Just finished reading The Once and Future King... (spoilers)

[hopewrites]

I had picked up a couple copies, as it's one of those books that I love, and love to share with others.
Just finished rereading it after oh I dont know, let's call it 5 years, it might be more, but not less. All the bits I loved in it then were there; Wart, Lyo Lyk, King Pellinore, Archimedes, Merilyn... asides about humanity, philosophy, the change wrot by time and the good one man can do if he just does his best.

But I also noticed other things. Many times White takes us out of the narrative to show us the grander view of the things he is writing about. It got me wondering (now that I know abit more about writing than when I first fell in love with the tragedy) what other people think of this work? If he were our contemporary would he have written it this way? Always pulling us out or referencing the Morte de Artur? If he did what would his publishers say? What of the Latin? Would he have kept it in? Or knowing how it has fallen off from most educational curriculum would he have translated it? Would the story be richer or poorer for these things?

I happen to love it as it stands, but wonder what misconceptions it is breeding in my imagination about Britten and its history... why are there so many kings running about everywhere? Is Gawain's inauthentic accent really inauthentic? How come people go mad with no real explanation?

And what about the ending? I mean *huff* just telling young Tom that everyone died and sending him off is no way to bring about closure.
I mean yes everyone dies eventually, but how and when and what does it mean to them when they do? Is Gwen rescued? What of Mordred? And the Thrashers?
If I had grown up in the UK with a UK education, would a correct history of the events around this time have given me better grounding to be left off like that?

if you've read it I'd love to hear your thoughts and fav moments, quotes, ect.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

He combined a variety of Arthurian tales from different times and places, and then inserted the resulting story into the medieval period at a time when one of the Plantagenets should have been on the throne (meanwhile referring to certain historical figures as though they were merely legendary). It is filled with intentional anachronisms. You just have to go with all that and not let it worry you.

I can't tell you if a UK education would have made a difference to your experience of the book, because I didn't have one either. Naturally, I was aware of the Arthurian legends before I read T. H. White's book, but his was the version that caught my imagination to the extent that I decided I wanted to learn much more.

I do suppose, however, that White expected his readers to be familiar enough with Malory to know some of the answers: like whether Guinivere is rescued or not, and what happens to Mordred. The boy, Tom, is supposed to be Thomas Malory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malory, whose compilation of the Arthurian legends has influenced more later versions of the tales than any other source I can think of. So the scene between Tom and Arthur (anachronistic though it is) is more meaningful than it might appear to readers who aren't aware of that ... because White is linking his story to a continuing tradition. The story doesn't really end as abruptly as it might seem, because White is telling us that it is still happening: that thanks to Tom's (fictional) meeting with Arthur we still remember stories of the Round Table, and of Arthur's ideals and struggles. (Actually, we still would, of course, but not in quite the same way.)

However, White had a number of points that he wanted to make about war and aggression, and man's place in the animal kingdom (he doesn't seem to think well of us), which he put forth in The Book of Merlyn, originally meant to be part of the whole, but published separately after White died. Some scenes were published during his lifetime, because he worked them in when he revised The Sword in the Stone into the version that appears in The Once and Future King.

Favorite parts: I love all the wonderful characters, and for some reason have a soft spot in my heart for the entire Orkney clan. I've always found their part of the story particularly heart-wrenching. But I love the humorous bits, too. Almost everything with King Pellinore, the Questing Beast, and Sir Palomides used to make me literally laugh until my sides hurt. There was a time when I'd reread the book every year or so, but I haven't done that in many years.

Like the first part of the book, The Sword in the Stone, the second part of the book, The Queen of Air and Darkness, originally appeared as a novel (entitled The Witch in the Wood). When White compiled the first three books and added The Candle in the Wind, he made a number of changes to that one, too. I found parts of The Witch in the Wood so painful (and by that I mean that it affected me so deeply) that I have never been able to face reading it again.

And I think you can gather from all of the above, that The Once and Future King is one of my favorite books, too. It has been since I first discovered it in my school library more than forty years ago.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I love the book. I think knowing a little bit about the Arthurian enhanced the enjoyment of it and I had dabbled in Malory before I read it, but it was marginal - White's is more than good enough to stand on its own.

Do I think he'd write it the same now? No, probably not. But then again, I think any of the classics might be written differently - most of the writers were savvy enough to know to write to their market. (I wonder about Austen, though - she's managed to hardly age at all.)

 

[Toby Frost]

I remember liking them very much, although I prefer Steinbeck's Acts of King Arthur overall. I felt that the books got older as they went on, as if written for an aging readership, and that the tone became more sombre. Some of the anachronisms did feel a bit out of place - it's reasonable for a 1930s/40s novel to have a parody of dictatorships, but why put it in The Sword in the Stone? I'm sure there was a reason.

