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A revised omnibus edition of White's retelling of Arthurian legends. The first three sections of this book were originally published separately: The Sword in the Stone (1939), The Witch in the Wood (1939; here called "The Queen of Air and Darkness"), The Ill-Made Knight (1940), and the previously unpublished section, "The Candle in the Wind." The Book of Merlyn, written in 1941, was originally intended as the fifth and final book of the saga. It was first published by the University of Texas Press in 1977 and reissued by Berkley, 1978 (pap.). The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.… (altro)
wandering_star: I thought of making this recommendation when reading the magical education section of The Magicians, which reminded me of the first book of The Once and Future King. But the wider idea - that magical powers can't stop us from making stupid human mistakes - is also relevant to both books.… (altro)
This book is a mess, but kind of a glorious, interesting mess. It is a retelling of the Arthurian legend, based on Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. As originally published, it consisted of four books. After the author's death a fifth book (The Book of Merlyn) was published, and the edition of The Once and Future King I read included that too.
Let's talk about each of the books:
1) The Sword in the Stone: this is about Arthur's childhood, and about how the wizard Merlyn mentored him to prepare him to become the king of England who would put an end to the abuses of the often brutal feudal lords and redirect the energies of those warriors towards the defense of what is right. It is a children's book, told in a very whimsical way, with magic adventures, blundering and comical knights, Arthur being turned into different animals to learn lessons from them... White tells the story in a very conversational tone, on purpose using many anachronisms that contribute to the whimsical atmosphere of the story. However, there are also some serious themes underlying it all. White introduces a strong pacifist message in the story.
2) The Queen of Air and Darkness: this book is mostly about Queen Morgause and her children (Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth... Mordred would come later). It tells how their mother's pernicious brand of love influenced and, to a certain extent, warped those children. It also tells how Mordred was conceived. At the same time, it tells about the first part of Arthur's reign and the wars he fought against the lords who were not ready to accept his vision. Although some whimsical elements remain (like King Pellinore's eternal persecution of the Questing Beast), the tone is much more serious. It is particularly interesting for the complex psychological portrayal of Gawain and his brothers.
3) The Ill-Made Knight: this book is mainly about Lancelot, and about his ill-fated love affair with Queen Guinevere. In White's hands, Lancelot is a truly complex and fascinating character. This is the longest book and and the one that develops the central themes of the story.
4) The Candle in the Wind: this book tells the end of Arthur's tale, and it shows how his kingdom and the Round Table fall apart, consumed by resentments and tragic sins.
5) The Book of Merlyn: this one was included in the edition I read, but in many other editions it is not included. It is set during Arthur's last night, when Merlyn appears again and they revisit many of the lessons he had as a boy, and spend too much time on lengthy political and philosophical lectures. I frankly did not see the point. I mean, I think Arthur's story is very well-suited for the pacifist message White includes, but sometimes the more a message is hammered the less effective it becomes. At this point in the narrative, these lectures are really out of place. They should have remained unpublished. If your edition has it, unless you are a completist, my advice would be to read only the last chapter of this book, which is a nice epilogue to Arthur's story.
All in all, the book is a bit disorganized. Sometimes an important event that we had not read about is mentioned in passing, and later it is actually told, thus causing some confusion. Sometimes White is given to digressions that contribute little to the story. However, it is also a huge, fascinating story, at times beautifully told. The interpretation of the characters is excellent. White makes them complex and conflicted, in a way that makes them seem real people. ( )
My target is to have this read by 2020-09-26, for a book club zoom meeting that day. The zoom book club meeting came and went. The discussion was interesting even though I hadn’t finished the book.
This book expounds the idea that we do not have choice, that there is a course of life set for us that we cannot alter. I don’t believe that. I believe that we do have choice, and our choices make a difference in the direction of our lives and our resultant happiness.
Life is complicated in that most of the time our understanding is imperfect. Missteps were made by main characters because of their misunderstanding of who really cared for them, and who was plotting to betray them.
I like the ending. It did not wrap everything up and put a pretty bow around it. ( )
As someone who admittedly didn't know anything about King Arthur except from the classic Disney film "The Sword In The Stone", this was a real eye opener. I completely enjoyed the first part of the book, where Merlin comes and educates Wart. That part is whimsical, fun, and just a good time. There are moments when we see the characters of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Little John. It felt comfortable, familiar.
Then we get to the second part of the book, and it is all downhill from there for me. We seem to pull away from Arthur and move into the Lancelot and Guenever story, which holds supreme for the rest of the book. It grew more than a little tiring. These characters made the same decisions over and over, and then felt the need to complain about them, over and over. I was more than ready to put the book down.
