The Once and Future King – T.H. White
Who doesn’t remember The Sword in the Stone, either as a book or the Disney cartoon? I certainly do, having loved both into oblivion. But I had never read the rest of the books, and so, when I chanced upon the full volume at Barnes and Noble on sale, quickly snapped it up for over-the-holidays reading. And once I opened the rather large tome, was completely, utterly hooked.
Arthurian legend needs no retelling; what struck me about The Once and Future King was its realism. Oh, sure The Sword in the Stone has its magical moments, in which the reader is happily taken on White’s flight of fancy as the Wart is changed into one creature after another. But the subsequent novels retell Camelot in a very real way; where legend ends, White begins. Lancelot is an ugly man, Arthur is more dutiful than inspired, and Guinevere is, frankly, a bit of a spoiled brat. I was hooked – so much so that I wasted three hours one night giving myself an online lesson in Old English (didn’t get very far) and checked out the final novel, published posthumously. Visions of becoming an armchair Arthurian scholar danced through my head. For a while anyway.
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[...] After reading The Once and Future King (and deciding to become an armchair Arthuran scholar), I checked out a bunch of other novels on King Arthur. This was one. And by golly, it’s a hard slog. I started three weeks ago, got sidetracked with Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills (both fun), and finally lost all patience with it last night. It’s a feminist retelling of the tale — which is great, except the only way to give women power in an age when they really didn’t have much of it is to imbue them all supernatural powers. In fact, they all seem like new age earth mothers, babbling about reincarnation and previous lives and Wicca that’s called something else. Next up? Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur. « Harry Rediscovers the Joys of Hemp [...]
[...] After reading The Once and Future King (and deciding to become an armchair Arthuran scholar), I checked out a bunch of other novels on King Arthur. This was one. And by golly, it’s a hard slog. I started three weeks ago, got sidetracked with Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills (both fun), and finally lost all patience with it last night. It’s a feminist retelling of the tale — which is great, except the only way to give women power in an age when they really didn’t have much of it is to imbue them all supernatural powers. In fact, they all seem like new age earth mothers, babbling about reincarnation and previous lives and Wicca that’s called something else. Next up? Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur. « The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley [...]