The Truth of the Matter of Britain

Something about January has been bringing me back to King Arthur.

Maybe it's the promise of renewal, of a hopeful dawn on a new golden age--if only we have the courage and convictions to make it happen. 

Like Arthur did.

Last year it was The Big Excalibur post at DMR Books, a review of the wondrous 1981 film. This year it's The Truth of the Matter of Britain: Some thoughts upon re-reading Bernard Cornwell's Warlord trilogy. Also up on the blog of DMR Books, for which I'm participating in the annual Deuce Richardson spearheaded "January Bloggerama."

I last read the Warlord trilogy in 2008, and did a brief review here. I was due for a re-read, and was reminded again how wonderful The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur are. Easily one of my favorite treatments of the myth, right up there with The Once and Future King, Excalibur (the film), and the Pendragon RPG.

This post was inspired by both the re-reading and an off-hand comment in a forum I frequent that "Arthur certainly didn't exist." I disagree. And add two additional thoughts: 1) I acknowledge the highly contentious nature of this topic, and that many scholars far more informed than I claim that Arthur was only a myth, and 2) It really doesn't matter all that much, either way. Because there are great Truths in the story, and these Truths, more than any archeological evidence, are why the stories persist, and matter, and continue to have relevance today.

The Goshawk, T.H. White

Enraptured by a raptor...

The author of a blog I follow mentioned in an off-hand way the life-affirming power in this obscure title by T.H. White. Prior to that I had never heard of The Goshawk (1951). But I love The Once and Future King, so with nothing more to go on than this sleight recommendation I purchased and read it over the last few days.

And found it to be a wonderful little book.

In the summer of 1936 White holed himself up in an old workman’s cottage in the woods, miles from civilization, with only a pet dog, a wireless radio, and some booze for company. And set to work training a goshawk (a male hawk) based on the methods of three archaic books on the subject, including one volume originally printed in 1619. These books explained that a hawk could not be forced to submit to training and the will of the falconer, you had to win its love through patience and persistence and closeness. Part of this process of acclimation included staying up for three straight days/nights (!) with the bird, so that it would perch on its master out of sheer exhaustion. Man and bird becoming one. Something akin to love.

White actually did this, and it’s all described wonderfully in The Goshawk, as only White can. His descriptions of the bird and its unpredictable moods and odd quirks are lovely. It's a snapshot into a world that feels almost alien, so far removed from 21st century life.

I knew essentially nothing of falconry and left with an understanding of how it might have been practiced by medieval falconers. Which is about as practical as learning how to master hoop rolling or leaded window installation.

What’s the point, and why read something like this? Fair question.

To which I would answer: Because there are difficult crafts worth pursuing for their own sake. That we might pour two months or more of training to tame a wild raptor to see if it can be done, and to have had that experience and sense of accomplishment. And might learn something about nature, human and animal, if we carefully observe the process.

The Goshawk is mainly focused on the training of the bird but does have a few wonderful asides and commentary. Little observations like this, of the end of the old ways of falconry:

It happened like this in the world. Old things lost their grip and dropped away; not always because they were bad things, but sometimes because the new things were more bad, and stronger.

Or this, on writing and more broadly on any craft practiced well, which touched something in me. It’s something I love about writing, that if done well can achieve a sort of small and unassuming immortality:

To write something which was of enduring beauty, this was the ambition of every writer: as it was the ambition of the joiner and architect and the constructor of any kind. It was not the beauty but the endurance, for endurance was beautiful. It was also all that we could do. It was a consolation, even a high and positive joy, to make something true: some table, which, sat on, would not splinter or shatter. It was not for the constructor that the beauty was made, but for the thing itself. He would triumph to know that some contribution had been made: some sort of consoling contribution quite timeless and without relation to his own profit. Sometimes we knew, half tipsy or listening to music, that at the heart of some world there lay a chord to which vibrating gave reality. With its reality there was music and truth and the permanence of good workmanship. To give birth to this, with whatever male travail, was not only all that man could do: it was also all that eclipsed humanity of either sex could do: it was the human contribution to the universe. Absolutely bludgeoned by jazz and mechanical achievement, the artist yearned to discover permanence, some life of happy permanence which he by fixing could create to the satisfaction of after-people who also looked. This was it, as the poets realized, to be a mother of immortal song: To say Yes when it was, and No when it was: to make enduringly true that perhaps quite small occasional table off which subsequent generations could eat, without breaking it down: to help the timeless benevolence which should be that of this lonely and little race: to join the affection which had lasted between William the Conqueror and George VI. Wheelwrights, smiths, farmers, carpenters, and mothers of large families knew this.

Observations like these are what make White worth reading.

Is this book The Once and Future King? No, it’s not. The Goshawk is far less awesome in breath and scope, and not as artful. But I can’t really describe it as lesser. Just less ambitious. It’s a little slice of White’s life, utterly charming, a bit of sanity disconnected from the modern world, in between two savage world wars.

The big Excalibur post

Up on the blog of DMR Books is the big Excalibur post I've been meaning to write for years. 2K words about not just one of my favorite fantasy films of all time, but top 10 favorite films of any genre. It's also my attempt to analyze what director John Boorman's vision and objective was with this film, why the King Arthur myth endures, and what it can still teach us today. Why we need the old stories, and our inherited mythologies, which we abandon at our peril.

I think many viewers get hung up on Excalibur's sometimes stilted and declarative dialogue, the historical anachronisms, etc., and are too quick to dismiss what I believe is a masterpiece (YMMV). I've watched many subsequent King Arthur films that embrace more traditional filmmaking techniques, but none have managed to do what Excalibur did, which is render myth on screen for a modern audience.

