The Mists of Avalon (Hardcover) by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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The Next Best Boo...: What are you reading?	13081	11057	1 hour, 7 min ago

03/19/07

Claire rated it:

(review of isbn 0345350499)

bookshelves: books-i-loved-in-high-school, books-with-swordfighting-in-them, elves-witches-vampires-and-the-like, five-stars, top-25-of-all-time

You have to be a particular kind of girl to fall in love with this book the way I did.

--You have to be in the sixth grade, a freakishly precocious reader, whose beloved sixth-grade teacher brings a box of her ten favorite books to class and sets them up on the chalkboard and leaves them there for weeks for you to look at, including one HUGE book that looks like it's a billion pages long with some cool fairy priestess chick on a horse on the cover.

--You have to have grown ...more You have to be a particular kind of girl to fall in love with this book the way I did.

--You have to be in the sixth grade, a freakishly precocious reader, whose beloved sixth-grade teacher brings a box of her ten favorite books to class and sets them up on the chalkboard and leaves them there for weeks for you to look at, including one HUGE book that looks like it's a billion pages long with some cool fairy priestess chick on a horse on the cover.

--You have to have grown up reading King Arthur stories and LOVE the movie "The Sword In the Stone."

--You have to be so hopelessly nerdy that you would rather sit on the side of the playground reading than play kickball, never mind how much the other kids make fun of you about it.

--You have to be Catholic enough to understand the mentality of the occasionally hateful Christian characters in the book (as well as to be baffled and perplexed by all the sexuality which will make a number of plot elements only make sense to you when you re-read the book as a college student and go, "Ohhhhh. Now I get it").

--You have to be the kind of girl who loves and relates to the plain outcast Morgaine who is treated as a freak has to learn how to rely on herself alone.

--You have to hate the shallow blonde princesses, even when they seem like they might be kind of nice people, and always root for the feisty brunette.

--You have to be a fantasy geek who LOVES any book with swordfighting, magic, princesses, and doomed romance.

--You have to be patient enough to read 800+ pages that cover one woman's entire lifetime from before her birth to old, old age.

--You have to come to the end of the book and secretly wish that (despite your religious conviction in your Catholic upbringing) Britain had never been Christianized and we were all still witches.

--You have to secretly wish you belonged to a mystical female cult where you had to have a blue crescent moon tattooed on your forehead.

--You have to wish you knew how to ride a horse in a dress and look majestic, instead of falling off every time you were forced onto a horse at camp or on vacation and now you hate them and they scare you. (less)

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04/19/09

Ceridwen rated it:

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bookshelves: ceridwens, fantasy

Read in April, 1993

recommends it for: My younger self

Many moons ago, when Clintons roamed the earth, I was in my first year of college. The broomball ice rink had melted, the grass was greening where it wasn't yellowed by frat boy pee, and I dragged my mother's copy of The Mists of Avalon out in front of the dorm with a blanket, and read. And read and read. People would come by, and bother me about stuff like eating and sleeping and classes, and I would wave them on, obsessed with the story I was reading, and the spring, and the sun.

Th...more Many moons ago, when Clintons roamed the earth, I was in my first year of college. The broomball ice rink had melted, the grass was greening where it wasn't yellowed by frat boy pee, and I dragged my mother's copy of The Mists of Avalon out in front of the dorm with a blanket, and read. And read and read. People would come by, and bother me about stuff like eating and sleeping and classes, and I would wave them on, obsessed with the story I was reading, and the spring, and the sun.

This is by far my favorite reading experience. It was like a drug, like sex, like neither of these things, like itself. I would read, and my elbows would go numb, so I would lay on my back until my thumbs hurt, and then flip over again. I had read some Zimmer Bradley in high school and enjoyed it, Firebrand and the one about trapeze artists, but I hadn't been swallowed by the story, hadn't consumed it in turn, like I did with this book. She blew my post-adolescent mind with her view of history, of legend, of the long, dark story of men and women.

