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book reccomendations
I’ve decided in lieu of the season finale of Merlin to compile a list of books relating to Arthurian Legend that I want to read or that I recommend. Some of the ones that I want to read are obligatory because I feel like I have to (even though I really might not want to…you will be able to tell these very easily). So enjoy!
And now!
RECCOMENDATIONS
The Mists of Avalon
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
WHY I think that The Mists of Avalon is one of the great works of the 20th century. It is a masterpiece in that it is captivating, brilliantly tied to history, brilliantly linked to Celtic culture, heartbreaking, utterly breathtaking. Marion Zimmer Bradley takes so many well known characters – so many characters that are absolutely legendary – and makes them real. Instead of untouchable myths they become people. They are human. They feel, they make mistakes, some triumph, some fail. It is told mostly from the perspective of the women of King Arthur (who are usually made either evil or damsels or cheating whores) and explains why they act the way the do, or why they do the things they do. Most importantly while it gives the women their proper due it does not make the men into monsters. Arthur is perhaps the most victimized character in the entire novel. He is so utterly good that everything that happens to him absolutely breaks my heart. This is my second favorite novel of all time. Please if you take anything from this list, take this.
MORE There is also an entire universe or cultural explanation for these books. In some incredible way Marion Zimmer Bradley managed to connect The Fall of Atlantis to Stonehenge to the Roman prefects in Britannia to Arthur. She does it effortlessly over a series of several books and I absolutely love her for it.
Once and Future King
by T.H. White
WHY This book is divided into four: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, The Candle in the Wind. It starts with Arthur as a boy with the old wizard Merlyn. Arthur is living in another castle of sorts and he is a bit of a foster child. He learns humility and through the aid and wisdom of Merlyn he becomes a fish, an ant, meets Robin Wood and also comes into contact with Sir Pellinore and his ongoing quest for the Questing Beast (which reminds me: way to kill a Pellinore BBC...now you can NEVER have a Questing Beast). As Arthur ascends the throne it deals with Sir Lancelot, his forbidden love with Guinevere, Lancelot’s wife Elaine and their son Galahad. The Orkney clan which leads partly to Arthur’s demise. It’s truly a work of art, and there are so many modern day connections with politics that you can take from it.
Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy
WHY These are divided into three: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment. Outside of the trilogy there is The Wicked Day. Where T.H. White dealt with Arthur growing up, this deals with Merlin’s youth. The entire trilogy spans Merlin’s life. It begins with the young Merlin and King Vortigern (the White Dragon to the Red Dragon of the Pendragons). They do not concentrate on magic, but instead take the point of view of science and math as an explanation for much of what Merlin is supposed to have done. I believe as a child in this Merlin is called Emrys. It is brilliantly imaginative and fully fleshed as a novel and a possibility for the history of the legend we all know and love. As it follows the life of Merlin we see Arthur through him. The Wicked Day refers to Mordred and Arthur. In this book Mordred is Arthur’s son by way of Morgause who is often called Morgan, Morgaine, Morgana or Morgan le Faye (Morgan of the Fairies). I really love this series. I first read it when all I read was King Arthur books and as a result had to set it down because I was so sick of reading about Arthurian Legend, but when I went back to it was positively brilliant.
The Dark Is Rising Sequence: Silver on the Tree; The Grey King; Greenwitch; The Dark Is Rising; and Over Sea, Under Stone
by Susan Cooper
WHY First and foremost yes this is a children’s book. But I loved it when I was little. Seriously and technically it’s not directly about King Arthur but there are mentions and little winks at the legend. Since I haven’t read it in a while I’ll let amazon.com explain it for you: “Joined by destiny, the lives of the Drew children, Will Stanton, and a boy named Bran weave together in an exquisite, sometimes terrifying tapestry of mystery and quests. In the five-title series of novels known as The Dark Is Rising Sequence, these children pit the power of good against the evil forces of Dark in a timeless and dangerous battle that includes crystal swords, golden grails, and a silver-eyed dog that can see the wind. Susan Cooper's highly acclaimed fantasy novels, steeped in Celtic and Welsh legends, have won numerous awards, including the Newbery Medal and the Newbery Honor.” See that GOLDEN GRAILS. Um…yeah if I say more it’s spoiled and no one likes spoilers. There's also Bran but I'm not spilling on him.