Check it out here. 

Fellow DMR blogger Deuce Richardson has pointed me in the direction of a "making of" documentary on Excalibur, "Behind the Sword in the Stone," which I shall view next: https://www.tvguide.com/movies/behind-the-sword-in-the-stone/2030331927/.

Finally, I'm glad Excalibur has resisted remakes some 42 years after its debut. I welcome new King Arthur films, but not a remake.

Last Call by Tim Powers, a review

Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player twenty years ago and hasn’t returned to Las Vegas, or held a hand of cards, in ten years. But troubling nightmares about a strange poker game he once attended on a houseboat on Lake Mead are drawing him back to the magical city. For the mythic game he believed he won did not end that night in 1969—and the price of his winnings was his soul. Now, a pot far more strange and perilous than he ever could imagine depends on the turning of a card. Enchantingly dark and compellingly real, this World Fantasy Award–winning novel is a masterpiece of magic realism set in the gritty, dazzling underworld known as Las Vegas. 

Tim Powers’ Last Call (1992 William Morrow and Co.; 2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.) is studded with references to old myths, snatches of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” the art of poker playing, and the unique culture and atmosphere of old and new Las Vegas. It contains numerous major and minor characters, overarching themes and subplots, and digressions into probability theory. In other words, it demands close reading and attention to detail. Listening to it in half-hour chunks as I did while driving to work was probably not the best idea, and may have affected my review of the book, but what follows is an honest appraisal.

A holy grail (of sorts) for fans of Tolkien and King Arthur

Sorry for the lack of posts of late, I sincerely hope to get back on a more regular schedule. But here is a bit of news worth sharing: According to this rather sparse, cryptic entry on Amazon.com France, Tolkien's previously unpublished poem "The Fall of Arthur" is planned for a May 2013 release.

"The Fall of Arthur" is a lengthy (954 lines), alliterative, and unfinished work. Tolkien loved reading the Arthurian myths as a boy and in the early 1930s began to write "The Fall," but ultimately abandoned it, though various outlines and drafts survive in addition to the final unfinished text (source: The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond, p. 56). Ultimately Tolkien fell away from the Arthurian stories, which he regarded as too mixed with other elements and influences and lacking enough of Britain's character; the stories were "associated with the soil of Britain but not with English," according to Tolkien. Hence his reason for writing The Lord of the Rings and its supporting legendarium as told in The Silmarillion and elsewhere, which serve as an alternative mythic history of England.

Like "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun" I fully expect that this will come and go without huge fanfare or sales. But for hardcore fans of Tolkien and Tolkien scholars, it's huge. Maybe not quite as huge as say, the discovery of Excalibur, or Arthur returning over the sea from Avalon to set our darkening world aright again, but huge nonetheless. And it just might prove to be a cracking good read; again quoting from Scull and Hammond:

Humphrey Carpenter comments in Biography that in his work 'Tolkien did not touch on the Grail but began an individual rendering of the Morte d'Arthur, in which the king and Gawain go to war in "Saxon lands" but are summoned home by news of Mordred's treachery .... It is one of the few pieces of writing in which Tolkien deals explicitly with sexual passion, describing Mordred's unsated lust for Guinever (which is how Tolkien chooses to spell her name .... ' But here Guinever 'is not the tragic heroine beloved by most Arthurian writers'; rather, she is a 'lady ruthless / fair as fay-woman and fell-minded, / in the world walking for the woe of men.'

Hat tip to the Mythsoc listserv for the news.

The Dragon Lord by David Drake, a review

Some twenty years before TheWarlord Chronicles, a grim and gritty take on the Arthurian mythos by historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell, David Drake’s The Dragon Lord (1978) covered the same war-torn ground, employing a similar historical Dark Ages realism in the telling. Imagine Arthur as a power-hungry, petulant warlord with a clubbed foot; Launcelot as a hulking Roman Gaul, arrogant and bullying; and Merlin a half-crazed sorcerer barely in control of his own overestimated powers of magic, and you have the basic flavor of Drake’s debut novel.

Cornwell’s trilogy is a good deal superior to Drake’s effort, as the latter is marred by flaws perhaps forgivable of a first time novelist, including a choppy, uneven narrative and an abrupt, rather unsatisfying ending. But The Dragon Lord has a curious power of its own, perhaps because it manages to successfully straddle both the historical fiction and fantasy genres; it feels something like the Northern-inspired novels of Poul Anderson. If you like that stuff, you’ll probably like The Dragon Lord.

Excalibur remake dead? Good

I came across this old story while surfing the web after the recent news of Nicol Williamson’s passing: Bryan Singer Excalibur Remake Is Dead (file this one under news to me, and therefore new).

In a word: Good. Excalibur does not need to be remade. There’s no way a remake would take the same risks as the original, which practically demanded that its viewers understood at least the basic myths of the Fisher King and the symbolic nature of the grail. I’m sure the new version would look great, but even then, would it surpass the falling petals with “O Fortuna” from the Carmina Burana playing in the background, or would it merely ape what has gone before?

The King Arthur story has been told again and again over the generations, and that mythic dimension—version upon version, each different than the one that came before but with the same broadly depicted characters and themes—is part of its allure and appeal. If Alfred Lord Tennyson didn’t have the courage to retell Malory’s LeMorte D’Arthur we wouldn’t have Idylls of the King; if T.H. White didn’t pick up where Tennyson left off we wouldn’t have The Once and Future King, and so on. The world would be a much poorer place.

