Sad monster

I read the first story in the A.S. Byatt book. "The Thing in the Forest," it's called. The Thing turns out to be (this isn't a spoiler) essentially the Questing Beast out of Arthurian legend.

Do you remember the Questing Beast? In The Once and Future King there's an episode where King Pellinore (I think that's who it was) takes a break from the chase. The Beast gets lonely and comes looking for him, to get him to resume the chase.

The image of a lonely monster is so powerful. I think of the original Frankenstein, or even more pathetic, the short story by Ray Bradbury about a Loch Ness-type monster, the only one left of its kind, who mistakenly responds to a fog horn thinking it's a mating call.

Byatt doesn't talk about the monster's feelings in the story; it's all about these two little girls who see the monster, and how these girls' lives are forever altered because of it. I wish she had. I would have liked a little something from the monster's point of view.