The Book of Merlyn

White wrote this book as the final chapter of The Once and Future King but it wasn't included in that quartet of books. Opinion was divided about "the worth" of reading The Book of Merlyn, so I decided to give it a try and see for myself.

I'm glad I read this! It has a lot of the same beautiful natural history writing of TOAFK, witty dialogue, interesting characters. In fact, two of my favorite episodes from the former book are included here (Arthur's time as an ant, and as a goose). There is some political content, because White's intent was to address the issues of war and peace. This book winds up the whole story cycle, tying up the loose ends that were left at the end of TOAFK.

The edition I read (Texas Press) had some wonderful show more illustrations (Trevor Stubley), as well.

It's not a huge book, but I found it a very satisfying conclusion to The Once and Future King. show less

What an amazing book. I started reading it late last year after not having read Once and Future King for about 30 years, and it didn't quite make sense. So I re-read King and am now reading this book to finish the story.

Once again, Merlyn arrives to teach Arthur, but it is an aging King whom he sees bent over his war plans with tears on his face. Merlyn realizes that the King has forgotten the lessons of the Wart, as so many of us do when we become older and forget the beauty and joy that was sometimes in the world when we were younger. The idea of a single thing that could grab your attention to the exclusion of all else - this is a remembrance that Arthur finds when he is with the geese.

As polarized as this country is now, there are show more some who will object to T.H. White's thinly-veiled essays against war. The geese do not fight against their own kind "just because": they see the world as one great big planet over which they fly and land when they need to. Different species share the same rock in the middle of the North Atlantic. By the same token, ants from different "tribes" will start the drumbeat and the propaganda for war the minute another ant arrives.

And of course, it is into misunderstanding and an ultimate war that Arthur faces as his reign comes to an end. He is heartbroken that his Round Table has come to its end: his best friend is exiled, his wife is trapped in the Tower of London, and his son wants to kill him. It is a tragic end to an otherwise beautiful story, and I am glad that White wrote these chapters and that they were finally published." show less

Talán nem csak én vagyok úgy, hogy ha valamit túl nagy elánnal támadnak, akkor az szinte belekényszerít, hogy a védekező fél oldalára álljak. Ez a könyv pontosan ezt az ösztönös reakciót váltotta ki belőlem. Pedig White Arthur-sorozatának eddigi részeit szerettem, mi több, lenyűgözve bámultam a nyelvet, amin megszólaltak, az írói közvetlenséget és játékosságot, ami egyfajta józan paraszti bölcsességgel vegyülve pazar eleggyé gyurmázódott össze. De ez az ötödik kötet... mintha a méltóságos író úr eljutott volna odáig, hogy az emberiség meg sem érdemli a csodás irodalmi alkotásokat, fene a pofáját, adok neki inkább valami didaktikus vádbeszédet, az való neki, abból ért. No show more most mit tudom én, miből ért az emberiség, de hogy magam ezer didaktikus prózáért sem adnék oda egy közepes irodalmi produktumot (sőt: még egy lyukas mogyorót) se, az bizonyos. Bosszantó, hogy White nem tudta méltóképpen lezárni regényfolyamát: vannak ugyan elemek, amelyek jelzik, egyazon szerző munkája az egész (pl. a nyelvi közvetlenség, vagy az állatvilág iránt érzett megkapó szeretet), de túlságosan eluralkodott rajta a késztetés, hogy állatmesébe oltott lángoló pamfletet kerekítsen a bűnös emberiség bűnös háborúiról.

Valahol persze megértem White-ot: a mű megírásának pillanatában dúl a második világháború, ami a szerzőt páni félelemmel tölti el. Úgy fél tőle, hogy nem is érdekli igazán, ki miatt tört ki, a lényeg, hogy kitört, és ez az emberiség hibája. És hogy ezen az emberiségen belül esetleg vannak fokozatok, vannak például nácik és nem nácik, valahogy nem érinti meg. Ül az írországi remeteségében, és azon morfondírozik, hogy bezzeg a vadludak sose háborúznak, és a sünök is sokkal jobb fejek nálunk. (A nagyragadozók viszont megölik a más apától származó kölyköket, hogy a nőstény hamarabb kész legyen párzani velük. Az ausztrál bundásméhek hímjei pedig az utolsó példányig kiirtják egymás, miközben a nőstényekért küzdenek. Láttam David Attenborough-nál. De White még nem nézhetett ilyesmit.) Minek is vagyunk mi, jobb lenne, ha kilőnének minket az űrbe a háborúinkkal együtt. Mindez persze vállalható gondolat, ha megfelelő diverzifikáltsággal fejtik ki, abból akár jó regény is lehet. De a saját paranoiáiba zárt író kezében szélütött könyv válik belőle. show less