But the difference of course is that Tennyson,White, Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Trilogy, et al., are retellings, not remakes. There’s a big difference. While I welcome new Arthurian retellings, we don’t need a remake of Excalibur. I couldn’t agree more with this paragraph from the linked article (bold emphasis mine):

Directed by John Boorman and starring Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, and Nicol Williamson, Excalibur is the definitive version of Arthurian legend for many of us who grew up in the '80s, a dark and bloody affair that has often been imitated but never equaled in the years since. Maybe this is a good thing. At this point, we've seen the story of King Arthur told just about every way it can be. If we're going to sit through yet another retelling, let's wait until somebody comes up with a brilliant new spin on the legend rather than just remaking the already-good ones.

Rest in Peace, Nicol Williamson

The actor who gave us the best wizard ever put to screen has died: Rest in Peace, Nicol Williamson, age 75. His son has a few moving words to say about him here.

In honor of Williamson, In The Land of Dreams:

And When a Man Lies:

Entering the Lists in Defense of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe

There’s a school of thought that views the Middle Ages as a dark gulf between the Classical Age and the rebirth of reason known as the Renaissance. The Middle Ages were, to paraphrase science fiction author David Brin, an unhappy time of small-mindedness and fear, marked by the squabbles of petty nobles, ignorance, superstition, and religious persecution.

Thus, any historical fiction that dares emit a whiff of romanticism of the age is viewed by some as anathema, a whitewashed but corrupted view of “reality”.

But as time marches on and new discoveries and scholarship come to light, we’ve realized that these times weren’t quite as dark and backwards as we once believed. And that allows us to revisit old works of art like Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe with a fresh perspective. My recent re-read of Scott’s 1819 classic of historical fiction reminded me of the following reasons why it’s still relevant and worth re-reading.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

Grails: Quests of the Dawn: Or, where’s my knights, dude?

In John Boorman’s Excalibur there’s a scene in which an ailing, aging King Arthur prepares to send his knights on the quest for the holy grail. With his warriors assembled about him, faces grim at his pain-wracked appearance (or perhaps the prospect of not returning from said quest), Arthur whispers a final, cryptic order: "Only the grail can restore leaf and flower. Search the land, the labyrinths of the forest, to the edge of … within.”

The holy grail is as much a concept as a cup. We assume the knights are looking for an actual, physical vessel, but Arthur’s hint suggests that the quest is a search within the individual—the voyage of a soul seeking spiritual perfection. Excalibur is a film steeped in Arthurian lore and it practically demands at least some cursory knowledge of the myths in order to make complete sense of it. That’s one reason why I like it so much. The other is that it’s got knights riding around in armor fighting, jousting, and in general causing a ruckus. It’s smart and delivers on the battle scenes, too.

It was with images of armor-plated knights riding out on a great quest that I eagerly dug into Grails: Quests for the Dawn (Roc, 1994), a collection of 25 short stories and a handful of poems by such greats as Orson Scott Card, Gene Wolfe, Mercedes Lackey, and Neil Gaiman, as well as many other lesser literary lights. Alas, my anticipation did not live up to reality. Grails: Quests of the Dawn gets it half right, delivering stories about broken characters in search of healing. But it comes at the expense of, well, knights. There are precious few in the book and as I recall only a single sword is drawn in anger (Brad Strickland’s “The Gift of Gilthaliad”). Most of the stories in fact don’t even take place during the Middle Ages but instead opt for modern or in some cases pre-medieval settings.

Now, lest I be accused of being a literary lowbrow, as I said previously I get the symbolism of the Grail Quest. But couldn’t we get the literary bits after Launcelot whips up on a half-dozen would-be robbers in the Forest Sauvage? Too much to ask, I guess. You won’t find the clash of sword and lance or the quickening heartbeat that betokens impending battle in Grails: Quests of the Dawn.

Despite my complaints about its lack of blood and thunder there are a few worthy stories in this collection. Neil Gaiman’s “Chivalry”, a story about a kindly old woman who finds the grail in a second-hand shop but doesn’t want to relinquish her prize so quickly to a handsome young knight, is very good. So is “Atlantis” by Orson Scott Card. The latter does not feature the grail, though it does include a famous (waterborne) vessel. It’s a clever retelling of the Noah’s Ark/flood story and how that begat the myth of Atlantis. There are a few other decent entries too. “Greggie’s Cup,” though a bit telegraphed, is a heartwarming story about a child with special needs who befriends a ghostly Launcelot in the ruins of an old castle, as the latter rejoices to find a trusting, non-judgmental spirit in whom he can confide. Alan Dean Foster’s “What You See … ” would fit nicely into a Year’s Best Horror anthology with its E.C. Comics’ “you reap what you sew” harsh morality tale of an ending.

Unfortunately there are an equal number of stinkers, too. “The Awful Truth in Arthur’s Barrow” is 25 pages of mildly interesting buildup to a bad punchline, the world’s worst pun. A few other stories felt like cloying Hallmark Channel fare.

I was eagerly looking forward to Gene Wolfe’s entry “The Sailor Who Sailed After the Sun” but I must admit I was left scratching my head at this (symbolic? lunatic?) story about a farm boy who leaves his drab home life to seek adventure on a whaling ship out of New Bedford. When the crew lands on an uninhabited island he decides to remain and a talking ape named Jacko (not making this up) takes his place among the crew. Wolfe is a great writer but has a tendency to veer off into rather strange territory at times. If anyone has read “The Sailor Who Sailed After the Sun” and has a theory of what it’s supposed to mean, drop me a line.

Grails: Quests of the Dawn has a companion volume that I have sitting on my shelf: Grails: Visitations of the Night, though I’ll admit after volume one I’m not so keen on starting. Karl Edward Wagner (author of the savage Kane stories) is one of the contributors, so I may take up the quest yet, hopeful that it may satisfy my less than noble spirit, which yearns for a little action in its fantastic tales, too.