WHAT I WANT TO READ
Le Morte D'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table (Signet Classics)
by Sir Thomas Malory
WHY Technically I want to read this and I don’t. I feel like I have to in order to call myself a studier of Arthurian Legend. I actually do own this but it’s sort of still in Old English. No really: Lancelot is spelled Lancelet. They also talk about Tristan a lot of time (I don’t really care about Tristan…who is the same Tristan of Tristan and Isolde which means James Franco should not have died he should have gone to Camelot. But movies are stupid like that). Anyways its sort of the well from which a lot of books relating to Arthur spring from and I feel like I should read it. I have been told that once I get past all of the Uther and Igraine and Gorlois stuff that it’s actually riveting. We’ll see.
The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics)
by Edmund Spenser
WHY I want to read this even less than I do le Morte d’Arthur. It’s an epic poem. I’m going to let amazon explain this one too: “It is the central poem of the Elizabethan period and is one of the great long poems in the English language. A celebration of Protestant nationalism, it represents infidels and papists as villains, King Arthur as the hero, and married chastity as its central value. The form of The Faerie Queene fuses the medieval allegory with the Italian romantic epic. The plan was for 12 books (of which six were completed), focusing on 12 virtues exemplified in the quests of 12 knights from the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, a symbol for Elizabeth I herself. Arthur, in quest of Gloriana's love, would appear in each book and come to exemplify Magnificence, the complete man. Spenser took the decorative chivalry of the Elizabethan court festivals and reworked it through a constantly shifting veil of allegory, so that the knight's adventures and loves build into a complex, multileveled portrayal of the moral life. The verse, a spacious and slow-moving nine-lined stanza (see SPENSERIAN STANZA), and Spenser's archaic language frequently rise to an unrivaled sensuousness.” Lovely.
That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book 3)
by C.S. Lewis
WHY Ok I want to read this. Getting that out there. I want to read this a lot. The fact that C.S. Lewis wrote sci fi just intrigues me all the more. I always sort of filed him under ancient things BUT HE SURPRISED ME. Anyways this is the third book out of three (which means it’s the final). I’m not quoting amazon because it doesn’t say anything about why I want to read it. Instead I shall attempt to patch some things together. It takes place in 1945 in a small fictional university town where the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) a fictional agency attempts to alter the true nature of man-kind by taking advantage of its member’s greed and pride. Dr. Ransom is the foil to N.I.C.E. and as this is C.S. Lewis represents the true Christian. The re-incarnated Merlin represents the angelic powers and shows that only through the divine can the battle of good and evil be won/fought. Dr. Ransom assumes the mantle of “The Pendragon” and represents King Arthur and takes up his mantle. He “struggles with questions of ethics and morality, applying age old wisdom to a brave new universe dominated by science”. Orwell reviewed and critiqued it. Yes, George Orwell; he reviewed it right after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and before he wrote Nineteen-Eighty-Four. There are strong allegorical elements, and this may sound vague seeing as how I haven’t read the first two books, but it also sounds really really interesting and deep. SO yes.
MORE
Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, Book One)
Perelandra (Space Trilogy, Book 2)
Taliesin (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 1)
by Stephen R. Lawhead
WHY This represents the series as this is only the first book. The books in total are: Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, Grail, and Avalon. I’m using amazon for this one: “It was a time of legend, when the last shadows of the mighty Roman conqueror faded from the captured Isle of Britain. While across a vast sea, bloody war shattered a peace that had flourished for two thousand years in the doomed kingdom of Atlantis.
Taliesin is the remarkable adventure of Charis, the Atlantean princess who escaped the terrible devastation of her homeland, and of the fabled seer and druid prince Taliesin, singer at the dawn of the age. It is the story of an incomparable love that joined two worlds amid the fires of chaos, and spawned the miracles of Merlin...and Arthur the king.”
The series as a whole takes place in the 5th and 6th century and is an attempt at showing Arthurian legend through historical methods. It’s based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s writings in opposition to those of Malory.
MORE
Merlin (The Pendragon Cycle , Book 2)
Arthur (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 3)
Pendragon (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 4)
Grail (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 5)
Avalon:: The Return of King Arthur
ADDITIONS
in the process of.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Signet Classics)
by Anonymous
I read part of this (or maybe the whole thing I can't remember) in Brit Lit during Junior Year of high school. It's beautiful, a little section off of a great legend. Sir Gawain accepts a simple but deadly challenge in the middle of a Christmas feast (which means! that Christmas is apparently canon in that universe). It's a lyrical poem (as most older things are) and though it doesn't involve the main characters from the show, it does involve a major part of the myth and legend.