She tells the Arthurian legend, but not in any way I had experienced it before. The protagonist is Morgan la Fey, who is usually one of the villains. Here she is a priestess of the Old Religion, the Druids, trying to hold her own as the Christians insinuate and change the whole of society around her. It's not one of those perfect pasts; I remember long passages about the mind-numbing banality that is women's work in any given culture. Gwenhyfar is something of a silly girl, Aurthur a bit of a clueless jock. Morgana prays to the goddess Ceridwen a bunch too, which warmed my heart, as that is what my parents named me. And tattoos! And sex! And a bunch of other stuff that had never, ever occurred to me before, because I was young, and it was spring, and maybe I was a little sheltered, but in a good way.

Zimmer Bradley broke new ground with this book, in terms of feminist re-imaginings of the classics. She didn't just put Morgan la Fey in a leather bustier, and have her shoot sex arrows at Arthur. (Hey man, I'm as sex-positive as the next feminist, but I'm pretty sure putting a historical figure in a bustier has nothing to do with wage parity.) She changed the form, used the language and modes of mass produced fantasy for women to utterly subvert the ideas of literature, of women's literature.

I don't know if you've watched soaps recently, but mostly characters sit around the kitchen and talk about other characters. It's like this mirror world, reflected back from the kitchens where the shows are watched. Zimmer Bradley uses this kind of comfortable feminine form to turn the legend upside down and shake all the change out of its pockets. History is important, right? the purview of important men and their important modes of speech. Zimmer Bradley tackles this most manly of subjects using the language of women, and it was a stroke of genius. (Although, the Arthur stuff is maybe the most girly of all the big legends: no unified text, a sort of gossipy, back-and-forth quality of many of the tales, love triangles, love potions. I mean, Knights of the Round Table? You might as well be the Knights of the Giant Metaphorical Vagina. But, whatever.)

I've never read The Mists of Avalon again, and I don't think I ever will. It's too located in my own private history, too perfect. I have a feeling returning this book would be cringe-inducing, and I'd be confronted by a story in need of an editor and an unsubtle view of men and women and religion. My memory is a way to experience my younger self, and my rating reflects that. It's spring again, and I'm feeling nostalgic for springs past, for books past, for selves past. You'd probably have to be a naive, confident girl from the Midwest, living at the beginning of the end of the millennium, to love this book like I do. It's possible you may have whatever oddball collection of character traits that will make you love this book too. I hope so. (less)

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08/21/07

Keely rated it:

(review of isbn 0345350499)

bookshelves: contemporary-fiction, fantasy, novel, reviewed

Read in May, 2004

Though I am wont to blame the inescapability of genetics for various aspects of an Epicurean reading of Absurdism, I tend to pause, for some reason, in ascribing gender differences as stringently. Whether this is simply a bias of wishful egalitarian thinking or truly an outgrowth of my understanding is be difficult to say, for precisely the reasons that Epicureus is worthy to interrupt my many Suicides. So, when it falls to me to say that women seem more than men to be capable of breaking the To...more Though I am wont to blame the inescapability of genetics for various aspects of an Epicurean reading of Absurdism, I tend to pause, for some reason, in ascribing gender differences as stringently. Whether this is simply a bias of wishful egalitarian thinking or truly an outgrowth of my understanding is be difficult to say, for precisely the reasons that Epicureus is worthy to interrupt my many Suicides. So, when it falls to me to say that women seem more than men to be capable of breaking the Tolkien Curse laid so thickly upon Modern Fantasy (barely proper), it is with some trepidation.

However, flatly laying that blame at the feet of rude and wretched socialization always seems an easier step; despite the fact that such cannot be extricated from the First Source. Original Sin infects us all.

There is certainly something bound in the flesh which drives a breed of dwarfish, ill-socialized, fetish-loving escapists to un-self-consciously build and habitate an unoriginal world; and for a further gaggle of the nearly less-talented to consume it ravenously. It seems that, in the spirit of contrariness, when women find themselves thrust by love of horses or exceedingly lax tonsorial concerns into the same arena, that they will fight a different fight.

Perhaps they must approach the incline from a different vantage; arriving not by way of a)Tolkien to b)Conan to c)some unspeakable modern half-wit, but by Malory, McKinley, and Spenser. Of course, one must not forget that the vein of Fantasy still runs, at least in part, through Austen; and that though those alloys be rarer, still inhabit the edges.