Final verdict: Three out of five stars.

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: Camlann

1. Battle of Camlann, from various sources

Many a spear was thrust and splintered,
Many a stern word spoken;
Many a sword was hacked and bent,
Many a helmet broken;
Noble companies clashed together,
Battering helmets bright.
A hundred thousand fell to the ground;
The boldest were quelled ere night.

Since Brutus voyaged out of Troy
And Britain for kingdom won,
No war so wonderfully fierce
Was fought beneath the sun.
By evening not a knight was left
Could stir his blood and bone
But Arthur and two fellow-knights
And Mordred, left alone.

—Le Morte Arthur

Camlann, the final battle of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, has been retold and re-imagined by authors as diverse as Sir Thomas Malory, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Bernard Cornwell, appearing in ancient sources like the stanzaic poem Le Morte Arthur (written circa 1350) and modern novels like T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (published 1958). Despite differing details of the order of battle and the manner in which its final blows were struck, all the sources agree that Camlann was the end of Arthur’s reign. He either dies outright, or is mortally wounded and spirited away to the mystical isle of Avalon from which one day he will return, healed, to repair a broken world.

Was Arthur a real figure? I suspect he was. Ancient legends, however altered they may become with the passage of years and the vagaries of recorded history, typically have some basis in fact. Most histories place Arthur as a sixth-century ‘dux bellorum’ (war-leader) or high king of the post-Roman period in Britain. His legend fomented in Geoffrey of Monmouths’s History of the Kings of Britain, was adapted and romanticized by various French poets, and eventually reached its fullest form in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.

But beneath all the romance and splendor of the myth—handsome knights winning favors for their lovely ladies in tournaments, or riding off gallantly on glorious grail quests and the like—is the grim, bloody battle that ended the dream. Whether it was fought in the fifth century A.D. by bearded warriors armed with spears and shield and wearing coats of ring-mail, or was a mythic 15th century tilt of plumed knights in gothic plate, Camlann kicks ass and rates as no. 1 on my list of Top 10 fantasy fiction battles. There are many reasons why it has such resonance with me, but here’s a few:

• The aging Arthur, lacing them up one last time like an aging but still dangerous prize heavyweight. Arthur bleeds pathos; betrayed by his best friend and his wife, hated by his bastard son, and unable to patch together his squabbling knights, he nevertheless rides out to battle one final time for the good of the world. He fights for a concept of what is right.

• Lancelot, Arthur’s disgraced betrayer, returning to the fray to help out his beloved king. In many versions of the story he reaches the battle too late, but I’ve always been partial to those where Lancelot returns in the nick of time, fights bravely, and dies at Arthur’s side after begging his forgiveness. See John Boorman’s Excalibur (cue lump in throat when a wild-haired Lancelot rides into the fray swinging a mace).

• Mordred is a complex enemy. Either you love to hate him, or find it hard to wholly root against him. In some versions of the tale Mordred is Arthur’s nephew and a terrible betrayer, utterly unsympathetic to the reader. In others he’s Arthur’s illegitimate child whom the King in a moment of supreme weakness tries and fails to drown after hearing a prophecy that his birth will bring ruin to Camelot. Thus Mordred’s hatred for his father and the Round Table is rather justifiable.

• The desperate nature of the affair. Order and the age of chivalry hang in the balance, and underneath the pounding hooves of Mordred’s forces can be heard the heavy footsteps of an approaching Dark Age. Against these are arrayed a thin red line of Arthur’s knights, the remains of the once great round table.

• Its finality. Everyone of consequence pretty much dies in the Battle of Camlann, including Arthur, Mordred, and the great knights Lancelot and Gawain. It’s the end of a golden age and a shining castle on a hill.

The alliterative Morte Arthure says that Mordred’s forces include 60,000 soldiers while Arthur’s troops number just 1,800 knights. The stanzaic Le Morte Arthur estimates a larger order of battle with a combined 100,000 casualties.

Camlann is often started seemingly a random when, during a parley of the opposing forces, one of Mordred’s men is stung on the foot by an adder and draws his sword to kill it. Thinking that their king has been deceived, Arthur’s knights attack. Perhaps the serpent is an allusion to Satan, the deceiver and sewer of discord, wreaking mischief on the Christlike Arthur.

Of the battle itself there are numerous versions. Bernard Cornwell wrote a memorable version in Excalibur, the concluding volume of his highly recommended Warlord Trilogy. Here Arthur’s knights engage Mordred’s in a clash of shieldwalls on a narrow strip of sandy beach (would you expect anything less from Cornwell, he of the shieldwall fetish?) Mordred’s forces vastly outnumber Arthur’s but he can’t bring them all to bear at once and his advantage is nullified. Cornwell does a usual fine job of depicting the nasty, brutish conflict that occurs in the interlocked walls of wood:

I recall confusion and the noise of sword ringing on sword, and the crash of shield striking shield. Battle is a matter of inches, not miles. The inches that separate a man from his enemy. You smell the mead on their breath, hear the breath in their throats, hear their grunts, feel them shift their weight, feel their spittle on your eyes, and you look for danger, look back into the eyes of the next man you must kill, find an opening, take it, close the shield wall again, step forward, feel the thrust of the men behind, half stumble on the bodies of those you have killed, recover, push forward, and afterwards you recall little except the blow that so nearly killed you. You work and push and stab to make an opening in their shield wall, and then you grunt and lunge and slash to widen the gap, and only then does the madness take over as the enemy breaks and you can begin to kill like a God because the enemy is scared and running, or scared and frozen, and all they can do is die while you harvest souls.