I hate not finishing a book, so I pressed on. The world-building is phenomenal. The mythical creatures, the backstory to other characters, and the first part alone set this book apart. It's just the Lancelot/Guenever thing that was a major mood killer. I finished the book happy to be done, but not happy to have read it. ( )
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She is not any common earth
Water or wood or air,
But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye
Where you and I will fare.
When shall I be dead and rid Of the wrong my father did? How long, how long, till spade and hearse Put to sleep my mother's curse?
"Nay," said Sir Lancelot "... for
once shamed may never be recovered."
"He thought a little and said:
'I have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many of my patients. I should prescribe for Mr. Pontifex a course of the larger mammals. Don't let him think he is taking them medicinally...'
Dedica
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For J.A.J.A.
Incipit
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On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology. The governess was always getting muddled - she would take it out of the Wart by rapping his knuckles.
Citazioni
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“If I were to be made a knight,” said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, “I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it.” “That would be extremely presumptuous of you,” said Merlyn, “and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it.” “I shouldn’t mind.” “Wouldn’t you? Wait till it happens and see.”
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting."
"Which did you like best," he asked, "the ants or the wild geese?"
"Yet here I am denouncing their ideas of nationalism, being what their politicians would call a traitor—because, by calling names, they can score the cheap debating points. And do you know another thing, Arthur? Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds."
"You have become the king of a domain in which the popular agitators hate each other for racial reasons, while the nobility fight each other for fun, and neither the racial maniac nor the overlord stops to consider the lot of the common soldier, who is the one person that gets hurt. Unless you can make the world wag better than it does at present, King, your reign will be an endless series of petty battles, in which the aggressions will either be from spiteful reasons or from sporting ones, and in which the poor man will be the only one who dies. "
"The bravest people are the ones who don't mind looking like cowards."
Few people can hate so bitterly and so self-righteously as the members of a ruling caste which is being dispossessed.
Arthur's feelings completed the misery of the court. He, unfortunately for himself, had been beautifully brought up. His teacher had educated him as the child is educated in the womb, where it lives the history of man from fish to mammal—and, like the child in the womb, he had been protected with love meanwhile. The effect of such an education was that he had grown up without any of the useful accomplishments for living—without malice, vanity, suspicion, cruelty, and the commoner forms of selfishness. Jealousy seemed to him the most ignoble of vices. He was sadly unfitted for hating his best friend or for torturing his wife. He had been given too much love and trust to be good at these things.
Arthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected. He was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having.
When Lancelot saw her waiting for him at the table, with Arthur beside her, the heart-sack broke in his wame, and the love inside it ran about his veins. It was his old love for a girl of twenty, standing proudly by her throne with the present of captives about her—but now the same girl was standing in other surroundings, the surroundings of bad make-up and loud silks, by which she was trying to defy the invincible doom of human destiny. He saw her as the passionate spirit of innocent youth, now beleaguered by the trick which is played on youth—the trick of treachery in the body, which turns flesh into green bones. Her stupid finery was not vulgar to him, but touching. The girl was still there, still appealing from behind the breaking barricade of rouge. She had made the brave protest: I will not be vanquished. Under the clumsy coquetry, the undignified clothes, there was the human cry for help. The young eyes were puzzled, saying: It is I, inside here—what have they done to me? I will not submit. Some part of her spirit knew that the powder was making a guy of her, and hated it, and tried to hold her lover with the eyes alone. They said: Don't look at all this. Look at me. I am still here, in the eyes. Look at me, here in the prison, and help me out. Another part said: I am not old, it is illusion. I am beautifully made-up. See, I will perform the movements of youth. I will defy the enormous army of age.
One explanation of Guenever, for what it is worth, is that she was what they used to call a "real" person. She was not the kind who can be fitted away safely under some label or other, as "loyal" or "disloyal" or "self-sacrificing" or "jealous". Sometimes she was loyal and sometimes she was disloyal. She behaved like herself. And there must have been something in this self, some sincerity of heart, or she would not have held two people like Arthur and Lancelot. Like likes like, they say—and at least they are certain that her men were generous. She must have been generous too. It is difficult to write about a real person.
Lovers were not recruited then among the juveniles and adolescents: they were seasoned people, who knew what they were about. In those days people loved each other for their lives, without the conveniences of the divorce court and the psychiatrist. They had a God in heaven and a goddess on earth—and, since people who devote themselves to goddesses must exercise some caution about the ones to whom they are devoted, they neither chose them by the passing standards of the flesh alone, nor abandoned it lightly when the bruckle thing began to fail.
