Arthurian novels, and other stuff
Jan. 13th, 2004 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cbrownjc, I got alerted to the LotR super trailer, covering the entire trilogy. Of course, coming after that, the trailer for King Arthur, which she also linked at her lj, had to pale, and she's right, the way it is cut is a blatant rip-off of the RotK trailer.
But it got me into a nostalgic mood about various Arthurian novels I read. The first one was strictly speaking not a novel, or a "graphic novel" if you want to be precise - Hal Forster's Prince Valiant, which I read as a kid. (Actually, so did my father (it's that old), and he saw the movie starring Robert Wagner they made based on these comics, and then, decades later, he saw Robert Wagner on stage in a production of Love Letters. He couldn't get over how small RW was in real life for the entire evening. When I asked why this was so important to him, a stirring tale of teenage hero-worship emerged. I love my Dad.)
Anyway. Back to Arthurian tales, or rather, those who stand out in my memory.. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley certainly made one big impression on me when I was 14. It would probably have been different if I had read the novel at a later age, but back then, it revolutionized a part of my thinking. I hadn't been aware before that one could (re-)tell a myth in various ways, that just because Morgan Le Fey had been the villain in the versions I had read and seen until then, one couldn't write a novel with her as the heroine. Or that there might have been a cultural clash going on between religions. And so forth, and so on.
(The novel also made me curious about other novels from the author, and I went on to read her Darkover novels, which had another revolutionary impact, because until then, the only homosexuals in fiction I had encountered had been either villains (I'm thinking of Monsieur in Anne Golon's Angelique novels which I had devoured between 9-14) or funny characters. The concept of bisexuality was also new, as was the treatment of homosexual and bisexual characters as equal to the heterosexual ones. (I.e. there were heroes and villains of either persuasion around.) I'm not saying MZB was one of the great writers of the world, but if we talk about books that challenged and changed perceptions my teenage self had held? Hers were some of them.)
I then progressed to Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy, and her novel about Mordred. (Another re-interpretation - Mordred had been treated as a villain even in The Mists of Avalon.) What impressed me otherwise about Stewart back then was how she emphasized the Roman heritage with those Britons, making me aware that the medieval settings from various film versions were completely wrong for the likely period.
Lingering Roman heritage also figures in Parke Godwin's Fire Lord, which impressed yours truly (then around 18) with being the first fictional treatment to actually make Arthur, not anyone else, the central character - and an interesting, very human character at that, and since I had by then taken the trouble to hunt donw some myth collections, I could see that Godwin had used some of the darker tales as the one which has Arthur killing children and put in in a way which made sense given the historical context. Guinevre was neither the annoying whiny milksop from The Mists of Avalon nor the beautiful ideal I vaguely connected with Ava Gardner and the movies, but another human and flawed but also admirable person. (Godwin went on to write a sequel about her life post-Arthur.) As for the Knights, lo and behold, they came to life as well, not just Lancelot or Gawain as in earlier adaptions I had read.
Bernard Cornwell's series was recommended to me in my twenties; I read it, but it never emotionally grabbed me the way those earlier novels had done. And then, lo and behold, I came across a novel put in the "Young Adult" section as it's called in English. (The German term isn't quite the same and implies teenagers as the intended readers.) The category turned out to be puzzling since what I read was as adult as any of the other versions had ever been. The book in question was The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein, a first person narration by Medraut (aka Mordred); hands down the most intense interpretation of Mordred I had ever read, including Stewart's, and his half-siblings, Llew and Goewin, while having some claim to be based on Welsh tales were in their characterisation original contributions by Wein. She managed to render all of them interesting; her Morgause is definitely a villain but a rounded, impressive one, and the entire messed up relationships of the family spoke to my kink for complicated and/or screwed up family relationships.
Being in my thirties now, I can say that as a reader, I found a lot of interesting, diverging interpretations of these myths. But movie-wise, I can't think of one which satisfied me. But who knows? We'll see what the next summer brings.
Lastly, two story recs: a wonderful brief and terse look at Eowyn in RotK; the other character character in this very well written vignette is Elrond, and it's a fascinating encounter.
The revelations about Neville and his time in the spotlight in OotP have a lot of folk in Potterdom speculating; here's a dark but intriguing and canonically plausible interpretation as to what Dumbledore might be up to with Harry and Neville, written from Harry's pov.
cbrownjc, I got alerted to the LotR super trailer, covering the entire trilogy. Of course, coming after that, the trailer for King Arthur, which she also linked at her lj, had to pale, and she's right, the way it is cut is a blatant rip-off of the RotK trailer. But it got me into a nostalgic mood about various Arthurian novels I read. The first one was strictly speaking not a novel, or a "graphic novel" if you want to be precise - Hal Forster's Prince Valiant, which I read as a kid. (Actually, so did my father (it's that old), and he saw the movie starring Robert Wagner they made based on these comics, and then, decades later, he saw Robert Wagner on stage in a production of Love Letters. He couldn't get over how small RW was in real life for the entire evening. When I asked why this was so important to him, a stirring tale of teenage hero-worship emerged. I love my Dad.)