At the end of most versions of the battle only four combatants are left standing—Arthur, Mordred, and Arthur’s knights Sir Lucan and Sir Bedievere. Mordred and Arthur’s final death-duel differs depending on the source material. Most tales have Arthur running Mordred through with a spear, but suffering a mortal head-wound when the latter cleaves his helm and brain-pan with an overhand sword-stroke.

But in the alliterative Morte Arthure, Arthur, mortally wounded in the right side by a sword-stroke from Mordred, slashes off the latter’s sword-hand an inch from the elbow. Mordred falls to his knees in pain and Arthur drags him back upright again and drives Excalibur all the way up to its hilts. Cornwell’s version also has Arthur wounded in the side and right eye but concludes with Arthur chopping through Mordred’s skull-topped helmet (and Mordred’s skull beneath).

In any case, Arthur is terribly wounded, perhaps mortally. Lucan’s heart bursts as he tries to bear his wounded king from the field, leaving Bedievere as the final survivor of the battle. Arthur’s last order is for Bedievere to cast Excalibur into the sea, and after two false starts Bedievere follows his king’s command. The last rays of a red sun glitter on the sea as it dips below the horizon.

Some legends say Arthur is taken by boat to the Isle of Avalon to heal. Others say his wound was mortal and he died on the shores of the sea and was entombed there. But whether from some mystical isle or beyond the realms of death, Arthur will one day return. He is after all the Once and Future King.

***

So that does it for my top 10 fantasy fiction battles. Some honorable mentions that could have made the list on another day include The Battle of the Pelennor Fields and Helm’s Deep from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, The battle of the ice wall from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the final battle in C.S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian, the battle of Nemedian and Aquilonian armies from Robert E. Howard’s The Hour of the Dragon, and The Battle of Yonkers from Max Brooks’ World War Z.

What are yours? Comments are welcomed.

REH and other omissions aside, Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature a worthy listen

Slowly—too slowly and decades overdue, in my opinion—fantasy literature is gaining a foothold in colleges and universities. Long ignored and/or the subject of sneering intellectuals and defenders of the literary “canon,” works like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings are finally starting to appear on a handful of college syllabi. (To geek out a moment and quote Gandalf the Grey, “that is an encouraging thought.”)

For this slowly building acceptance of fantasy literature in academic circles, one has to acknowledge the work of the college professors who have cajoled, pled, or insisted that it be allowed into the hallowed halls of academia. These include men like Tom Shippey (former Chair of Humanities at Saint Louis University and author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth), Corey Olsen, aka., The Tolkien Professor, an English Professor at Washington College, and Michael Drout, Chair of the English Department at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.

Drout is editor of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf and the Critics and a co-editor of Tolkien Studies. At Wheaton he teaches Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, medieval literature, fantasy, science fiction, and writing. He also writes a blog, Wormtalk and Slugspeak, which is definitely worth adding to your list of links.

Drout also wrote and narrated a fine entry in The Modern Scholar audio book series, Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature, which is the subject of this post. I recently had the pleasure of listening to it during my commute to work and found it immensely enjoyable, lucid, thought-provoking, and ambitious. It offers prima facie evidence for why fantasy literature deserves to be the subject of academic study.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Cimmerian sighting: The Book of Merlyn and its Howardian connection

A good man’s example always does instruct the ignorant and lessens their rage, little by little through the ages, until the spirit of the waters is content: and so, strong courage to Your Majesty, and a tranquil heart.

—T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

The King Arthur myth has been told, re-told, and re-imagined countless times. I’ve read many interpretations, though far from all, from authors as diverse as Bernard Cornwell (The Warlord Trilogy) to Mary Stewart (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, et. al.). But of all these, The Once and Future King and its separately published conclusion, The Book of Merlyn, is probably the most approachable version of the Arthur myth I’ve ever encountered. And it’s certainly my favorite.

For obvious reasons, I often feel a need to draw parallels between Robert E. Howard and other authors when writing blog posts over at The Cimmerian. But in this case, I didn’t have to look far, nor make any dubious, tenuous connections. At their core, White and Howard share the same pessimistic view of humanity. For Howard, barbarism was the natural state of mankind. White believed that mankind’s natural state was Homo Ferox, or “Ferocious man.” There is no leap required; these two men of different nationalities and stations in life drew the same bleak conclusions about mankind.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Of used book fairs and old King Arthur

I love used book fairs. I find them irresistible, like a dish of peanut M&Ms placed on my desk while I’m trying to work. A local library recently hosted one in which you could fill up a brown paper supermarket bag for the princely sum of $2. Needless to say I walked out of there with a laden sack, nigh to splitting.

Book fairs require you to sift through a lot of junk. Cookbooks, outdated science textbooks, encyclopedia sets (remember those?), V.C. Andrews novels, etc. always seem to dominate. But that’s part of their allure, of course. You have to sift through the silt to find gold.

Less appealing is the frenzied behavior of people grabbing great handfuls of books, seemingly at random, and shoving them in bags. I’ve seen this phenomenon many times and don’t get it. Why do people lose their sense of discrimination when the items in question are cheap, or free? I shouldn't be judgmental--perhaps they were donating them to charity, though my cynical side tells me they'll probably end up for sale on the internet.

This particular fair had a surprising number of decent books worth getting jostled over (I threw a few elbows myself, admittedly). Most notably, I managed to liberate a hardcover copy of The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White.

The Once and Future King happens to be one of my favorite books of all time, achieving a rare five-star “perfect” rating in my pseudo-scientific, highly subjective book rankings. While The Book of Merlyn—the previously unpublished conclusion to The Once and Future King—is not as good as its predecessor when compared as a standalone work, it was never intended to be a sequel, but a part of the whole, the final chapter of a wonderful story. It’s definitely worth owning. So although I already own the softcover, I snatched it up and stuffed it into my sack.