"Because a man can push you off a horse with a stick, it doesn't mean he is a better man than you are."
"When you are a king you can't go executing people as the fancy takes you. A king is the head of his people, and he must stand as an example to them, and do as they wish."
"Civilization seems to have become insane," she said.
"War is like a fire, Agnes. One man may start it, but it will spread all over."
He saw the problem before him as plain as a map. The fantastic thing about war was that it was fought about nothing—literally nothing. Frontiers were imaginary lines. There was no visible line between Scotland and England, although Flodden and Bannockburn had been fought about it. It was geography which was the cause—political geography. It was nothing else. Nations did not need to have the same kind of civilization, nor the same kind of leader, any more than the puffins and the guillemots did. They could keep their own civilizations, like Esquimaux and Hottentots, if they would give each other freedom of trade and free passage and access to the world. Countries would have to become counties—but counties which could keep their own culture and local laws. The imaginary lines on the earth's surface only needed to be unimagined. The airborne birds skipped them by nature. How mad the frontiers had seemed to Lyo-lyok, and would to Man if he could learn to fly.
There would be a day—there must be a day—when he would come back to Gramarye with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none—a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there. The hope of making it would lie in culture. If people could be persuaded to read and write, not just to eat and make love, there was still a chance that they might come to reason.
Ultime parole
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The cannons of his adversary were thundering in the tattered morning when the Majesty of England drew himself up to meet the future with a peaceful heart.
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These editions of The Once and Future King do not contain The Book of Merlyn. Please do not combine with the editions that do contain The Book of Merlyn.
Redattore editoriale
Elogi
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A revised omnibus edition of White's retelling of Arthurian legends. The first three sections of this book were originally published separately: The Sword in the Stone (1939), The Witch in the Wood (1939; here called "The Queen of Air and Darkness"), The Ill-Made Knight (1940), and the previously unpublished section, "The Candle in the Wind." The Book of Merlyn, written in 1941, was originally intended as the fifth and final book of the saga. It was first published by the University of Texas Press in 1977 and reissued by Berkley, 1978 (pap.). The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.
)
)
Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni...
The Once and Future King Group Read: General Thread
3
Let's talk about each of the books:
1) The Sword in the Stone: this is about Arthur's childhood, and about how the wizard Merlyn mentored him to prepare him to become the king of England who would put an end to the abuses of the often brutal feudal lords and redirect the energies of those warriors towards the defense of what is right. It is a children's book, told in a very whimsical way, with magic adventures, blundering and comical knights, Arthur being turned into different animals to learn lessons from them... White tells the story in a very conversational tone, on purpose using many anachronisms that contribute to the whimsical atmosphere of the story. However, there are also some serious themes underlying it all. White introduces a strong pacifist message in the story.
2) The Queen of Air and Darkness: this book is mostly about Queen Morgause and her children (Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth... Mordred would come later). It tells how their mother's pernicious brand of love influenced and, to a certain extent, warped those children. It also tells how Mordred was conceived. At the same time, it tells about the first part of Arthur's reign and the wars he fought against the lords who were not ready to accept his vision. Although some whimsical elements remain (like King Pellinore's eternal persecution of the Questing Beast), the tone is much more serious. It is particularly interesting for the complex psychological portrayal of Gawain and his brothers.
3) The Ill-Made Knight: this book is mainly about Lancelot, and about his ill-fated love affair with Queen Guinevere. In White's hands, Lancelot is a truly complex and fascinating character. This is the longest book and and the one that develops the central themes of the story.
4) The Candle in the Wind: this book tells the end of Arthur's tale, and it shows how his kingdom and the Round Table fall apart, consumed by resentments and tragic sins.
5) The Book of Merlyn: this one was included in the edition I read, but in many other editions it is not included. It is set during Arthur's last night, when Merlyn appears again and they revisit many of the lessons he had as a boy, and spend too much time on lengthy political and philosophical lectures. I frankly did not see the point. I mean, I think Arthur's story is very well-suited for the pacifist message White includes, but sometimes the more a message is hammered the less effective it becomes. At this point in the narrative, these lectures are really out of place. They should have remained unpublished. If your edition has it, unless you are a completist, my advice would be to read only the last chapter of this book, which is a nice epilogue to Arthur's story.
All in all, the book is a bit disorganized. Sometimes an important event that we had not read about is mentioned in passing, and later it is actually told, thus causing some confusion. Sometimes White is given to digressions that contribute little to the story. However, it is also a huge, fascinating story, at times beautifully told. The interpretation of the characters is excellent. White makes them complex and conflicted, in a way that makes them seem real people. (