Bradley has certainly taken a different tack on her way to the summit (never tor) of fantasy. She evokes Spenser, the Idylls, and all manner of other ridiculous romanticics of the Arthurian Mythos. She also endeavors to pull the characters themselves out of the romantic and toward post-modern psychological conflict. On occasion, she even succeeds.

There is certainly an undeniable depth to the books, accompanied by a rather pleasing graying at the temples of morality which immediately places her at the opposite pole from her male contemporaries. That that pole is really not so far away somewhat lessens the impact, and one is eventually bound to recognize that there really is a reverse pole to the whole of modern fantasy lying somewhere in Peake's Titus trilogy.

Actually, that's not true. One could very easily read a fantasy novel a week for life and never have to realize that Bradley is really only a little bit out there; but certainly enough to feel like a breath of the fresher.(less)

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07/20/08

Rachel rated it:

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bookshelves: science-fiction

OK I admit, when I told my college Arthurian Lit professor that I'd read and enjoyed this book, he proceeded to give me a quick-before-the-next-class-comes-in lecture about how Marion Zimmer Bradley's "interpretation" skewed wildly from the genre.

But I don't care. It's a difficult book (long and utterly depressing,) but it takes the first in-depth look at both women and the pagan Celtic religion of Britain, which Christianity usurped around that time. Evil sorceress Morga...more

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05/24/07

Kelly rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction

Read in June, 2000

recommends it for: fantasy lovers, arthurian scholars, young women, feminists

I read this book when I was in my mid-teens, and in the midst of an Arthurian obsession phase. I also thought that I was going to leave Catholicism and become a pagan at the time. The second happened because of this book. At the time I was struggling for some kind of beauty in spirituality, and this was one of the first books I read that made me feel like that could be accomplished. And not in a distant way that I'd experienced from my childhood. In an earthy way that I felt connected to because...more

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01/17/08

Jillian Clemmons rated it:

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Read in March, 2008

recommended to Jillian by: Tess Numrich

I just copied and pasted part of someone else's review that I read that made me laugh b/c I thought the same thing and instead of repeat it I just copied and pasted what they said:

"The Arthur myth from the point of view of Morgaine le Fay, pagan priestess. Supposedly a feminist take on the old legends. There is one main problem with this approach: let's face it, women's lives in the dark ages were pretty boring. And rather than break out of this mold with strong female character...more I just copied and pasted part of someone else's review that I read that made me laugh b/c I thought the same thing and instead of repeat it I just copied and pasted what they said:

"The Arthur myth from the point of view of Morgaine le Fay, pagan priestess. Supposedly a feminist take on the old legends. There is one main problem with this approach: let's face it, women's lives in the dark ages were pretty boring. And rather than break out of this mold with strong female characters, Bradley talks a lot about spinning, weaving, and having babies. The female characters are either contemptible or irritating, or both. The male characters are cardboard--Arthur is as heroic as a limp dishrag, Merlin just an old man sitting in his rocking chair. The pagan-Christian thing is overwrought and shrill, devolving mostly into interminable theological debates between characters that cover the same ground over and over and over again.

A lot of things irritated me about this book, but nothing more than the simple lack of a compelling narrative construction. Nothing happens. There is dialogue, which mostly rehashes things that were already talked about. And then there is monologue, in which the weak and mostly contemptible characters thrash around in their heads so much that it would make Dostoyevsky cringe. It makes me angry that you could even try to tell the Arthurian legend--even from a feminine point of view--without looking at the epic clashes between the knights of the round table and their enemies.

Horrendously disappointing. For a fantasy novel, George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones does everything that this book tries to do, and does it ten times better. For more of a historical view, Bernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdom is a much more fun and interesting look at the clash of Christian and pagan civilizations, and even has characters that you don't hate. ..."

Ok-well this reviewer did appreciate the feminist take which is why I gave it 2 stars instead of one, and I have to admit a friend like id which is why I read it-but I don't enjoy Arthurian legend stories or fantasy-so overall-maybe I'm biased.(less)

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12/22/07

Meirav Rath rated it:

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bookshelves: fiction

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Meirav by: A friend from university.
recommends it for: Young girls with romantic dreams an too many braincells to settle for cheap romance books

Have you ever found yourself reading a book, knowing you're reading crap, but the writing style and the occasional promising plot twist kept you going?

