Perhaps one of the most pointless books I've ever read: a short piece of absurdist humour without the humour and with the absurdism being completely inert. Splayed rather than pointed in its motives, Donald Barthelme's The King makes no use of its interesting concept; that of King Arthur and his knights being present in Britain during the Second World War.

It's a struggle to determine what the point was of such a move: we must assume the idea came to Barthelme from the old legend that the Once and Future King will return to aid Britain in its hour of gravest need – and could there be any time of need more appropriate than 1940? However, aside from a few token and desultory name drops of Dunkirk and the Blitz, there's no attempt at all to utilise the World War Two potential, and the Arthurian court are about as relevant and essential to their new wartime setting as Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are to the proper functioning of the original Hamlet. Launcelot and Guinevere aren't dead here, however. Just limp.

It's hard to pin down what the writer was trying to do, if indeed he was trying to do anything. At one point I thought perhaps the anachronism of having King Arthur in the modern age was meant to be a commentary on the purported anachronism of monarchy in the modern age, but this idea was dropped in the text the instant it was raised. As too was the idea – perhaps Barthelme's only good one – of the quest for the Holy Grail being replaced by the quest to develop the first atomic bomb.

These were the only two signposts I could find in the author's inoffensive but empty meander of a book – though not so much signposts as broken twigs indicating that something, who knows what, had passed by. The King is just yet another of those books which seems determined to confirm 'post-modern' as a synonym for 'tedious, self-satisfied noodling'. Sometimes taking a risk on a promising book just doesn't pay off. It happens. ( )

Donald Barthelme has been a mystery to me. Heard the name, but couldn't connect it to any specific book title. Had an impression he was difficult (like Pynchon or Joyce). But still I filed a mental note of a book titled [The King], which was enthusiastically endorsed on some list or other. I found a used copy and read it immediately.

I'm very glad I did. It is excellent.

The King of the title is Arthur, and in Barthelme's novel—his last; it was published after his death in 1989—he still reigns over England, despite it being 1939. Guinevere is still queen, Launcelot is still the knight in shining armor, still cuckolding his king (but he's no longer alone in that). Arthur's longevity is…hmmmm…a mystery.

"Tell me something," Arthur said. "Why have I lived so long!"
"God's grace, Merlin's magic, adroitness in battle, sturdy red and white corpuscles, a great heart—What can I say?"
"You don't think it's been a bit…protracted? My life?"
"It's run on a few centuries beyond the normal span, that's true. But there are exceptional individuals in all periods of history."

Despite his exceptional life span, despite heading a government that travels on horseback, despite leading a fighting force of "knights" wearing armor and armed with swords and lances, Arthur is in command of the 20th century's conflicts and problems. When disgruntled railway workers weld a locomotive to the rails on the line between Ipswich and Stowmarket (so nothing can move on that line), Arthur personally accesses the situation with his advisors.

"How does one unweld a weld?" Arthur asked. "Chip at it with a crowbar?"
"We could have them take up the track," said Sir Lamorak, "fore and aft of the engine. Then that section could be slid to one side and new rails laid. But you'd have to have a mighty powerful something to move it with."
"They could lay track perpendicular to the existing track and bring in another engine on that track," said Sir Kay, "but it would take donkey's years."
"If Merlin were still in business he could mag-ick it away," said the king. " 'Avaunt!' he'd say, and the thing would be done. I'm afraid I never adequately appreciated Merlin." He paused. "Big bastard, isn't it."
Further inspection of the quite large locomotive.
"I say we blast," said Sir Helin.
"We could have the sappers tunnel beneath it," said Sir Lamorak, "and when the hole is big enough, cut the rails and the engine would fall into the pit. Then we fill in around it and lay new track. What think you?"
"If we could melt it somehow," replied Sir Kay. "Build a sort of furnace sort of thing around it—"
"Jack it up," said Arthur. "Remove the wheels and attached track. Replace wheels. Replace track. Lower engine, and there you have it."
"What a good idea," said Sir Lamorak. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"A perfect solution," Sir Kay said. "One understands, at moments like this, why you are king, sire. Your idea is fifty times better than any of our ideas."

Arthur is capable of unequivocal stands, making them without doubt or indecision.

Launcelot, Arthur, Sir Kay, the Blue Knight, and Sir Roger de Ibadan in conference.
"These three equations, taken together, will enable us to build a bomb more powerful than any the world has ever known," said Sir Roger. "When Launcelot showed me all three, I recognized instantly that they were either alchemical transmutations of the most important kind or the culmination of some Scandinavian work in atomic fission I've been following."
"Or both," said the Blue Knight.
"Or both," Sir Roger agreed. "Either way, it's the Grail you chaps have been seeking. The big boom."

The discussion turns practical. How long will it take to build? How would it be used? "Perhaps a demonstration…Do Essen or Kiel or one of the smaller cities."

"You understand," said Sir Roger, "that once you let go of this, the city is gone. Totally…everything within ten miles or so of the point of impact goes…"
"Isn't that a bit bloodthirsty?"
"That's the business we're in, at the moment."
Arthur took the three slips of paper and tore them to bits.
"We won't do it," he said. "I cannot allow it. It's not the way we wage war…The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon. I have spoken."

Read the book. It's short, it's fun. I have spoken.

A masterly blending of Arthurian characters with wartime London in a reworking of the legend shot through with literary allusion like some post-modernist paragon. ( )

I recall these as mostly poems about Jesus. Not memorable, except I don't remember illustrations. ( )