And now!
RECCOMENDATIONS
The Mists of Avalon
by Marion Zimmer BradleyWHY I think that The Mists of Avalon is one of the great works of the 20th century. It is a masterpiece in that it is captivating, brilliantly tied to history, brilliantly linked to Celtic culture, heartbreaking, utterly breathtaking. Marion Zimmer Bradley takes so many well known characters – so many characters that are absolutely legendary – and makes them real. Instead of untouchable myths they become people. They are human. They feel, they make mistakes, some triumph, some fail. It is told mostly from the perspective of the women of King Arthur (who are usually made either evil or damsels or cheating whores) and explains why they act the way the do, or why they do the things they do. Most importantly while it gives the women their proper due it does not make the men into monsters. Arthur is perhaps the most victimized character in the entire novel. He is so utterly good that everything that happens to him absolutely breaks my heart. This is my second favorite novel of all time. Please if you take anything from this list, take this.
MORE There is also an entire universe or cultural explanation for these books. In some incredible way Marion Zimmer Bradley managed to connect The Fall of Atlantis to Stonehenge to the Roman prefects in Britannia to Arthur. She does it effortlessly over a series of several books and I absolutely love her for it.
Once and Future King
by T.H. WhiteWHY This book is divided into four: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, The Candle in the Wind. It starts with Arthur as a boy with the old wizard Merlyn. Arthur is living in another castle of sorts and he is a bit of a foster child. He learns humility and through the aid and wisdom of Merlyn he becomes a fish, an ant, meets Robin Wood and also comes into contact with Sir Pellinore and his ongoing quest for the Questing Beast (which reminds me: way to kill a Pellinore BBC...now you can NEVER have a Questing Beast). As Arthur ascends the throne it deals with Sir Lancelot, his forbidden love with Guinevere, Lancelot’s wife Elaine and their son Galahad. The Orkney clan which leads partly to Arthur’s demise. It’s truly a work of art, and there are so many modern day connections with politics that you can take from it.
Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy
WHY These are divided into three: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment. Outside of the trilogy there is The Wicked Day. Where T.H. White dealt with Arthur growing up, this deals with Merlin’s youth. The entire trilogy spans Merlin’s life. It begins with the young Merlin and King Vortigern (the White Dragon to the Red Dragon of the Pendragons). They do not concentrate on magic, but instead take the point of view of science and math as an explanation for much of what Merlin is supposed to have done. I believe as a child in this Merlin is called Emrys. It is brilliantly imaginative and fully fleshed as a novel and a possibility for the history of the legend we all know and love. As it follows the life of Merlin we see Arthur through him. The Wicked Day refers to Mordred and Arthur. In this book Mordred is Arthur’s son by way of Morgause who is often called Morgan, Morgaine, Morgana or Morgan le Faye (Morgan of the Fairies). I really love this series. I first read it when all I read was King Arthur books and as a result had to set it down because I was so sick of reading about Arthurian Legend, but when I went back to it was positively brilliant.
The Dark Is Rising Sequence: Silver on the Tree; The Grey King; Greenwitch; The Dark Is Rising; and Over Sea, Under Stone
by Susan CooperWHY First and foremost yes this is a children’s book. But I loved it when I was little. Seriously and technically it’s not directly about King Arthur but there are mentions and little winks at the legend. Since I haven’t read it in a while I’ll let amazon.com explain it for you: “Joined by destiny, the lives of the Drew children, Will Stanton, and a boy named Bran weave together in an exquisite, sometimes terrifying tapestry of mystery and quests. In the five-title series of novels known as The Dark Is Rising Sequence, these children pit the power of good against the evil forces of Dark in a timeless and dangerous battle that includes crystal swords, golden grails, and a silver-eyed dog that can see the wind. Susan Cooper's highly acclaimed fantasy novels, steeped in Celtic and Welsh legends, have won numerous awards, including the Newbery Medal and the Newbery Honor.” See that GOLDEN GRAILS. Um…yeah if I say more it’s spoiled and no one likes spoilers. There's also Bran but I'm not spilling on him.