Anyway. Back to Arthurian tales, or rather, those who stand out in my memory.. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley certainly made one big impression on me when I was 14. It would probably have been different if I had read the novel at a later age, but back then, it revolutionized a part of my thinking. I hadn't been aware before that one could (re-)tell a myth in various ways, that just because Morgan Le Fey had been the villain in the versions I had read and seen until then, one couldn't write a novel with her as the heroine. Or that there might have been a cultural clash going on between religions. And so forth, and so on.
(The novel also made me curious about other novels from the author, and I went on to read her Darkover novels, which had another revolutionary impact, because until then, the only homosexuals in fiction I had encountered had been either villains (I'm thinking of Monsieur in Anne Golon's Angelique novels which I had devoured between 9-14) or funny characters. The concept of bisexuality was also new, as was the treatment of homosexual and bisexual characters as equal to the heterosexual ones. (I.e. there were heroes and villains of either persuasion around.) I'm not saying MZB was one of the great writers of the world, but if we talk about books that challenged and changed perceptions my teenage self had held? Hers were some of them.)
I then progressed to Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy, and her novel about Mordred. (Another re-interpretation - Mordred had been treated as a villain even in The Mists of Avalon.) What impressed me otherwise about Stewart back then was how she emphasized the Roman heritage with those Britons, making me aware that the medieval settings from various film versions were completely wrong for the likely period.
Lingering Roman heritage also figures in Parke Godwin's Fire Lord, which impressed yours truly (then around 18) with being the first fictional treatment to actually make Arthur, not anyone else, the central character - and an interesting, very human character at that, and since I had by then taken the trouble to hunt donw some myth collections, I could see that Godwin had used some of the darker tales as the one which has Arthur killing children and put in in a way which made sense given the historical context. Guinevre was neither the annoying whiny milksop from The Mists of Avalon nor the beautiful ideal I vaguely connected with Ava Gardner and the movies, but another human and flawed but also admirable person. (Godwin went on to write a sequel about her life post-Arthur.) As for the Knights, lo and behold, they came to life as well, not just Lancelot or Gawain as in earlier adaptions I had read.
Bernard Cornwell's series was recommended to me in my twenties; I read it, but it never emotionally grabbed me the way those earlier novels had done. And then, lo and behold, I came across a novel put in the "Young Adult" section as it's called in English. (The German term isn't quite the same and implies teenagers as the intended readers.) The category turned out to be puzzling since what I read was as adult as any of the other versions had ever been. The book in question was The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein, a first person narration by Medraut (aka Mordred); hands down the most intense interpretation of Mordred I had ever read, including Stewart's, and his half-siblings, Llew and Goewin, while having some claim to be based on Welsh tales were in their characterisation original contributions by Wein. She managed to render all of them interesting; her Morgause is definitely a villain but a rounded, impressive one, and the entire messed up relationships of the family spoke to my kink for complicated and/or screwed up family relationships.
Being in my thirties now, I can say that as a reader, I found a lot of interesting, diverging interpretations of these myths. But movie-wise, I can't think of one which satisfied me. But who knows? We'll see what the next summer brings.
Lastly, two story recs: a wonderful brief and terse look at Eowyn in RotK; the other character character in this very well written vignette is Elrond, and it's a fascinating encounter.
The revelations about Neville and his time in the spotlight in OotP have a lot of folk in Potterdom speculating; here's a dark but intriguing and canonically plausible interpretation as to what Dumbledore might be up to with Harry and Neville, written from Harry's pov.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:33 am (UTC)The Parke Godwin title in English is The Fire Lord (the sequel is Beloved Exile.
Elizabeth Wein, spelled with an E, also has a sequel to The Winter Prince out, focusing on Goewin, although I wasn't as impressed by it; the third book in the series, The Sunbird, should be out later this year. There's also a couple of pendant short stories: one about Lleu's life after the end of The Winter Prince, which is in one of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future anthology (v. hard to find), and one about Medraut and Morgawse, in Datlow & Windling's Sirens. Her non-Arthurian short fiction is also lovely.
And MZB's Darkover series--particularly Heritage of Hastur, which I adored as a kid-- was really influential on me in exactly the ways you describe.
Thank you!
Date: 2004-01-13 09:47 am (UTC)L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future anthology sounds severly off-putting - Scientology creeps me out. But I'll try to track down the other one.
