The Once and Future King

Until I re-read it recently, I had forgotten what a terribly, terribly sad book this is - how un-Disney, un-Broadway musical its re-telling of the Arthur and Camelot saga is. I'd also forgotten about White's philosophical digressions on the nature of man and society, and the monstrousness of aggression and war. Until I read a contemporary memoir in which the author becomes obsessed with White, I didn't know what a deeply unhappy person he was. All his terrible pathologies are here, barely coded, in his characters and situations, and yet he made something quite brilliant of his tortured thoughts, a tale for the ages - but not a comforting one, not at all.

The second page introduces a character named "Sir Grummore Grummursum," so it was immediately a 5 star book.
But on a more serious note, I've been wanting to read a proper King Arthur retelling for ages, and this seemed like a good one to start on. I honestly don't know if I'll read any other retellings, other than Tennyson or Malory (and Malory will be an endeavor), because I feel like White did SUCH a good job with it. Obviously the book is dense and there were some parts where it got a tad tedious, but the moral and philosophical question he brings up with Arthur trying to 'fix' man and the world are very interesting. I am also obsessed with tragedy and its inevitability, and what's better than a centuries old story that has been told show more over and over again so many times. And I guess it's not even really a tragedy in the way that Greek tragedies are, but it does have the inevitability of tragedy, specifically with Arthur and Lancelot and Guenever. I'm not really sure if their relationship is similar in other retellings, but the simple way that Lancelot and Guenever came together and Arthur's (ignorant) acceptance of it, as well as the friendship between Arthur and Lancelot and the love that Guenever still had for Arthur was all so good. I wrote down a quote that I feel like encapsulates their relationship across all retellings, not just White's, which comes after Lancelot and Arthur receive a letter that Guenever has been kidnapped:
"Lancelot, half-way through the story, was already shouting for his armor. By the time it was told Arthur was kneeling at his feet, strapping on the greaves."
It just such an utter complete understanding of the characters of the Knight, and the King, and the Queen and their relationships with each other. show less

A re-read which confirms this is a classic for a reason. What could have been an awkwardly cobbled-together pastiche of Arthurian legend, pacifist philosophizing, medievalist minutiae, and Waughsian (if that's the word I want) wittiness somehow comes together as an epic, grand whole. It has some of the most beautiful passages I've ever read in any book. Most importantly, for the first time, it really made me care about Lancelot, Guinevere, Arthur, and even poor Mordred. The characters are portrayed compassionately and realistically - and even humorously.
And it reminded me that everyone needs a Questing Beast to give their lives meaning.

The Once and Future King is a book that feels connected and yet separate. The first portion, made up of the previously standalone novel The Sword in the Stone, reads like a book that parents of the late thirties may have read to their children a chapter at a time before bed. Composed of many small adventures with not much overarching plot, it's also far lighter in tone than much of what follows. While I wouldn't recommend it in its original form for children today, for reasons I'll get to later, this is the novel that Disney's The Sword in the Stone was based on. For anyone who grew up with that movie as I did, this should give you some idea of the magical adventures and a bit of the humor to be found here. The second book, however, The show more Queen of Air and Darkness, takes what feels like a dramatic tonal shift, and the end of the book is serious in the extreme.

All of this makes for a rather unique reading experience. It may induce you to either give up after the first portion, if it's the sort of thing you enjoy, or to give up before you even reach the portion you would enjoy if it isn't. I would suggest skipping the first book if you care to, but the later books draw on knowledge of the earlier ones. I might then suggest reading the first book when you're young and saving the rest for when you're older, but... the problematic content is of the type a young person may not be equipped to view through an appropriately critical lens. For a book that takes place in medieval England, there are a surprising number of remarks disparaging Native Americans. There's also usage of the "n" word. And there's even the type of racism that places certain races of the UK above others (Normans over Saxons and Saxons over Gaels). Among other questionable things. Honestly I made note of so many problematic passages that I would need a separate post to go over them all.

In terms of other content warnings, well, you probably can guess there's violence, although the first book clearly makes an effort to keep it below a certain level. For example, there's a sword fight in which the joke is that no one gets particularly hurt because both parties are wearing armor and clearly neither wants to cause serious injury to the other. In later books you'll find out the fates suffered by foot soldiers who don't wear armor and knights who are going at each other in earnest. You'll also find references to torture and incest and suicide, although these are told through narration rather than being explicitly depicted. In fact, the third person omniscient is used to great effect in allowing the reader to maintain a certain distance from what may otherwise have been incredibly disturbing. The author was working with established mythology and a bloody time in history, and he takes the approach of stating the situation as it is but sparing all the gory details.

Personally, I found myself plodding through the reading for the most part until partway through book three. The first book had some sections that were enjoyable enough that they kept me reading to the end of the little adventure. The second book served as a bridge to different parts of the timeline. But the third is where an overarching plotline that consistently kept my interest was introduced. It may be up to individual readers to determine whether they have the patience for this.

Another factor to consider is that at many points the narrator makes reference to Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, openly stating that events covered in that classic work won't be recounted here. I've only read portions of Le Morte d'Arthur myself and had no trouble understanding this book, but those who want to really dive into this mythology may be best suited starting with the earlier book and getting to this one later. Or maybe reading that one instead.

Personally, I found it interesting to see how the time period in which this book was written affected the way the stories were told. The impact of the first (and later second) world war is clear to see for those who keep an eye out for it, and this led to some reflections about war and violence and how/whether it might be possible to build a just and peaceful society that were what I liked best about the work as a whole. Except that it seemed at times to treat some of the horrors of the second world war a bit too lightly, and I made note of more than one sentence that seemed to lean towards antisemitic. So I'm not fully praising the viewpoint the novel takes on these issues. Really I appreciated that it established a framework that led me to wonder what I myself would have done if I were in King Arthur's shoes.

