The Mists of Avalon [I Got Epic in my Fantasy]
So, this is the year of the mass re-reading for me.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley (originally printed without that fantastical ‘Zimmer’ middle name of hers) is one of the rare books in my reading history that I hold as a sacred text without actually having spent at least a decade re-reading it every year or two.
A few months ago, on Galactic Suburbia I revealed that while I love that book dearly, I’ve never gone back to reread it, and I think that’s largely because it’s such a massive paperback that it’s a) daunting and b) my copy is cracked so badly that I don’t dare open the book again. One of our listeners promptly sent me an e-copy of Mists of Avalon to read on my Kindle.
Normally I have mixed feelings about being gifted books – on the one hand, SHINY, but on the other hand, PRESSURE TO READ IT STRAIGHT AWAY AND HAVE AN OPINION OMG.
However, the timing was good. I was in an epic fantasy mood, and trying desperately to hold off reading the third Game of Thrones book as long as possible, so somehow I did actually find myself reading Mists of Avalon. Ahem, though I did stop halfway through in order to mumblefinishtheGameofThronesbooks.
So, Mists of Avalon. It honestly doesn’t feel like twenty years since I was last there.
There’s something incredibly refreshing about epic fantasy told from the point of view of women – it’s not that it’s a better way to tell a story but it’s different, and considering how many times the Arthurian cycle has been retold, anything new is good. It’s still a story about war and politics and danger and men, we just don’t have to see the world through the eyes of those men.
I also enjoyed the nuance in the characters – none of them are wholly virtuous or villainous (except perhaps the entirely perfect Galahad whom I assume everyone just wants to slap). And while I remember this book as being substantially about the way that the patriarchal Christian religion swept away the more egalitarian pagan/Druidic traditions, there’s a lot more to it than that – in particular, the book shows many of the more positive and appealing facets of Christianity at this time, and also challenges the idea that the pagan/Druidic traditions were free from gender issues and sexism.
The women of this book are complicated and fascinating: Igraine, the high queen who was born in Avalon and ended her life in a nunnery; Viviane, Lady of the Lake who is trying desperately to secure her society’s traditions in the face of a New Era; Morgause, ambitious and deeply protective of her many sons; Gwenhyfar, stricken with anxieties and desperately unhappy despite being perhaps one of the most “privileged” and high ranked women in the land, and throws herself more deeply into the comfort of piety as she grows older and feels guiltier about her “sins.” Niniane, the young Lady of the Lake who constantly feels as if she is not good enough. Nimue, Lancelot’s daughter and the ‘future’ of Avalon. And of course, Morgaine.
The strength of the characters is partly why I remember this book so clearly, and Morgaine is a brilliant example of this. An intelligent, flawed, stubborn and angry woman surrounded by a society for whom her main value is marrying and bearing children – and quite awfully, after devoting her early years to becoming a most excellent priestess at Avalon, it turns out that what they want from her is also to bear a child. She’s rarely motivated by malice or wickedness (though who would blame her) and yet everything she does moves her closer to her fate to be That Morgan Le Fay, the destroyer of Arthur. When she does finally embrace her role as enemy of Arthur, it is hard-won and believable, and that negative energy rebounds quite disastrously on her, making it less and less possible that she can turn back from her path.
The fact that the story takes place over such a long period of time also means we get many older and old women in the story, often taking the lead of action and events, which is something I would absolutely like to see reflected in more modern epic fantasy.
As well as being being a novel from the point of view of The Ladies, Mists of Avalon also has lots of knights, swords, armour and gore in it. Also some terrifying childbirth scenes, and a deep, believable infusion of magic. The magic in this novel is wonderful and I think is worth considering in the light of NK Jemisin’s excellent essay “But, but, but — WHY does magic have to make sense?“. The magic that Morgaine learns is deeply emotional and untamed, and while she is capable of great power at times, this power is also affected by her environment and her feelings. A good example of this is the way that she finds herself shut out of Avalon, unable even to raise the small amount of magic to summon the mists and find her way home, for as long as she is still suffering the anger of how Viviane betrayed her by setting her up to bear a child to her brother.
The book does a brilliant job of showing how important religion has always been to the events of English history and myth, and that we could do with more nuanced depictions of religious experience in fantasy world-building. Like the magic in the novel, everyone has a different relationship to the religions of the day, and deals differently with the rising power of the Christian Church over the older traditions. Some genuinely convert, others do so reluctantly, some rebel, and others are ambivalent enough that it makes little difference to them to mouth the Christian words as indeed they may have done with the Druidic rituals. Again, the long time period of the novel allows this to be shown across many characters, and how it is different for them at different points in their lives.
Another social detail that I felt was explored substantially was the fostering system among the upper and royal classes, and the new family ties that this formed as well as the old ones that it damaged. In Morgaine’s case we see the pros and cons of this situation – she is able to go on with her life without dealing with the immediate consequences of her unplanned pregnancy outside marriage, with her Aunt Morgause taking on the role of Gwydion/Mordred’s upbringing. Women who do not feel naturally materal have options other than raising their children themselves. On the other hand, it is strongly implied that Morgaine would not necessarily have chosen to give Gwydion up without Morgause’s manipulations. Likewise, the fostering system does not help the miserably childless Gwenhyfar until much later in life. Lancelet always felt a distance from his mother Viviane thanks to being fostered away from her as a child, and a similar situation leads to a tragedy between Balin and Balan, foster brothers who come to literal blows over a misunderstanding involving their birth mothers. It’s very clear that this is an essential aspect to medieval culture that had significant ramifications, and I liked very much that there was not a presumption in the text that the blood relationships would always be the most important kinds of familial connections between characters. As of course becomes supremely relevant as the tragedy of Arthur never having been able to form a relationship with his son becomes his kingdom’s downfall…
When I was a teenager still coming to grips with the fantasy genre, this book blew all my preconceptions about gender and epic fantasy out of the water even before I realised I had them. To take the knights and ladies of mythology and make them such real, flawed, grubby people takes guts.
Mists of Avalon still holds up today as an elegant, powerful historical fantasy novel which charts the rise and fall of an empire in a single volume.
Sure, it’s pretty big but SINGLE VOLUME, PEOPLE.
The twenty or so Mists of Avalon sequels and prequels, of course, did not happen.
What’s your favourite fictional take on the Arthurian legend?