I'm not sure about the UK bit, but I probably don't remember there being that many bits that you wouldn't get if you weren't from there. In the very olden days (pre 1066), Britain did include more kingdoms and there were a lot of minor kings (but then doesn't White specifically say that it's set in an alternative reality where several of the real Norman kings didn't exist?). I also have the suspicion that you didn't have to do quite as much to be considered king as you would these days. I have a feeling that the Thrashers were meant to be a parody of the Blackshirts, but I can't remember if it was spelled out. Besides (sadly) they're a pretty recognisable sort anywhere. That said, White was very good at the settings, I felt, and the weirdness of the times.

Did the Orkneys section include the hunt for the unicorn? That was one of the best, and saddest, moments in what's basically a pretty sad story.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I did do UK History in UK School. I don't think it makes much difference. I must re-read these soon. Have them.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Did the Orkneys section include the hunt for the unicorn? That was one of the best, and saddest, moments in what's basically a pretty sad story.

Yes, Gawaine and his brothers were the ones who hunted the unicorn. It was one of the painful sections -- not just for what happened with the unicorn, the ugliness and nastiness of something they thought would be shining and heroic, but the boys' whole relationship with their mother.

 

[hopewrites]

I agree about the unicorn, and how it plays into the rest of the Orkney Clan Boy's lives.

I guess what I'm asking about with the history is that until this reread I took his history of events at face value. That there was a King Pellinore, King Lot, King Ban, and all the rest. He so emphatically asks his readers to remember this and that about the time period that I took as fact what I now wonder isnt possibly fiction.
The only history I remember getting about UK/Europe area stuff, is that this one time some Europeans were fighting over who had control over the new world. Tomatoes and coffee are really new world food so the pizza is a lie. Everybody sent their criminals and puritans over here when they couldn't stand them any more. Nobody likes being taxed for tea, then forced to drink it, so we hired some natives to tip it over board (so they would be killed for it and we wouldnt). Then there was a war, and we didnt talk again till WW2 which was apparently the pinnacle of Americanness because even we dont remember doing anything since. Unfortunately for me, I think I learned more about the middle/dark ages from movies than from school.

 

[wam]

And what about the ending? I mean *huff* just telling young Tom that everyone died and sending him off is no way to bring about closure.
I mean yes everyone dies eventually, but how and when and what does it mean to them when they do? Is Gwen rescued? What of Mordred? And the Thrashers?
If I had grown up in the UK with a UK education, would a correct history of the events around this time have given me better grounding to be left off like that?

if you've read it I'd love to hear your thoughts and fav moments, quotes, ect.

Some of that depends on which version you read. At least one of the answers is in The Book of Merlyn which is in some versions. Gwen becomes a liberal abbess.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I agree about the unicorn, and how it plays into the rest of the Orkney Clan Boy's lives.

I guess what I'm asking about with the history is that until this reread I took his history of events at face value. That there was a King Pellinore, King Lot, King Ban, and all the rest. He so emphatically asks his readers to remember this and that about the time period that I took as fact what I now wonder isnt possibly fiction.
The only history I remember getting about UK/Europe area stuff, is that this one time some Europeans were fighting over who had control over the new world. Tomatoes and coffee are really new world food so the pizza is a lie. Everybody sent their criminals and puritans over here when they couldn't stand them any more. Nobody likes being taxed for tea, then forced to drink it, so we hired some natives to tip it over board (so they would be killed for it and we wouldnt). Then there was a war, and we didnt talk again till WW2 which was apparently the pinnacle of Americanness because even we dont remember doing anything since. Unfortunately for me, I think I learned more about the middle/dark ages from movies than from school.

Well, um, even your American history there is a little sketchy.

A lot of readers have the same problem that you do, about learning history from movies (and sometimes fantasy novels). There may have been a historical Arthur, or a British leader of some sort around whom the Arthurian stories later grew, though he would have been quite different from the Arthur of legend. The rest of the cast of characters associated with him are highly, highly unlikely to have been real people. But they are woven into the fabric of British mythology and legend. Many of them may have been the old gods of one Celtic panthenon or the other, dwindled over the centuries to human size. For instance there is a case to be made that Gawaine was originally a sun god, because in some of the stories his strength is greatest in the morning (as the sun climbs in the sky) and diminishes after noon (as the sun moves toward the horizon).

These older characters, human or originally divine, and bits and pieces of other stories, gradually because attached to Arthur's story. Older rituals became associated with Christian holidays, etc. There are so many stories, so many versions of so many of those stories, it's like a vast web. Parts of it you would never recognize from THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING (or you'd be thinking "No, that's not right") though it might be related; other parts are more obscure and would not have been known to Malory. And TOAFIK is based on Malory's LE MORTE D'ARTHUR, but with a lot of inventions of White's own.

When White wrote his books, he would have expected his British readers to be familiar enough with the legendary nature of the stories to know that characters like Pellinore, Ban, etc. were not real. Not living in the UK myself, I have no idea what the majority would know or not know now. But unless they have delved into the old legends themselves, their ideas about Arthur are probably heavily influenced by movie and television versions of the tales, which have strayed a long way from any versions of the stories that would have been known in White's day (or Malory's!)

 

[hopewrites]

Well it wasnt just my History lessons that were on the slack side in school, probably down to being a rural area with only the teachers to care what is being taught.