The hardcover of The Book of Merlyn has the advantage over the paperback of large print, glossy, sturdy pages, and wonderful, full-page, black and white illustrations (tangent—does anyone else appreciate the beauty of a good hardcover book? I used to be a paperback junkie, but I’ve since converted. The heft and stateliness of a good hardcover have won out over utility and portability).

Once I had The Book of Merlyn at home I was overcome by the urge to read it again. Just as I remembered, it remains a wonderful book. Some of the grabby boors at the book fair would do well to read it and let its lesson sink in--being, of course, that Might does not equal Right.

I’ll be posting a full review on Thursday.

In the meantime, here is a summary of my finds at the fair:

The Sea-Wolf and Selected Stories, Jack London (great writer--'nuff said)

Secret Weapons of World War II, Gerald Pawle (as a WWII buff, I was delighted to find this)

The Black Death, Philip Ziegler (Not surprisingly I'm a fan of medieval times, and I've never read a full accounting of the Black Death)

Hamlet (Norton Critical Edition), William Shakespeare (I own a copy of Hamlet, but the Norton Critical Editions are must-owns for the additional essays/criticism, and notes).

The Shining, Stephen King (hardcover--I own the paperback)

The Book of Merlyn, T.H. White (hardcover, illustrated)

The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper (hardcover, entire five book series collected and unabridged--a great find!)

Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond (I've heard a lot of good things about this one)

Let's Roll, Lisa Beamer (a story of the heroes of United Flight 93)

Assorted books for my children

Cimmerian sighting: King Arthur film to get 300 treatment

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that comic book writer/novelist Warren Ellis is currently working on a script for a King Arthur movie that he plans to turn over to the producers of 300. For me at least (and I may be a chorus of one here), this news ain’t so cool.

I know 300 was a box-office hit, and by rights I should have enjoyed it more than I did. But while I wasn’t bored with the final product I don’t have the need to ever see it again. 300 was all spectacle and no heart, remarkably devoid of any of the pathos that should have accompanied a story about the noble sacrifice of a group of incredibly brave, well-trained, and loyal soldiers. It's a heartless, empty bronze cuirass with little to offer outside of its shouting, angry Spartan soldiers and CGI-happy, slow-motion, Matrix-style combat.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire did Thermopylae far, far better than Frank Miller or the one-note 300 ever did. Isn’t there more to fantasy films than the Helm’s Deep scene or knockoffs of Gladiator?

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Cimmerian sighting: The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis

(Warning—some spoilers ahead)

King Arthur: Which is our greatest quality of knighthood? Courage, compassion, loyalty, humility? What do you say, Merlin?

Merlin: Ah, the greatest. Well, they blend, like the metals we mix to make a good sword.

Arthur: No poetry, just a straight answer. Which is it?

Merlin: All right then. Truth. That’s it. Yes, it must be truth. Above all. When a man lies he murders some part of the world. You should know that.

—Excalibur, John Boorman

If you’re a fan of the Arthurian myths, the above exchange of dialogue from John Boorman’s Excalibur—still the best version of the King Arthur myth ever put to film—is probably scored upon your memory. It’s a shame that, in comparison, Clemence Housman’s The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis languishes in obscurity. Published in 1905, Housman’s book presages Excalibur by more than 70 years, and Merlin’s prophetic words of wisdom and warning are at the heart of this fine and all too little known novel.

The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis has for most of its history been a difficult book to track down. In 2000, Green Knight Publishing—a small and apparently defunct firm—republished the story, giving it new life and allowing people like me to finally get a copy. In addition to publishing original and reprinted Arthurian fiction, Green Knight also published the fine Pendragon role playing game, much like TSR and later Wizards of the Coast published a line of novels in conjunction with the Dungeons and Dragons game line. But if you come to The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis expecting to encounter typical role-playing game fan fiction, you’re in for a rude shock. This is not some breezy tale of the Forgotten Realms. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call it archaic, the language Housman uses is, even for the (roughly) Victorian Era in which it was written, anachronistic. Housman writes in Middle English in a style deliberately imitative of Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte D’Arthur.

In short, The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis is a difficult book to read. I had to go back and re-read opaque sentences and, on one or two occasions, found myself bogged down in the language. But bearing down and continuing on to the end was very much worth the effort.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

The Grail? I've already got one

Joseph of Arimathea used it to collect Christ's blood. King Arthur's knights spent decades questing for it, scouring Britain from end to end in a fruitless search. Launcelot, the greatest knight of all, had it within his grasp but proved unworthy.

Me? I bought the Holy Grail two weeks ago in Epping, NH. It cost me all of $5.25, plus tax and tip. Best of all I didn't have to kill any of Mordred's knights to get it, or spend decades wandering in the wasteland. Historians should take note it holds exactly 20 ounces of liquid.

The waitress seemed puzzled when I suggested in astonishment that her establishment was committing a grievous mistake by selling the Sacred Vessel at such a low price. After a raised eyebrow she completed the transaction, whereupon I feel to my knees in praise. And a 2,000-year-old quest was ended.

I didn't know how empty was my soul... until it was filled... with beer.

Coming home to the dark: A review of The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

—Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising

In the height of a blinding pre-Christmas snowstorm, and with the uncertainty of the New Year looming on my mind, I recently re-read (after the passage of some 20-odd years) Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising. For anyone familiar with Cooper’s novel, the second in her acclaimed five-book The Dark is Rising Sequence, you’ll understand why I couldn’t have picked a better time to re-visit the series.

