Re in eterno (1940)

2563

Abandoned at 2/4 stories read.

My reviews here:
Sword in the Stone review (2 star)
Witch in the Wood review (1 star)

It's not without merit; the style of writing was beautiful. I've heard that the later stories are better. But overall it was so unpleasant, meandering and offensive that I couldn't bring myself to read any further. ( )

Was really disappointed, expected to enjoy this but found the casual tone and references to current day (at time of publication) events detracted from the story. ( )

Touching, funny, interesting, heartwarming, heartbreaking. A classic for a reason. ( )

Reading T. H. White’s Arthurian quartet three-quarters of a century after the appearance of the first volume, and more than half-century after the completed work came out, leaves a mixed impression. In part this is no doubt due to its plot and premises being mined by both Broadway and Disney, but the reasons lie to a greater degree in the work itself. White’s fascination with medieval times, his meticulous descriptions of falconry, armoury, and daily life, have aged better than his preoccupation with Freudian explanations of behavior and the threat of fascism. His willful anachronism, resolutely placing Arthur in the 12th century, is clever, both an homage to classic recounts of the Arthur cycle by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Thomas Malory, who makes a cameo appearance in the closing pages of the book, as well as a fitting reminder that this is myth-making on a grand scale.
The quadrilogy reads as if its intended reader ages in the course of its development. The first volume, The Sword in the Stone, reads very much as children’s literature, provided the child is precocious in a mid-century way. The subsequent volumes, touching on incest, lovers’ triangles, homosexuality, sadism and the persistence of war, seem aimed to an older reader, perhaps young adult upward.
White’s narrative skill comes to his aid particularly when the plot threatens to languish through over-familiarity. Thus the account of the death of Uther Pendragon, leaving a vacant throne, is told indirectly and humourously by its use of the reactions of the characters White has established over the course of the first book; this leads to the tale of extracting the stone-fast sword, told in a manner that is both light-hearted and magical. His other narrative tour-de-force is at the culmination of book four, when the reader, knowing all too well how all turns out, most fears boredom. Rueful and dark, the final chapters make compelling reading.
Yet White aimed at more than telling a good story. He was taking a position as storm clouds gathered over Europe in the 1930s. Merlin’s schooling of the young Wart by living as an animal among animals is meant to make a point about modern war and peace. Arthur mounts the throne, determined to harness might in the service of right. Yet in the end, a broken Arthur, the puppet of the Orkney faction, seems to portray the opposite, that the rule of law is flawed, in the end helpless in the face of resolute evil.
While too dated to be essential reading, it’s been a good read. ( )