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Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists
of Avalon.
The
magical legend of King Arthur, vividly retold through the eyes and lives
of the women who wielded power from behind the throne. It's the
legendary saga of King Arthur and his companions at Camelot, their
battles, love, and devotion, told this time from the perspective of the
women involved. Viviane is "The Lady of the Lake," the magical priestess
of the Isle of Avalon, a special mist-shrouded place which becomes more
difficult to reach as people turn away from its nature- and
Goddess-oriented religion. Viviane's quest is to find a king who will be
loyal to Avalon as well as to Christianity. Gwenhwyfar, Arthur's queen,
is an overly pious, fearful woman who successfully sways her husband
into betraying his allegiance to Avalon. Set against her is Morgaine,
Arthur's sister, love, and enemy, who manipulates the characters like
threads in a tapestry to achieve her tragic and heroic goals. The
Mists of Avalon becomes a legend seen through new eyes, with
details, majestic language, and haunting foreshadowing that hold the
reader through its more than 800 pages. |
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Rosemary Sutcliff, Sword at
Sunset.
Sutcliff specialized in Dark Age Britain, although this is the only
novel she wrote for adults. She weaves a haunting portrait of a misty,
troubled, ancient land where Roman civilization and Celtic pagan culture
are threatened by the barbaric Saxon invaders. Arthur, Guinevere, and
Bedwyr are portrayed as the historical characters they surely were.
Don't look for a fantasy Camelot, with banners and Round-Tables. Here,
Arthur is a Romano-Celtic warlord, desperately working to stave off the
inevitable invasion. There is a brooding quality of impending doom that
pervades the entire book. No one has ever drawn a more convincing canvas
of Romano-Celtic Britain, or a more realistic portrait of
the kind of man that Arthur probably was. |
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Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave.
The first in a series of four books, this novel focuses on the early
life of Merlin the magician, and the political developments of
fifth-century Britain. Merlin's childhood is formed by the absence of
his reticent, convent-bound mother and his unnamed and unknown father.
As the bastard grandson of a local king, Merlin is the object of both
envy and ridicule. His strange powers and predictions earn him greater
status as a pariah, and he leaves home as a preadolescent. Returning
years later as a young man--empowered by self-knowledge and
magic--Merlin finds himself caught in the currents of the shifting
kingdoms.
As
an established classic in this genre, and the first in a popular series,
The Crystal Cave introduces this familiar character with fresh
sensitivity.
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Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee
in King Arthur’s Court.
Satirical novel by Mark Twain, published in 1889. It is the tale of a
commonsensical Yankee who is carried back in time to Britain in the Dark
Ages, and it celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values in
contrast to the superstitious ineptitude of a feudal monarchy. Twain
wrote it after reading Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur. Hank
Morgan, a mechanic at a gun factory, is knocked unconscious and awakens
in England in the year 528. He is captured and taken to Camelot, where
he is put on exhibit before the knights of King Arthur's Round Table. He
is condemned to death, but remembering having read of an eclipse on the
day of his execution, he amazes the court by predicting the eclipse. It
is decided that he is a sorcerer like Merlin, and he is made minister to
the ineffectual king. In an effort to bring democratic principles and
mechanical knowledge to the kingdom, he strings telephone wire, starts
schools, trains mechanics, and teaches journalism. He also falls in love
and marries. But when Hank tries to better the lot of the peasants, he
meets opposition from many quarters. He and Arthur, in disguise, travel
among the miserable common folk, are taken captive and sold as slaves,
and only at the last second are rescued by 500 knights on bicycles. Hank
and his family briefly retire to the seaside. When they return they find
the kingdom engulfed in civil war, Arthur killed, and Hank's innovations
abandoned. Hank is wounded, and Merlin, pretending to nurse him, casts a
spell that puts him to sleep until the 19th century. |
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Walker Percy,
Lancelot.
"A
modern knight-errant on a quest after evil . . . Convincing and
chilling." The New York Times Book Review. Lancelot Andrewes
Lamar, a disenchanted liberal lawyer, finds himself confined in a
"nuthouse" with memories that don't seem worth remembering until a visit
from an old friend and classmate gives him the opportunity to recount
his journey of dark violence. It began the day he accidentally
discovered he was not the father of his youngest daughter. That
discovery touched off his obsession to reverse the degeneration of
modern America and begin a new age of chivalry and romance. With
ever-increasing fury, Lancelot would become a shining knight -- not of
romance, but of revenge . . .
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Thomas
Berger, Arthur Rex.
The
irreverent Thomas Berger, author of Little Big Man, takes on the
Arthurian legends and tells them as they ought to have been lived.
Setting aside the facts of history that stubbornly refuse to conform to
the superiority of legend, Berger gives us 5th century Britain
landscaped with towering castles, peopled with knights clad in full
plate armor of a thousand years hence, and filled to brimming with
villains, heroes, worthy quests, and wry, often salacious, humor. Every
one of the popular legends is here, along with a few new ones. Tristan
and Isolde fill a chapter, as do Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The
tortured, heroic Lancelot and his faithless queen factor into the novel,
as do the evil Mordred, the scheming Morgan Le Fey, and the wise,
time-traveling Merlin.
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Stephen Lawhead,
Arthur. This is a tremendous, well-written, well
researched book. It is however following a different path than was
presented in the classic Morte de Arthur and The Once and Future King (a
storyline visually portrayed in Excalibur). There is no incest, no tale
of forbidden love between a queen and the best knight. Rather, in
avoiding the tales of court intrigue which were so prevalent in the
middle ages, Lawhead seeks to tell a story which reveals a more accurate
look at life in the 6th century. We see characters as they were in that
era, rather than the height of the feudal period. These are Celts, not
Normans. This is the story of the later Celts attempting to fight off
the invasions of the Saxons and others who sought to topple the peace
that Arthur was able to bring by uniting warrring tribes. There is
certainly the mystical events and a well crafted spirituality which
certainly would have reflected 6th century Wales and England. This book
seeks to tell the story of Arthur in his historical context, while still
maintaining the fantasy aspects which have made the story so popular. A
very nice book, and a welcome relief to the social intrigue that
characterizes other tales of Arthur. |
