# 1
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
1958 - Voyage Classics hardback - 858 pages
From Amazon:
T.H. White’s masterful retelling of the Arthurian legend is an abiding classic. Here all five volumes that make up the story are published together in a single volume, as White himself always wished.
Here is King Arthur and his shining Camelot, beasts who talk and men who fly; knights, wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad; the masterpiece of fantasy by which all others are judged.
Thoughts:
I think they're over-selling it a bit with that last line
Anyhoo, this was a Christmas present, and it's a big old hardback, so I thought I should read it straight away, while I'm on leave. It contains the following five volumes: The Sword in the Stone, The Witch in the Wood, The Ill-Made Knight, The Candle in the Wind and The Book of Merlyn. All five were written in the late 30s/early 40s, but The Candle in the Wind was only published in 1958, as part of the collected edition, and The Book of Merlyn wasn't published until the 70s. T. H. White studied Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and his love for and knowledge of that work shines through. So does his love of cricket, which is often used as a comparison for jousting and such. In fact, because Merlyn is living backwards through time, a lot of more modern references creep in. They can be a bit disconcerting at first if you're not expecting them - which I wasn't - but by and large it works.
The Sword in the Stone tells the story of a young boy called Wart and his tutor, Merlyn. Why Wart? Well, it's the closest nickname they could come up with to the abbreviation of his real name. In this story, Merlyn teaches the young Arthur various lessons that will help him down the line, and encourages him to think about what he's learning. This invariably involves magicking the boy into the form of a variety of animals and experiencing life form their points of view. This story is the one most obviously written for children, and it is a lot of fun without getting too preachy.
The Witch in the Wood (aka The Queen of Air and Darkness), tells of Gawaine and his brothers Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth, and their mother, Morgause, and of Arthur's first tentative steps as King, of his desire to use Might for Right, and of the beginnings of the Round Table. This one starts to get darker and more serious in tone, although there are some nice comedic moments involving King Pellinore and Sir Grummore, who also featured in the first book. It's interesting that, after this, the books become far more serious, dark, and tragic in tone, and the humour largely drops away. The ending of this part is truly doom-laden and brilliantly done.
The Ill-Made Knight is all about Lancelot and Guenever, starting when Lancelot is a boy. This is a very different Lancelot to the one I am used to from various other portrayals. He is not the handsome character that I've come to expect. Rather, he is ugly, and something inside him is broken. For years he trains to become a knight at Arthur's Round Table, and also to become the greatest knight in the world. You know what happens next. This is the longest volume but it never drags. It's a gripping version of the tale, beautifully written.
The Candle in the Wind is further about Lancelot, Guenever and Arthur, but now Mordred - Arthur's illegitimate son - comes to the fore, and a right piece of work he is. Here the hope and friendship of the previous volumes gives way to despair and tragedy, and I thought it was an absolutely superb piece of writing, and would have been quite happy for the book to end here.
But unfortunately it all then goes a little bit . . . pants. The Book of Merlyn was originally omitted from the collected version, and I wish it still was. There is no plot to it, very little character, and it's only reason to exist seems to me to have been for White to vent his spleen about how to put an end to war. This involves Arthur sitting in a room with Merlyn and all the animals from The Sword in the Stone, whilst Merlyn spouts endless pages of philosophy. It even includes two long sections from the first book, repeated word for word. I suppose you have to take into account when it was written, with World War II ongoing, but it doesn't fit with the rest of the book, in my opinion, and I could've done without it. Here, White's modern-day references go overboard, even referring to a copy of his own notes that Merlyn has somehow got hold of. It's only in the last 10 to 15 pages that it really had anything to interest me but, even then, I wish the novel had ended at the close of the previous volume, cos I hated this.
Individually, I would score the books like this:
The Sword in the Stone 7/10
The Witch in the Wood 8/10
The Ill-Made Knight 9/10
The Candle in the Wind 9/10
The Book of Merlyn 2/10
That last book has dragged the score down in the end, but, overall, it's a fantastic read for anyone interested in Arthurian legend. The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind are superb pieces of writing, with brilliant characters, and full of tensions brought about by the knowledge of what will inevitably happen, which is a neat trick if an author can pull it off well, which White definitely does. Just give the last book a miss.
Overall score: 7/10