Maybe I was fooled by Hallmark's production, Merlin, and I expected Morgaine to have a backbone to call her own. Zimmer Bradley took whatever hope I had of finding yet another female character to favore and crushed them; Morgaine is obsessed with who everyone marries and who gives birth to who as badly as the simple 'foolish' women she...more

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08/05/08

Genevieve rated it:

(review of isbn 0345350499)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in July, 2003

This is one of the few books that I hate. I'm a feminist and I love King Arthur stories and The Mists of Avalon makes me vaguely nauseous. I read the whole thing hoping it would get better, and it didn't, though there are a few good bits. Overall I found it offensive to the Arthurian legends, to history, and to women, and being a 15-year-old girl who liked fantasy novels did nothing to change this opinion.

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05/18/08

Nick rated it:

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Read in January, 2007

This book was awful. Oh my god, I had to put it down five times and read something else just to get through it. The terms pointless and self-serving come to mind as this author might as well beat the reader over the head with a piss poor attempt at Feminism and some kind of pot-shots at Christianity. I would consider myself a Feminist, but Feminism is about equality not role reversal. And I'm as agnostic as the next guy, but cut me some slack, all religions are just about the same. I mean, these...more

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02/09/08

Matthew rated it:

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bookshelves: books-on-pod, books-with-swords-in-them

Read in January, 2008

The Arthur myth from the point of view of Morgaine le Fay, pagan priestess. Supposedly a feminist take on the old legends. There is one main problem with this approach: let's face it, women's lives in the dark ages were pretty boring. And rather than break out of this mold with strong female characters, Bradley talks a lot about spinning, weaving, and having babies. The female characters are either contemptible or irritating, or both. The male characters are cardboard--Arthur is as heroic as a l...more

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01/30/08

Maurean rated it:

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Read in February, 2008

I have heard for years nothing but glowing recommendations for this book, yet I am still amazed by the intensity with which this story touched me. Marion Zimmer Bradley is an incredible storyteller with impressive knowledge of the ancient Goddess based spirituality. The history and mysticism are clearly well-researched, and the writing is lyrical, palpable, and quite beautiful.

In this “retelling” of the Arthurian legend- which parallels, too, the Celtic mythology of Finn MacCoo...more I have heard for years nothing but glowing recommendations for this book, yet I am still amazed by the intensity with which this story touched me. Marion Zimmer Bradley is an incredible storyteller with impressive knowledge of the ancient Goddess based spirituality. The history and mysticism are clearly well-researched, and the writing is lyrical, palpable, and quite beautiful.

In this “retelling” of the Arthurian legend- which parallels, too, the Celtic mythology of Finn MacCool & the Fenians, and the Red Branch Heroes of Ulster - from the perspective of the women in the story, it details magically the struggles of Christianity vs. Paganism, where the lines between good and evil are much blurred;
All the characters are well-drawn in depths both good and bad, flawed and noble, completely and ultimately human.

My favorite passage:

“That faith [Christianity] seems too simple to me – the idea that we have only to believe that Christ died for our sins, once and for all. But I know too much of the truth…of the way life works, with life after life in which we, ourselves, and only we, can work out the causes we have set in motion and make amends for the harm we have done. It stands not in the realm of reason that one man, however holy and blessed, could atone for all of the sins of all men, done in all lifetimes.” (pg. 611)

This is a story of how the old pagan ways of Avalon are engulfed by the rise of Christianity after the fall of Rome. Portrayed through the story of Camelot, told in the voice of Morgaine, Morgan La Fey, niece of Viviane, Lady of the Lake; queen of Cornwall, sister to the High King, and consort to the King Stag; a refreshing perspective to a well-known tale.

