Michele's comments (member since Oct 04, 2008)

Michele's comments from the Arthuriana -- all things King Arthur ! group.

Barbarossa wrote: "I'm now trying to find a way of dropping "pre-Galfridian" into casual conversation..."

LOL!! Let us know how that works out for you. If you happen to have a friend named Geoffrey, perhaps you could expand it to refer to things that happened before he was born ;)

Mark wrote: "Writers seem to think that they're introducing complexity into a character by giving him bouts of depression or unreasonable behaviour, or a bad childhood or a tendency to sadism..."

I agree -- IMHO it's just lazy writing, those are the easiest so-called "moral dilemmas" to inject. Problem is, they're not really moral dilemmas at all. Overcoming personal adversity is admirable, don't get me wrong, but to me a moral dilemma has to be something more than self-improvement LOL!

I currently like maugre (despite/against)

Well how cool is that? I never knew that. So I'm guessing that's where Rakoth Maugrim's name must have come from (in The Fionavar Tapestry). Neat!

Everyone knows about him and Gwen, but he basically says nothing happened and I'll kill anyone that says otherwise. Therefore in his eyes might = right.

Something to keep in mind is that in those days people saw a causal link between God's favor and victory. By winning you proved that God was on your side, therefore your side WAS right by definition. Not because you were physically stronger, but because by winning you proved God's support for your cause. After all, God couldn't be on the side of evil, could he? We tend to simply see it as bullying, but for earlier minds more steeped in Christianity of that era, I think it may have had a different flavor.

Re: the May Babies, I've run across a couple of things that say it's in the Vulgate Lancelot as well. Anyone know for sure? (First place I ran across it was much much much later, in the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy!)

Interesting parallels to the Biblical story of Herod, of course...

What next? Hm.

What about the The Dark is Rising series? It's 5 books but being YA it would be a quick read and might be new to a lot of people.

Or what about Canning's The Crimson Chalice, or Nikolai Tolstoy's Merlin series (starts with The Coming of the King) ?

Have added both Bob and Sarah as moderators for the list, so create folders to your heart's content :)

Sarah said earlier in this thread, "These tales started out as tales told to and belonging to the people (us). The strengths of the legends gave them a staying power and made them part of our culture. So I believe the modern writers who tell the tales with all the different interpretations are important in carrying the legend into the future."

I'd like to second that. Stories like this speak to universal themes, and because they've been around so long and retold so many times, valid and valuable retellings can, should, and do continue. Many of the new interpretations such as Mary Stewart and T.H. White respect the core elements but add a vibrant new perspective, just as medieval French writers did in the 14th century and Irish, Welsh, and other authors did throughout the centuries. Others retell the story from the perspective of a minor character, or enhance our understanding of one of the major characters, or offer an alternative understanding of character, events, or motivations, all of which I think are excellent additions to the oeuvre.

If I had to pick modern ones to add to the canon I'd certainly include Stewart and maybe Guy Gavriel Kay's take on it in the Fionavar Tapestry, among others. And of course with a story cycle that has such hazy and multitudinous origins, it's hard to pinpoint "canon" with any degree of certainty, which makes it that much easier to add more titles to the list :)

Sarah said earlier in this thread, "These tales started out as tales told to and belonging to the people (us). The strengths of the legends gave them a staying power and made them part of our culture. So I believe the modern writers who tell the tales with all the different interpretations are important in carrying the legend into the future."

I'd like to second that. Stories like this speak to universal themes, and because they've been around so long and retold so many times, valid and valuable retellings can, should, and do continue. Many of the new interpretations such as Mary Stewart and T.H. White respect the core elements but add a vibrant new perspective, just as medieval French writers did in the 14th century and Irish, Welsh, and other authors did throughout the centuries. Others retell the story from the perspective of a minor character, or enhance our understanding of one of the major characters, or offer an alternative understanding of character, events, or motivations, all of which I think are excellent additions to the oeuvre.

If I had to pick modern ones to add to the canon I'd certainly include Stewart and maybe Guy Gavriel Kay's take on it in the Fionavar Tapestry, among others. And of course with a story cycle that has such hazy and multitudinous origins, it's hard to pinpoint "canon" with any degree of certainty, which makes it that much easier to add more titles to the list :)

I'm not so much into books that focus on the military side of the story, though if the characters and story is lively enough I don't mind that approach.

I don't mind a romantic slant as long as it's not purely and solely a romance.

What I do like are retellings that flesh out the characters and make them more complex, more realistic, or that let you see a different side of the characters. I once wrote a paper on different interpretations of Guinevere -- was she schemer, an innocent, a slut, a witch? Did she have fling with Lancelot out of desire to give Arthur a son, or out of lust, or out of loneliness? Etc. It's fascinating to me that so many people can take essentially the exact same story and see such different things in it.

I also like to find books where the Arthur cycle makes a sort of cameo appearance. For example, in Stephen King's The Dark Tower fantasy series, the main character is a descendant of "Arthur Eld" and Mordred makes an appearance as some kind of weird spider-monster thing.

More than a cameo, but also not so much a retelling as a sequel, is the Arthur facet of The Fionavar Tapestry -- you *really* get a sense of how tormented the three main characters were by the tangled web of love and betrayal and fear.

Hi Sarah -- Excellent! I know Sutcliff and Lawhead but the others are new to me, yay :) As for my preferences, I've started a new thread on that so see there. Let's see, lesser-knowns that I have. Well, depending on how familiar you are with YA lit, you may have heard of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising five-book sequence? It's about Arthur's son having to defend the world against the rising of the Dark, with the help of Merlin and some other Old Ones. Excellent!

Another interesting take on it is the 12-issue comic book series Camelot 3000 -- this takes the old myth that Arthur will awaken when Britain is in need and has him and the knights waking in the year 3000. Some interesting twists, including at least one gender-change for one of the knights!

There's The King by Donald Barthelme, a very different take on it. And Diana Paxson's The White Raven which tells the story of Tristan and Ysolde, sort of a "branch" of Arthuriana. Firelord by Parke Godwin is one with a more military slant. Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger shows the Round Table in a somewhat less flattering light.

The Coming of the King by Nikolai Tolstoy is on my shelf but I haven't read it yet -- supposedly "an epic novel of the life of Merlin," well, we'll see about THAT. The author is related to the famous Tolstoy, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing LOL!

Anyone know of Arthur or Arthur-related books that are kind of obscure? I've hit all the major ones and many of the minor ones, and am now down to looking for obscure ones :) Suggestions?

What's your favorite retelling(s) of the Arthur myth and why? White's The Once and Future King? Guy Gavriel Kay's take on it in the Fionavar Tapestry?