The setup for Cooper’s book is not terribly original: Forces of the dark and light are locked in an ageless struggle, and into this conflict is thrust Will Stanton, a boy of portentous birth (a seventh son of a seventh son). Will is an Old One, a small group of immortals who exist outside time, and it is up to him to combat the forces of the dark, whose power waxes over the midwinter and casts a pall over the Christmas season until it threatens to consume all of the Thames Valley.

Although he has the potential to combat the dark, Will’s power is unfocused and weak. He must harness it by recovering six symbols, one each of iron, bronze, water, fire, wood, and stone. As Will seeks out the symbols, a dark agent, a rider in black, marshals the forces of the dark in an attempt to foil Will and bring him to despair. Bitter cold, choking snow, floods, and dark flocks of birds are a constant menace in the story.

But while its themes are well-trodden, what makes Cooper’s book an enduring work of young adult fantasy is its execution. Cooper is a fine writer and uses her considerable skill to craft a tale that literally feels timeless: The setting of The Dark is Rising is at once familiar and remote, modern and ancient. Although Cooper wrote The Dark is Rising in 1973, and the events of the story take place in 20th century England, I can’t recall a single mention of an automobile or a telephone in the story, for instance. If you squint a little it could take place in an isolated 18th century farming village. The whole book feels like a dream of an 11-year-old—and in many ways, that’s exactly what it is.

The war in which Will finds himself has been raging for 4,000 years—predating Christ, who is notably absent in Cooper’s book. Cooper infuses her story with Welsh legends, including the horned huntsman Herne and the legend of King Arthur. Merlin appears in the book as Merriman Lyon, a character who first appears in Over Sea, Under Stone, the first book in the sequence.

The forces of dark and light are quite vague, portrayed deliberately as broad archetypes by Cooper (I found this at turns compelling and maddening), which has the dual effect of making the story seem mythical, and every character and event allegorical. The Dark is Rising is loaded with symbols and archetypes, all the way down to the main character’s name—Will is not chosen lightly, as his will, and our will, is necessary to save us from the dark.

For example, the symbols that Will seeks out are in the shape of a circle evenly quartered by a cross (not to be confused with a Christian cross). Cooper never reveals their significance, but my own take is that these six elements represent different ages of man, and that we can find answers by tying together the lessons of the past and present. The dark gains its strength from fear and chaos and disharmony, a situation which brought about the rise of the literal Dark Ages. Yet we have within each of us the rough elements to find an inner peace and master these fears. Cooper alludes to old roads that, if followed, offer protection from the power of the dark. These roads can be viewed as a mindset, a map to our own salvation.

The story can also be viewed as the end of innocence and the arrival of adulthood. Twelfth night is the conclusion of the 12 days of Christmas, the end of merrymaking. In Cooper’s story, it coincides with Will’s 11th birthday, which marks the end of his childhood and the arrival of power and responsibility. The time for tough choices has begun. As a young adult, he will be sorely tested and must choose his own road.

I dislike books which feature “chosen ones,” or characters fated to do great things and blessed with plot immunity. I’d rather read about characters that create their own fate and succeed and fail on their own merit. At times, Cooper crosses this line in the sand. For instance, Will is frequently bailed out of trouble by Merriman Lyon (Merlin), a powerful Old One who is the light’s equivalent of the dark rider. J.R.R. Tolkien had a similar character (and a similar problem) in Gandalf, but he wisely kept him off the stage and allowed the hobbits to (mostly) fail or succeed on their own. At times, Will becomes as a passive participant in the struggle, pushed along in a tide of events in which he apparently has no control.

But Cooper adds depth to her tale by including The Walker, a symbol-bearer who betrayed the light by choosing to ally with the dark, and is cursed to wander the ages as an outcast. The Walker is obviously inspired by Tolkien’s character Gollum, a pitiable figure that also failed out of his own weakness, and serves as a reminder of the consequences of ill choice.

The true magic of the story is Cooper’s message that there are things older and stronger than the dark, and that, while it can sew fear and havoc, the dark cannot destroy us if we choose not to give in to despair. In all, The Dark is Rising is a terrific read and certainly worthy of inclusion on any fantasy fan’s bookshelf.

Fighting the World: Too few shining examples in a fantasy film wasteland

A couple of the regular blogs I visit have recently posited that all fantasy films more or less suck. Granted, Noisms and James were both discussing fantasy films in the context of the absolutely awful Dungeons and Dragons film, and the generally bad idea of trying to bolt narrative structure onto a role-playing game. I agree wholeheartedly with both of these observations. But both bloggers also state that, in general, there are no good fantasy films. That I cannot agree with. I can only say that these guys must have never have seen Excalibur.

Now, I'll admit that the genre is awash in drek: Beastmaster, Conan the Destroyer, Red Sonja, Willow, Kull, The Scorpion King, the Dungeons and Dragons movie (one of the worst films I've ever seen--someone, somewhere, owes me an hour and a half of my life back), are shite. These and other awful films certainly make fantasy a tough genre to defend.

But for all that I would argue that there have been three great fantasy films made. In order: The Lord of the Rings, Excalibur, and Conan the Barbarian. You can make case that the Star Wars films are fantasy with SF trappings, and if you agree, that brings the total of great fantasy films to five (Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back). After these handful, I also think there's a handful of watchable and/or pretty good fantasy films to consider: Dragonslayer is one, and Ladyhawke is another. I haven't seen the latter in many years but remember enjoying it quite a bit as a youth.

The problem with most fantasy films is that they stack up very poorly with the source material: I love Conan the Barbarian, but it's not Robert E. Howard, and we have nothing approaching Beyond the Black River or Red Nails on celluloid. I adore The Lord of the Rings but understand that it deviates from Tolkien's novel in many places, and respect the opinions of those who found Peter Jackson's adaptation not to their liking.

