Summary:
King Arthur is probably the most famous and certainly the most legendary medieval king. From the early ninth century through the middle ages, to the Arthurian romances of Victorian times, the tales of this legendary figure have blossomed and multiplied. And in more recent times, there has been a continuous stream of books claiming to unlock the secret or the truth behind the "once and future king."
The truth, as Guy Halsall reveals in this fascinating investigation, is both radically different--and also a good deal more intriguing. Broadly speaking, there are two Arthurs. On the one hand is the traditional "historical" Arthur, waging a doomed struggle to save Roman civilization against the relentless Anglo-Saxon tide during the darkest years of the Dark Ages. On the other is the Arthur of myth and legend, accompanied by a host of equally legendary people, places, and stories: Lancelot, Guinevere, Galahad and Gawain, Merlin, Excalibur, the Lady in the Lake, the Sword in the Stone, Camelot, and the Round Table.
The big problem with all this, notes Halsall, is that "King Arthur" might well never have existed. And if he did exist, it is next to impossible to say anything at all about him. As this challenging new look at the Arthur legend makes clear, all books claiming to reveal "the truth" behind King Arthur can safely be ignored. Not only the fanciful pseudo-historical accounts--Merlin the Magician, the Lady in the Lake--but even the "historical" Arthur is largely a figment of the imagination. The evidence that we have, whether written or archeological, is simply incapable of telling us anything detailed about the Britain in which he is supposed to have lived, fought, and died.
My Thoughts:
Okay, so this may actually be a fairly short review, and I apologize for that, but I'm really trying to figure out what to say about this one. In the beginning it was a lot of history of Britain and only very tiny mentions of a person who might have been the Arthur of history who became the Arthur of legend. As might be expected, this is one of those reads where some people would groan, their eyes would glaze over, and they would feel like they were being forced to read a text for a college assignment.
Now, that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it...just that my brain went to that place when I was about 50 pages in and was trying to make myself continue to read. For the past year and a half I have only been reading fun (and occasionally long, like Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey) fictional books, so reading this detailing of the facts and stories of history that could help to prove or debunk the existence of Arthur felt a little dry.
This is a fact I found to be ridiculous because I absolutely adore Arthurian legends. Regardless of whether or not Arthur actually existed with Guinevere and Lancelot and the Round Table, I feel like the story of him and how he ruled his kingdom and the valiant behavior by the Knights of Camelot are inspiring and wonderfully imaginative. So, if it's all just an elaborate fantasy, that's fine because I read a lot of those. But I still like to imagine that he truly did exist.
I thought the book was well-written, and while part of me liked that the whole thing wasn't inundated with numerous footnotes, and instead include a chapter by chapter reference list at the end, the scholar in me was not pleased by that. I wanted to know exactly which ideas and details were taken and/or inspired by other texts. Yes, it was easy to tell when a lengthy comment was borrowed from another text because it was centered and sectioned off from the rest, but still, I wouldn't have minded some footnotes.
This book did mostly satisfy my scholarly side, so I don't imagine I'll be running to another non-fiction or scholarly type book for a long while...unless it is one of my writing resource books. I have to give Worlds of Arthur a 3/5, again, not because it was bad, but because it wasn't as enthralling as I expected it to be. Because when I found this book on NetGalley it was in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi section...so I was actually somewhat expecting a historical fiction-ish novel.
Now, that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it...just that my brain went to that place when I was about 50 pages in and was trying to make myself continue to read. For the past year and a half I have only been reading fun (and occasionally long, like Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey) fictional books, so reading this detailing of the facts and stories of history that could help to prove or debunk the existence of Arthur felt a little dry.
This is a fact I found to be ridiculous because I absolutely adore Arthurian legends. Regardless of whether or not Arthur actually existed with Guinevere and Lancelot and the Round Table, I feel like the story of him and how he ruled his kingdom and the valiant behavior by the Knights of Camelot are inspiring and wonderfully imaginative. So, if it's all just an elaborate fantasy, that's fine because I read a lot of those. But I still like to imagine that he truly did exist.
I thought the book was well-written, and while part of me liked that the whole thing wasn't inundated with numerous footnotes, and instead include a chapter by chapter reference list at the end, the scholar in me was not pleased by that. I wanted to know exactly which ideas and details were taken and/or inspired by other texts. Yes, it was easy to tell when a lengthy comment was borrowed from another text because it was centered and sectioned off from the rest, but still, I wouldn't have minded some footnotes.
This book did mostly satisfy my scholarly side, so I don't imagine I'll be running to another non-fiction or scholarly type book for a long while...unless it is one of my writing resource books. I have to give Worlds of Arthur a 3/5, again, not because it was bad, but because it wasn't as enthralling as I expected it to be. Because when I found this book on NetGalley it was in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi section...so I was actually somewhat expecting a historical fiction-ish novel.
Worlds of Arthur at Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/worlds-of-arthur-guy-halsall/1112760405?ean=9780199658176
Worlds of Arthur at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Arthur-Facts-Fictions-Dark/dp/019965817X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364865858&sr=1-1&keywords=Worlds+of+Arthur
No comments:
Post a Comment