This is a masterful interpretation, giving new life to all the old characters: Gwenhwyfar, the pious, Christian Queen to Authur; The handsome Lancelet, most honorable knight and Queen’s Champion; Taliesin, the Great Merlin of Britian, Morgause, Morgaine’s Aunt and foster-mother to Galahad…truly, an engrossing and engaging tale of epic proportions; I cannot find words to praise it enough. This will procure a spot in my “favorite five fiction” reads of all time. If you have not yet treated yourself to this enchanting feat of imagination into this world of Old, I urge you to do so, soon. It is well worth the journey
(less)

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03/01/08

Chelsea rated it:

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Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in March, 2008

It took me two whole months to get through this 876 page tome. Not that it wasn't two months well spent, but in the scheme of things, even with my slow pace of late, two months is a long time.

MZB's well crafted world of Avalon and Camelot is not a bad place to spend two months; I actually quite enjoyed the book, up until the last hundred pages or so. She creates a rich tapestry of characters and circumstances (one of those books that probably needs a map and family tree in the back, bu...more It took me two whole months to get through this 876 page tome. Not that it wasn't two months well spent, but in the scheme of things, even with my slow pace of late, two months is a long time.

MZB's well crafted world of Avalon and Camelot is not a bad place to spend two months; I actually quite enjoyed the book, up until the last hundred pages or so. She creates a rich tapestry of characters and circumstances (one of those books that probably needs a map and family tree in the back, but hasn't.) Generally, I'm not a big fan of books that have to give you character maps, but because of the epic nature of the novel, you're introduced to the characters gradually, over time as they move in and out of the story, and some die off, some are born, so you're not trying to keep all of their stories straight at the same time.

There are times when the time line itself gets a little confusing, simply because of the effort to tell all these congruent tales. Ultimately, they blend together pretty well into something that's pretty readable and often captivating, if sometimes a little wordy. (Like fantasy tends to do.)

Something I'll only mention briefly is the issues of sexuality/sexism that are addressed through the characters lives. Bradley creates women who are strong-willed, born into a tradition of matriarchal hierarchies and yet, when brought into the increasingly Christian court of Arthur, they seem to meld themselves right into the "traditional" female roles - sitting in gossipy group, spinning and weaving all day. Kinda frustrating. Stop whining about how you want to be included in the court talk and go down there, dammit!

As I mentioned earlier, my biggest problem with the book is the end, really. In the last coupl of chapters, the whole story seems to dissolve into mists and uncertainties; suddenly a lot of people are dying. The main character, who's spent the majority of her time being very strong willed and self-assured starts to break down into mush. The religious talk gets very mealy-mouthed in the Druid/Christian/Pagan debate. Overall, it just sort of felt like she spent the first 700 pages creating this great world, and then realized in the last 100 that she had to destroy it somehow to get back to "reality".

All told, I really like her retelling of the Camelot story. Her characters are real, and the three-somes/pagan sex rituals are kept to a tasteful minimum. I do have to say that its length worked against it in one respect - it took me so long to read that I was kinda wanting to be done and move on to the next thing about two thirds of the way through. So, if you're a quick reader, or you find yourself with lots of free time on your hands, I would recommend this classic fantasy novel. (less)

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02/18/08

Nadia rated it:

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Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: no one

ugh. i can't decide whether to give this a 1 or a 2 (i am SHOCKED that the average rating for this book is over a 4, btw!!!). this book DRAGGED. i am a huge fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and the fact that this (a) is one of those books that you hear about in conversations somewhat frequently, and (b) is a re-creating of a "known" story (the legend of king arthur) from the perspective of the females behind the throne, is what originally prompted me to read this book. BUT, the sci-fi elemen...more

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11/05/07

Linda rated it:

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bookshelves: fantasy, fiction

Read in February, 2007

This book is one of those that I would consider required reading. Marion Zimmer Bradley's telling of the Arthurian legend from the point of view of Morgaine is so captivating that even twenty years later, I come back to it.