Heritage of Hastur, together with Sharra's Exile, is probably my favourite of the Darkover series.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2004-01-13 09:50 am (UTC)Your post fills me with the best sort of nostalgia, I meant to say.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:44 am (UTC)Ever read Persia Woolley's Guinevere trilogy? Child of the Northern Spring, Queen of the Summer Stars, and Guinevere: The Legend in Autumn (sounds like she was running out of title ideas there) -- also a fairly clever re-working, with Gwen as the focus.
I loved Mary Stewart's novels - I'll have to check out Fireking next. Thanks for sharing!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:47 am (UTC)My first exposure to Arthurian legend, though, was The Once and Future King by T.H. White, and it's my favorite to this day. For me that book made the all the characters human, fallible and noble at the same time, and even gave an plausible and understandable reason for Mordred's hatred of Arthur, thouh he is still the villian of the piece.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 06:37 pm (UTC)Twins Separated at Birth
Date: 2004-01-13 10:46 am (UTC)I too read the Mists of Avalon at 14, and it completely changed how I looked at lots of things, including the idea of One True Love. I too then moved to Darkover, where my favorite was the one with the gloomy gay falconer, an idea I was already familiar with from Mary Renault. But what an impact on my adolescent inner life! The whole world view of it was different.
I then progressed to Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy
As did I. As a matter of fact, I reread the Crystal Cave last weekend.
Lingering Roman heritage also figures in Parke Godwin's Fire Lord, which impressed yours truly (then around 18) with being the first fictional treatment to actually make Arthur, not anyone else, the central character - and an interesting, very human character at that,
I read Firelord before the Mists of Avalon, when I was 12. It is still my favorite, coming the closest to the historical period in my mind.
I too have never been satisfied with a movie treatment. (First Knight? Please!)
While you were writing this entry this morning, my head was also off on Arthur/Aragorn, as you can see in my lj.
Twins separated at birth.
Re: Twins Separated at Birth
Date: 2004-01-14 12:03 am (UTC)Off to read your lj!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 10:50 am (UTC)The Winter Prince sounds familiar from the description, but I can't actually be sure if the title and author are the same as the one I read. "Medraut" rings a bell, though.
Arthurian legend
Date: 2004-01-13 12:19 pm (UTC)Re: Arthurian legend
Date: 2004-01-14 12:04 am (UTC)Oops! Skipped word!
Date: 2004-01-13 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 06:10 pm (UTC)I came to Arthurian stuff via Sutcliff, and it's colored everything else. My Arthur is a part-Roman tribesman raised as a child of two peoples in the shadow of Yr Widdfa, and he dies on a bed clinging to a sword set with Maximilian's great flawed amethyst. It's marvelously drawn: hard desperate years of battle and politicking, amidst the shabby ruins of Roman cities. (The rest of Sutcliff's Roman Britain novels are also excellent, although less ambitious, but they are marvelous stories with a great sense of place and time.)
Mary Stewart also does a nice job with the Roman Britain stuff except that I had issues with all the magic. For some reason I like my Arthur unmagical and desperate: it makes the high points that much more poignant.
I was too old when I read Mists of Avalon, and instead of loving it I loathed it, because it was too revisionist for me to stomach. I know many people love it, and I enjoyed many of MZB's other novels, which I read voraciously in my teens, but Mists actively turned me off.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 12:36 am (UTC)Re: Mists of Avalon - as I said, it's an age thing. If I had read it as an adult for the first time, I'd probably objected to a lot of things. I certainly disliked Firebrand with a vengeance. (Though I love the classic Darkover novels, i.e. those written up to ten years ago, to this day.) But back then, I feel in love.
Magic or no magic: this is why I love Firelord. Whether or not there is magic is up to the reader to decide; in any case, the setting is firmly unmagical, and I can believe in the post-Roman, pre-Saxon Britain Godwin paints.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 01:07 am (UTC)Mine too. And the first person narrative makes the character that much more vivid and heart-breaking. Although everything ends in tragedy I love the tiny of hope at the end. Wonderful book.
(The rest of Sutcliff's Roman Britain novels are also excellent, although less ambitious, but they are marvelous stories with a great sense of place and time.)
And sometimes very dark for children's books. Have you read The Mark of the Horse Lord? It was a real shock when reading her autobiography Blue Remembered Hills to discover that this woman who wrote such wonderfully active books had been crippled since childhood with rheumatoid arthritis.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 04:12 pm (UTC)Question: Is this the same Prince Valiant who had his own cartoon series.
Plus, thank you for the Hp fic rec. Since the end of OotP I have been utterly convinced that Neville is the prophesized one.
The very same
Date: 2004-01-14 12:36 am (UTC)You're welcome. What I liked about the story wasn't just the Neville-as-Chosen-One premise, but the darker psychological implications of Dumbledore doing this to both Neville and Harry.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 06:06 pm (UTC)::g:: I read all your other stuff with interest but I have no knowledge, and therefore no comments.