Interesting from an historical sense, T.H. White transferred large parts of "The Book of Merlyn" into "The Sword in the Stone." While uses this fifth volume to expostulate on war, writing during the early years of Britain's involvement in WWII. Unlike the earlier volumes that were included in "The Once and Future King," this one is less about Arthur or his knights than it is about mankind itself. Additionally, though White always included a bit of presentism through Merlyn, who is living backwards through time, this book has the most of it during Merlyn's lectures and those of the animals as they weigh in on mankind and its tendency to war. Arthur, when he is active, is brilliant as the representative of humanity trying his best to do show more right, but the story glosses over his death, with White discussing the various interpretations of Arthur's death through different writers as if he were writing a literary critique of his own work.
Anyone who wants to know more about White or the history behind "The Once and Future King" should pick up a copy of this if they come across it, but it's not necessary for enjoyment of the Arthurian legend as White interpreted it. The book is more about White's horror at World War II and, though it's beginning and end are tied to the larger narrative of "The Once and Future King," the middle is a philosophical lecture about the nature of war. Despite these caveats, White's beautiful prose is on full display here and Trevor Stubley's illustrations are haunting, especially as he portrays the aged Arthur. show less

I am not sure if I love or hate this book. It shouldn't exist - T H White wrote it as the fifth book of The Once And Future King, but then decided to scrap it, which means big chunks of it were shoved forcefully into The Sword In the Stone and the Candle in the Wind. Was it a good decision? I think so, it is a bit _too_ navel gazing and lecturing, War Is Bad, Communism Is Bad, Individuality is Good. But then why do I keep it on my bookshelf? There is something sad and sweet about these final scenes, Arthur about to die retreating to the world of Arthur in his childhood, rediscovering his animal friends. The bitterness he feels of having been a slave to what others needed him to do all his life, his final joy under the stars with England show more spread out at his feet and the hedgehog singing sweetly to him. The extra glimpses of Arthur make the heavy handed and moralising tone of this one still worthwhile. show less

T.H. White’s Arthurian saga The Once And Future King has a troubled publication history. The final volume, The Book of Merlyn, was submitted to his publishers in 1941 but was rejected as part of a collected volume due to wartime paper rationing. Undeterred, White took two major sequences in it – in which Merlyn transforms Arthur into an ant and then a goose – and inserted them into the first book, The Sword in the Stone. The Book of Merlyn was thus unincluded in later collected editions of the series, until the manuscript was discovered amongst White’s papers after his death in 1964. It was included in future collected editions from 1977 onwards, but – in order to present everything as accurately as possible – retains the show more ant and the goose sequences in The Sword in the Stone, while also later repeating them in The Book of Merlyn. (This is particularly notable because the goose sequence is probably the most famous and well-loved thing White ever wrote.)

It’s a bit less confusing when you’ve read it all the way through, but the funny thing is that those sequences feel a lot more like they belong in the first book, when Arthur was a child being transformed into animals all the time as part of his education with Merlyn, rather than the final book, where Arthur is whisked away on the night before the great battle with Mordred to discuss human nature and warfare with Merlyn and his council of wise animals. The vast majority of The Book of Merlyn takes place in the badger’s cosy underground den, which has the air of a cluttered library or gentleman’s parlour, as White (through Merlyn) expounds his philosophy about the wretched, violent nature of man.

Understanding T.H. White goes a long way towards understanding The Once and Future King, and my edition has an afterword discussing how the book came about. White was an unhappy man for much of his life: an alcoholic, a closeted homosexual, and a pacifist in a time of just war. When World War II was looming in 1939, he relocated himself to neutral Ireland and spent the rest of the war there as a conscientious objector. At this stage The Sword in the Stone had already been published, but it’s clear that the outbreak of WWII greatly influenced the rest of the series. “I have suddenly discovered that… the central theme to Morte d’Arthur is to find an antidote to war,” White wrote to his publisher. The Book of Merlyn expresses this more clearly than any other volume in the series; along with The Sword in the Stone, it effectively bookends the series, as Merlyn compares mankind to various animals – only now, with Arthur as an adult, he is no longer teaching him but rather discussing an intractable problem with him, to the king’s increasing weariness and despair.

The Book of Merlyn ultimately presents no conclusion on the matter, no coherent moral or philosophy, because White himself didn’t have one. He was a confused man, a man full of doubt, a man aghast at the horrors of the world, a man who tried to make sense of it all as best he could. He was a writer, in other words, who moulded his love of Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur into his own unique, funny, beautiful epic, a meditation on the failures and foibles of the human race.

I liked The Book of Merlyn a lot; it’s probably my favourite out of the series. Despite a current of nihilism and despair, White brought back all the elements that made The Sword in the Stone such a success, and the result is a sweet and affecting tale of a man who tried to do his best. I didn’t always enjoy The Once and Future King, but The Book of Merlyn is a strong conclusion which serves the series well. And as for the series overall? I may not have always liked it, I may have been bored and frustrated with it at times, but I can nonetheless appreciate it objectively as a powerful and important work of English fantasy. show less

I agree with so many others who have said this is the worst of the series, but I did love seeing the characters’ stories wrapped up. I also got to read the ant & swan sections so many mentioned from The Sword in the Stone. My version didn’t have it in that section. Apparently it was originally in this book, but was shoved into the first book in later editions. Heavy-handed on the messaging, but I’m still glad I read it.