Other highlights include explanations of medieval life that are easy to understand and assume little prior knowledge of the subject. If you want to learn about a castle layout or the practice of hawking or many other little things without turning to nonfiction resources, this book can help you establish a foundation you can carry into works of fantasy that take your understanding of these things as a given. Not to mention books that take your knowledge of Arthurian legends as a given. There sure seems to be a lot of modern culture that assumes your familiarity with British culture and traditions.

There's also a certain feeling that books like these are to be kept on a pedestal, which in my case was amplified by the fact that the cover of the edition I checked out of the library had quotes by no less than four people praising it as if it's one of the greatest books ever. Personally, while I can say there are some great passages to be found here, especially towards the ending, and while I can understand a certain type of fantasy fan might find the first part to be a fun adventure with vibes similar to The Hobbit, I personally would only recommend this book if you're that type of reader, if you have a particular love for Arthurian legends, or if, like me, you're interested in the cultural significance. There are plenty of other books retelling the stories of King Arthur and his knights, and I certainly don't think this one should be above criticism.

But hey, feel free to say I must be somehow incapable of recognizing this book's true genius. Maybe my Irish ancestors passed down to me "the enormous, the incalculable miasma which is the leading feature of the Gaelic brain" (The Queen of Air and Darkness, Chapter 5). Or maybe we should pause while we read to consider whether harmful implications are being made and whether retellings of certain cultural mythologies might be revered above others for reasons that aren't solely dependent on their objective quality. Maybe we should all be free to form our own opinions. I don't know, just spit balling here*.

* For anyone who has difficulty discerning, yes, that final paragraph was sarcastic. And this footnote is genuine. Keep being you! show less

What a way to end a year. This book is so full of hope and laughter, and then becomes one of sadness and despair, yet its views on humanity and human nature are just as profound as they were when I first read it at age 14.

And now, knowing how anachronistic this re-telling of the tale is, I understand so much more of what White was describing: how the suppression of the Saxons by the Normans was the start of Arthur's kingship, followed by the flowering of the High Middle Ages, and ending all by cannons. I am especially struck by Mordred's twisted spirit, Agravain's mindless focus on his mother (and his own hidden monstrosity), and the pulling of Arthur into his lawfulness and sadness. The principal actors become archetypes in this show more re-telling, and many tips of the hat are given to Mallory's description of the battles and panoply.

I know, I know, that Arthur was probably an anglicized Roman general, but the depth of feeling and heights of joy and despair just reflect so much better the heights and depths of the Dark and Middle Ages.

And for my 2024 reading, I was struck by the almost off-hand way that valiant knights on horseback are portrayed as almost comical characters despite White's admiration for Mallory's work. I was also more than a bit annoyed by White's blunt dismissal of Guenever as an older woman. As a product of his time, his unconscious chauvinism, bordering on misogyny, simply writes her off as no longer of worth because she is not the beauty she was as a young queen. It's appalling to read now, especially as Lancelot and Arthur and Gawain gain wisdom as they age.

What I barely grasped at the age of 14 I now understand so much better: the politics of King Arthur's downfall and why petty, cruel men wish to topple the world he helped make better. My favorite quote is the one towards the end, when Lancelot and Guenever are looking through her window:

Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza and Conscription? Even if they were foolish enough to believe that the earth was the centre of the universe, do we not ourselves believe that man is the fine flower of creation? If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has Man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition? show less

I was really excited to read the Once and Future King because, well, it feels like it’s one of THE King Arthur novels to read, and I like the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone. Which is why I was surprised when I wanted to quit 50 pages in. It just seemed…flippant, and light-hearted in a way that I guess I don’t like in my Arthur stories? At the same time, I think that’s why it made a good Disney movie, so it was probably silly for me to feel that way. What really irked me, however, was a line about them drinking sherry, that went sort of like “well, it wasn’t sherry they were drinking, but the medieval version of sherry”. That, along with deferring to Malory, seemed like lazy writing. The fact that he puts Arthur into show more the later centuries, rather than after the fall of Rome bothered the historian in me. As I continued through the book, however, these sorts of things bothered me less and less. He defers to Malory because those are tedious parts of the story he’s not interested in writing. He has specific aspects he wants to focus on (its much more about character development than Malory, thankfully). And in the end, Arthur is a myth, so does it really matter what century he lived in? From about page 300 onward, I sped through, and was very engaged in the story. He mentions that it is “difficult to write about real people”, real meaning characters with myriad emotions and feelings, but he did so with great skill. show less

This funny, magical, tragic, introspective, silly, heart-breaking book has connected intimately, but always differently, to me over multiple re-readings during the last 40 years. After reading widely in Arthurian literature old (Sir Gawaine, Geoffrey, Chretien, Mallory, Stewart) to new (Stewart, Monaco, Cornwell, many others), I judge White the best of them. White isn't particularly interested in telling a rollicking mythological, fantasy adventure (others do that part better), but he makes the usual cast of characters believable people, almost like the result of intense historical research wedded to 20th century psychology, except that much of the "research" is his imagination. So, for example, White gives Arthur, Lancelot, and the show more Orkney clan very different, specific upbringings that illuminate their later choices. He also takes up contradictions, such as the questing beast initially pursued by Pellinore being later associated with Palomides, and invents marvelous explanations to bring consistency to the tale.
Every bit of the joy, wonder, and magic of Arthur's life lies within the shadow of his end. It is no less heart rending reading his naive plea to stand against all evil, and to personally take on the consequences of failure the dozenth time as the second. Somehow the joy transcends the pain. show less