Fantasy filmmakers have also largely shied away from making bloody, bleak, grim, and, most importantly, adult fantasy films in favor of safe, theatre-filling, PG-13 drek. There's nothing even close to The Broken Sword on film, or the bawdy, bloody, good humor of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. 300 should have been the marvelous Gates of Fire, but, a few good scenes notwithstanding, was completely over-the-top and apparently written for teenage boys in the throes of raging hormones. We desperately a need a film based on Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord trilogy or the Saxon Stories, with shield walls and hall-burnings and historic accuracy, but instead we have the disappointing King Arthur and The 13th Warrior, two shaky pegs on which to hang our horned helmets.

What fantasy films don't need are more special effects. The Lord of the Rings works because of Sam's bravery and Boromir's "My captain, my king" speech; Conan is great because it's a classic revenge story--as we watch Arnold grow strong on the wheel, or seek out the symbol of Set, we're behind him all the way. Fantasy film directors would do well to avoid the trap of seeking to please fantasy fans, but instead focus their efforts on telling good stories that resonate. Captivating stories, and the empathy we feel for the characters that populate them, are the pumping heart beneath the breastplate of good fantasy films.

Which brings me back to Excalibur. John Boorman's film bucks fantasy heartbreak by hewing remarkably close to the source material, which is no mean feat given the plethora of Arthurian sources from which Boorman had to draw. It's a dark film, downright savage in places, poetic and uplifting in others, a heady mix. The dark is rising throughout the film, but not despair, so long as a few brave knights stand fast.

Nigel Terry plays a sympathetic King Arthur whom you want to see ascend to the throne of England, carve out his kingdom, and win the war against the usurper Mordred. Launcelot's return on the battlefield at Camlann is heroism at its highest and is deeply affecting, as is Merlin's speech to Arthur atop Camelot, silhouetted against a blood-red setting sun, symbolic of the end of a golden age of man. The cast really makes this film stand out: Nicol Williamson (Merlin), Helen Mirren (Morgana) and Terry are brilliant, and Liam Neeson and Patrick Stewart also shine in small roles.

Unfortunately, films like Excalibur and The Lord of the Rings are so rare, and the bulk of their sword and wizardry company so shabby in comparison, that the result is aspersions and a dim view of the genre as a whole.

On the trail of the Grail: A review of Over Sea, Under Stone

So therefore, I trust it to this land, over sea and under stone, and I mark here the signs by which the proper man in the proper place, may know where it lies: the signs that wax and wane but do not die.

--Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone

Warning--spoilers ahead.

I love stories that involve the King Arthur legend, regardless of their form, and so it was with much anticipation that after more than 20 years I began re-reading Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone. While not exactly a children's book, Cooper's novel--the first in her acclaimed The Dark is Rising sequence--is geared for the young adult audience. But even though I'm far removed from that demographic I nevertheless found it to be very enjoyable and engaging.

Over Sea, Under Stone tells the story of the three Drew children--Simon, Barney, and Jane--who travel with their parents to Cornwall (located on the coast of England) for an extended holiday in the home of their great-uncle Merry. Merry is an eccentric but respected historian who lives in a many-roomed old mansion, the Grey House, which proves to be a fertile playground for the children. While rummaging about the attic they discover an ancient map which puts them on a quest for none other than the Holy Grail.

Merry explains that he came to Cornwall years ago to hunt for the Grail, which is also being sought after by the forces of the dark. The Drew children soon become involved in this ancient, millenia-old conflict. Says Merry:

"That struggle goes on all round us all the time, like two armies fighting. And sometimes one of them seems to be winning and sometimes the other, but neither has ever triumphed altogether. Nor ever will," he added softly to himself, "for there is something of each in every man."

Cooper is a good writer and she does a wonderful job making Cornwall into a living, breathing place. The Grey House and its concealed doors and dusty, treasure-laden attic is a memorable location, as is the rocky, sea-beaten coastline and its druidic standing stones. It's fun to watch the children puzzle through the map's ancient secrets, with Merry serving as a guide and protector, but always in the background. Because he must serve as a decoy and keep the attention of the dark forces focused on him, the children are thrust into the leading role in the quest to find the Grail.

This arrangment provides Simon, Jane, and Barney with plenty of chances to shine. In a memorable scene Simon and Barney are racing against time and the rising ocean, exploring a dark cave at the foot of Kenmare Head on the coastline which is revealed only during low tide. Like a young knight of the round table--or Arthur himself, perhaps--Barney fights back his fear and squeezes through a dark opening with only a small candle to illuminate the dark. Due to his small stature and uncommon bravery, he becomes "the proper man in the proper place" to find the Grail.

I did have a few relatively minor problems with the book. Great Uncle-Merry as a Merlin-like advisor was pretty apparent early on in the book (the "big reveal" at the end was hardly that), though this is only a minor quibble. More troublesome for me was the portayal of Mr. Hastings, the chief agent of the dark side. Though he was suitably sinister, Hastings was not nearly as frightening as he should have been. Given that Hastings knew the Drew children were on the trail of the Holy Grail--an artifact of such power that it would tip the scales of the milennia-old struggle into favor of the dark, perhaps forever--you'd think he and his minions would stop at nothing to get it. But perhaps because this is a children's novel, Cooper places the Drew children in very little physical danger, save for a few semi-tense moments in the final showdown for the Grail. This makes the forces of darkness and night seem a little more like semi-threatening agents of an overcast afternoon rather than evil incarnate.

Still, Over Sea, Under Stone is a fine, enjoyable, easy read and I'm looking forward to watching the days grow much darker in the books to follow.