muqtadir. The report he compiled on his travels and observations of the Bulghars, Khazars and the Rus, is called The Risala. I have a Penguin Classics version which is a factual work based around his manuscripts - or copies and versions included in other works, because, as is frustratingly common, the original is now lost. I haven't read that yet, so I'm afraid I can't give you acomparison just yet. What Crichton tries in his novel is to recreate Beowulf into a factual story, coupled with a detailed explanation of Viking lifestyle and philosophy. It works at certain parts, especially during the journey to the north and with the characterization of Buliwyf and Herger, but stumbles with the mist monster legends and prophecies, which feels out of place because of the realistic portrayal of events. Like Stephen King, like Robert Ludlum, Crichton knows how to keep a story moving. He writes with an undeniable narrative energy. -- Chicago Sun-Times"

Adaptation Distillation: Of Beowulf, interwoven with the real-life writings of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. Besides heavy doses of Demythification, the story never leaves Hurot (Heorot) after the main characters get there, while the original Beowulf moves on to Buliwyf/Beowulf's homeland and describes his last battle as happening in his old age. Audioreseña en mi podcast Dragones y Replicantes en el programa "Hablamos de libros 2": https://go.ivoox.com/rf/105223137 Ahmad has sex with a Viking slave girl who smells awful and shows her passion by biting and clawing at him. While the Northmen are gross enough (their morning wash water is shared, and for some reason everyone spits in it), they aren’t as disgustingly ungroomed as in the book. In “Eaters of the Dead,” we visit an almost otherworldly 10 th century; in “The 13 th Warrior” it feels closer to modern times.An Arab ambassador finds himself headed to the lands of the Northmen against his will to help fight an evil menace. Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton is a historical fiction retelling of the Old English poem Beowulf as seen through the eyes of real-life noted Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan.

The first three chapters of Eaters of the Dead are mostly lifted straight from ibn Fadlan’s manuscript. Instead of a trusted and willing diplomat, though, Crichton recasts ibn Fadlan as reluctant traveler, forced to join the mission as punishment for his dalliance with the wife of a merchant friendly with the Caliph.In the opening of this book written in 1976 Michael Crichton rightly critises the historians who discarded the role of the Vikings in Europe during their period of reign. And as such I was quite interested in this novel. I had seen the movie based on this novel and was treated by some other viewers afterwards to the pub and half of them turned out to be historians and they were rather more positive on the subject of the role of the Vikings in Europe and Russia. And recently there was this brillaint 3 part BBC documentary on the Vikings in Europe. From book to screen, changes were made to the details of Eaters of the Dead, but not to the general tale. Ibn Fadlan is forced to accompany Buliwyf and participates in the battles against the wendol, and most of the best scenes are lifted straight from the book. What the film does is rejigger the sequence for dramatic purposes, and injects more personality into the characters. As mentioned earlier, ibn Fadlan becomes a more active participant, even solving some of the riddles about the wendol. In other words, typical movie adaptation stuff. Human consumption of human flesh has fascinated people in all places and in every age, including the present. This book explores this persistent obsession by surveying the history and imaginative treatment of cannibalistic beings such as ogres, ghouls, the wendigo, and the aswang. Discussions of creatures that typically exist outside of or on the fringes of human society provide a foundation for considering human cannibals and notorious historical and contemporary incidents of cannibalism, including survival cannibalism and the atrocities serial killers commit. Each chapter summarizes the evolution of cannibals in art, literature, and film, amplifying the idea that cannibalism continues to have a visceral appeal for audiences. This study provides a thorough analysis of cannibalism fables and facts, but the early chapters on fantastic cannibalistic beings are particularly absorbing as are the introductory discussions of the age-old fear of being eaten and Tibetan and Zoroastrian corpse disposal practices. Generously illustrated, this book is clearly written and suitable for nonspecialists and scholarly audiences alike. It features excellent notes, and the production is tasteful, despite the unsavory topic. Highly recommended. ' A su vez, plantea una interesante visión sobre la teoría de la supervivencia de seres humanos primitivos.

Despite his new found capabilities and his friendship with several of Buliwyf's warriors, Ibn Fadlan begs leave to return to his own country and conclude his original mission for the Caliph. Ibn Fadlan is finally given permission to return South and he never sees the Viking warriors again. When he departs the Viking camp he promises to write about their epic battle and Buliwyf's heroism. The Ibn Fadlan Manuscript is supposed to contain this story. Michael Crichton wrote the novel, and it was something of a departure from his usual science-fiction fare. He supposedly wrote it on a dare from a friend who demanded he "find a way to make Beowulf interesting". As Crichton was aware of the notoriously dry, bland Ahmad ibn Fadlan and his ability to make any miraculous new wonder sound prosaic and dull, he put the two together as if it were Ahmad giving an actual historical account. The Neanderthals serving as the villains are an expected flourish of science fiction. No Ending: The manuscript, and thus the book, ends just before Ahmad ibn Fadlan is about to embark on a new adventure, practically in the middle of- I find myself revisiting Eaters of the Dead about every five to seven years. Each rereading has only confirmed my admiration. I feel more confident than ever to assert this heterodox opinion: Crichton was superior to “serious” historical novelists like Gore Vidal when it came to depicting people of the distant past. Crichton imbues his medieval Arabs and Northmen with rare sense of authenticity. Vidal’s ancient Romans and Persians come across almost like twentieth century cosplayers by comparison. The literary artistry of Eaters of the Dead remains underappreciated. The reason is the universal fear of being eaten. Indeed, some psychologists believe that our fear of the dark is less to do with the unknown and more to do with our memory of being prey. The things that lurk in the dark are what scare us, primarily because we might be eaten. While being bitten by a venomous snake is horrible, we react so much more strongly to someone being bitten (and perhaps partly devoured) by a shark. In both cases an animal’s bite causes an injury, but the idea of our bodies being consumed strikes us as so much worse. As Val Plumwood, who survived being bitten and chewed by a crocodile, observes, ‘If ordinary death is a horror, death in the jaws of a crocodile is the ultimate horror.’ I think there is a source to be found in that experience for many man-eating myths, not to mention the more recent anthropological theory that our species survived because we ate the Neanderthals. They were our closest genetic relatives and we considered them a food source.

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Barbarian Tribe: The Northmen (from Ahmad's perspective, along with the many non-Muslim peoples he meets as an ambassador before them), and of course the Wendol, who are said to be Neanderthals. What’s funny is that, at the time I was reading Eaters of the Dead, I was doing much the same thing as Crichton. I just didn’t have it published. Besotted with half-formed pictures of the Middle Ages, my recent discovery of the riches of Dante, and certain artistic preoccupations that haven’t gone away (snow; almost all my books have snow in them), I was spending my free time hammering out line after line of an epic poem about the Teutonic Knights, a brutal war, and forbidden romance made the sweeter by vows faithfully kept—and liberally peppering the manuscript with footnotes, dates, alternate translations of contested terms, and excerpts of related text from other poets and chroniclers. I had discovered the fun part of scholarship, the digging and puzzle-piecing.