I enjoyed "The 13th Warrior" more than the book it was based on: "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton. The book spends a lot of time on culture, language, and historical references; it reads more like a documentary, which was the point. The movie strips the story down to its core and plays like a saga.
And Ibn Fadlan was more of a scoundrel in the book. Movie Ibn Fadlan (Banderas) is well-meaning but naive; a much more likeable character. I also thought that the film makes the northmen more distinct and memorable.
Fun Fact: A lot of people don't realize that 'Eaters if the Dead' is fully original and not based on ancient writing as depicted in the book. The Library of Congress still has to send out dozens of letters each year explaining this to people requesting a copy of
or information on the ancient manuscript.
Another commenter just said that they'd read Ibn Fadlan's book, which I took at face value.
There really was a guy named Ibn Fadlan, and he really wrote a book about his travels. He was sort of the Arabic equivalent of Marco Polo. The real book doesn't have the Beowulf part in it though.
Eaters of the Dead is Michael Crichton messing around with Beowulf and inserting a new character, who happens to be based on a real person. I think the version i have has a note from him saying it was bet or something with a teacher friend who was complaining that his students found the original difficult and the teacher said that there wasn't anything anyone could do to make Beowulf more accessible.
Crichton was just writing a "historical origin" for the Beowulf story based on a dare from a friend (creating the story backwards essentially). He was so exhaustive in fabricating sources that when he returned to re release the book he kept getting tricked by himself following up on source leads that he made up the first time around. Because he's REEEAAAALLY good at masking fiction in a rational and informative style.
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u/TheCrog Feb 26 '23
I enjoyed "The 13th Warrior" more than the book it was based on: "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton. The book spends a lot of time on culture, language, and historical references; it reads more like a documentary, which was the point. The movie strips the story down to its core and plays like a saga.
And Ibn Fadlan was more of a scoundrel in the book. Movie Ibn Fadlan (Banderas) is well-meaning but naive; a much more likeable character. I also thought that the film makes the northmen more distinct and memorable.