It's the story of Britain after Rome has faded but the influence of Rome, particularly through spreading Christianity hasn't. Britain is on the cusp where the spread of Christianity is eclipsing the native, ancient religion. You'll see all the familiar names from t...more

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08/01/07

Dayna rated it:

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I commented before that this book is slogging ... and that's what it is. I slogged through half of it ... and then it was due back at the library (yeah ... it took me a month to slog through half of it) so I skimmed the rest until the end. I'm going to be fair and say that if you enjoy Arthurian romance and if you already know the legends through and through that you might enjoy The Mists of Avalon more than I did. Yet you may be even more frustrated than I was. Perhaps disgusted. I cannot give ...more I commented before that this book is slogging ... and that's what it is. I slogged through half of it ... and then it was due back at the library (yeah ... it took me a month to slog through half of it) so I skimmed the rest until the end. I'm going to be fair and say that if you enjoy Arthurian romance and if you already know the legends through and through that you might enjoy The Mists of Avalon more than I did. Yet you may be even more frustrated than I was. Perhaps disgusted. I cannot give it less than two stars (even though I think it's really only a one-star) simply because of the fact that if I understood all of the author's sources I might have liked it a lot more than I did. As it is I just could not get into it and so I call it second-rate slop. Tripe.

It is the story of Arthur and Camelot from the womens' point of view. Sounds excellent, right? Whatever. I was frustrated by the fact that every female character seemed manic. In one paragraph she (any SHE in the story) is madly in love with a man (any MAN in the story) and in the next ... moments later SHE is digusted with him. Back and forth it goes. One minute SHE feels like a goddess and the next she feels lost and all alone and confused. Arthur is basically pathetic and all his knights are either "My sword is bigger than yours!" or "I love Pathetic Arthur more than you do!" Beyond that it seems like the book could have been cut by half and you would have had the same exact story ... with all of its wishy-washy characters. Give me a break! I basically concluded that some people will like the "feminine" aspect better than I did and that I simply prefer the story of Arthur to be told from the warrior aspects. Forget the twisted love crap. I wanted more Excalibur! And not this "the blood of a woman woven into the threads of the sheath ... " blah-blah-blah. Just the sword & battle ... and the knights' adventures. I don't care who so-and-so may or may not have fooled around with. Anywho ... if you're into King Arthur I would not recommend this book to get you started. (less)

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12/15/07

Mary-Beth rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction

I've read lots of takes on Arthurian legend. That's probably why I find this version ploddingly dull. Mists seems to focus in a lot on religion in a really boring way and I have nothing wrong with feminist writing or revisioning, but the main stories, the interesting stories of Arthurian legend are mostly not about women. That's probably why I'd never touch a second book of this series with a ten foot pole.

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10/27/08

Jackie rated it:

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bookshelves: celtic, fantasy

Read in January, 1985

An excellent Arthurian saga.
Written from the point of view of Morgaine, Arthur's half-sister and the villian of conventional Arthur tales.
Unique in perspective with strong female characters. It is a story of love and quite defferent from every other Arthur novel you'll ever read.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's best work.
One of my favorites, I can read this over and over again.

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11/11/08

Jamie rated it:

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bookshelves: abandoned, read-in-2008

Read in November, 2008

recommends it for: junior high girls finished with Twilight

What started out to be a promising story with a woman-centric perspective quickly devolved into a one-dimensional mess. Maybe the problem is that it was written for a junior-high age audience--this would certainly explain why everything is a set up as a battle to be won. Druid v. Christian, nature v. man, priestess v. everyone.

I think what I truly disliked about this book is that it could have been so much more. At the very least, the women could have been complex and flawed but fu...more

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04/05/08

Letitia rated it:

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recommends it for: Patient Feminists and Pagans

It is incredibly difficult to carry a reader's interest through a nearly 900 page novel...and Marion Zimmer Bradly does no better than most.

I was fascinated by the perspective of this novel from the first page. It is essentially a retelling of the Arthur legend from the female perspective, giving all of the characters an entirely new slant. This was much appreciated, but when you have nothing to say, can only carry a book so far. What might have been great plot was far too often dis...more

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01/15/08

Jessica rated it:

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Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: All people who love Arthurian legend and all girls aged 10 - 100

This novel by Marion Zimmber Bradley was absolutley fantastic. I am a long time fan of Arthurian legends, some of my favorite books have been T.H. White's The Once and Future King and Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, so when I learned there was a book that tells the story of Camelot through the eyes of female characters called The Mists of Avalon, I knew I was in for a good read.

First of all, this book is MASSIVE. 876 pages, to be exact. So you have to sort ...more

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