Arthur the King - Hardcover

MASSIE, ALLAN

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297816780 ISBN 13: 9780297816782

Publisher: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003., 2003

Synopsis

In Allan Massie's novel of King Arthur he cleverly uses the key points of the legend - Arthur, Merlin, his lover Morgan le Fay, his wife Guinevere, the various knights, the sword excalibur, the round table. He opens with the sword excalibur in the stone. Knight after knight, even the King of the Orkneys fails. Then comes Arthur, young and callow. He succeeds. He is the new king. You need to be well versed in the Arthurian legends to know where Massie has pillaged existing stories rather than invented his own twists to the tale. The Camelot of the novel is, incidentally, on the River Tweed. We learn a little of the origins of the magician Merlin (he was the son of a Roman centurion), how he nurtures the child Arthur, but Massie's Merlin becomes a dirty old man. Arthur's great friend and servant is Cal. Together they are involved in many a scrap. The novel is about the complete life of Arthur, how he welds the nation together, but gets involved in European wars. How the nation fragments when he isn't around to keep it in order. Massie also includes the Holy Grail in this enthralling historical novel. We may think we know the Arthurian story, but in Massie's hands it comes across freshly minted.

About this title

About the Author

Author and journalist on various newspapers (inc Glasgow Herald and Scottish Sunday Times).

From Publishers Weekly

In this second volume of his historical trilogy (after The Evening of the World, set in the dying days of the Roman Empire), Massie presents a cheerily erudite deconstruction and retelling of the Arthurian legend. The linear events of the narrative are familiar: as a young boy, Arthur is schooled by Merlin, then claims the throne of England by pulling the sword Excalibur from its stone. Massie's version, however, fashions alternate histories for familiar characters (chronicling, for example, Merlin's wretched childhood and describing the twisted use he makes of his powers) and takes a playful, humorous tone ("Nor was Arthur enamored of mathematics, even though Merlin took great joy in that subject and excelled (as he supposed) in expounding it"). Once crowned king, Arthur is portrayed as a strategist and statesman whose marriage to the Saxon maiden Guinevere is one of convenience; his true love is his half-sister, Morgan le Fay, and he has a fondness for pretty youths (as does Merlin). Similarly, the machinations of the Knights of the Round Table are seen as a series of political maneuvers, particularly when the knights jockey for position as the quest for the Grail begins. Readers looking for the standard heroic take may be disappointed, but those of "a speculative and skeptical turn of mind, which takes nothing on trust or unexamined" will appreciate this bracing chronicle.
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About this edition

• Publisher: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0297816780
• ISBN 13: 9780297816782
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304