WHAT I WANT TO READ
Le Morte D'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table (Signet Classics)
by Sir Thomas MaloryWHY Technically I want to read this and I don’t. I feel like I have to in order to call myself a studier of Arthurian Legend. I actually do own this but it’s sort of still in Old English. No really: Lancelot is spelled Lancelet. They also talk about Tristan a lot of time (I don’t really care about Tristan…who is the same Tristan of Tristan and Isolde which means James Franco should not have died he should have gone to Camelot. But movies are stupid like that). Anyways its sort of the well from which a lot of books relating to Arthur spring from and I feel like I should read it. I have been told that once I get past all of the Uther and Igraine and Gorlois stuff that it’s actually riveting. We’ll see.
The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics)
by Edmund SpenserWHY I want to read this even less than I do le Morte d’Arthur. It’s an epic poem. I’m going to let amazon explain this one too: “It is the central poem of the Elizabethan period and is one of the great long poems in the English language. A celebration of Protestant nationalism, it represents infidels and papists as villains, King Arthur as the hero, and married chastity as its central value. The form of The Faerie Queene fuses the medieval allegory with the Italian romantic epic. The plan was for 12 books (of which six were completed), focusing on 12 virtues exemplified in the quests of 12 knights from the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, a symbol for Elizabeth I herself. Arthur, in quest of Gloriana's love, would appear in each book and come to exemplify Magnificence, the complete man. Spenser took the decorative chivalry of the Elizabethan court festivals and reworked it through a constantly shifting veil of allegory, so that the knight's adventures and loves build into a complex, multileveled portrayal of the moral life. The verse, a spacious and slow-moving nine-lined stanza (see SPENSERIAN STANZA), and Spenser's archaic language frequently rise to an unrivaled sensuousness.” Lovely.
That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book 3)
by C.S. LewisWHY Ok I want to read this. Getting that out there. I want to read this a lot. The fact that C.S. Lewis wrote sci fi just intrigues me all the more. I always sort of filed him under ancient things BUT HE SURPRISED ME. Anyways this is the third book out of three (which means it’s the final). I’m not quoting amazon because it doesn’t say anything about why I want to read it. Instead I shall attempt to patch some things together. It takes place in 1945 in a small fictional university town where the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) a fictional agency attempts to alter the true nature of man-kind by taking advantage of its member’s greed and pride. Dr. Ransom is the foil to N.I.C.E. and as this is C.S. Lewis represents the true Christian. The re-incarnated Merlin represents the angelic powers and shows that only through the divine can the battle of good and evil be won/fought. Dr. Ransom assumes the mantle of “The Pendragon” and represents King Arthur and takes up his mantle. He “struggles with questions of ethics and morality, applying age old wisdom to a brave new universe dominated by science”. Orwell reviewed and critiqued it. Yes, George Orwell; he reviewed it right after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and before he wrote Nineteen-Eighty-Four. There are strong allegorical elements, and this may sound vague seeing as how I haven’t read the first two books, but it also sounds really really interesting and deep. SO yes.
MORE
Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, Book One)
Perelandra (Space Trilogy, Book 2)
Taliesin (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 1)
by Stephen R. LawheadWHY This represents the series as this is only the first book. The books in total are: Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, Grail, and Avalon. I’m using amazon for this one: “It was a time of legend, when the last shadows of the mighty Roman conqueror faded from the captured Isle of Britain. While across a vast sea, bloody war shattered a peace that had flourished for two thousand years in the doomed kingdom of Atlantis.
Taliesin is the remarkable adventure of Charis, the Atlantean princess who escaped the terrible devastation of her homeland, and of the fabled seer and druid prince Taliesin, singer at the dawn of the age. It is the story of an incomparable love that joined two worlds amid the fires of chaos, and spawned the miracles of Merlin...and Arthur the king.”
The series as a whole takes place in the 5th and 6th century and is an attempt at showing Arthurian legend through historical methods. It’s based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s writings in opposition to those of Malory.
MORE
Merlin (The Pendragon Cycle , Book 2)
Arthur (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 3)
Pendragon (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 4)
Grail (The Pendragon Cycle, Book 5)
Avalon:: The Return of King Arthur
ADDITIONS
in the process of.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Signet Classics)
by AnonymousI read part of this (or maybe the whole thing I can't remember) in Brit Lit during Junior Year of high school. It's beautiful, a little section off of a great legend. Sir Gawain accepts a simple but deadly challenge in the middle of a Christmas feast (which means! that Christmas is apparently canon in that universe). It's a lyrical poem (as most older things are) and though it doesn't involve the main characters from the show, it does involve a major part of the myth and legend.
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