I probably read The Mists of Avalon 26 times when I was a teenager. Between it and Gone With the Wind its hard to say which I read more, but in both I found something of the epic (and the romance). (While I haven’t tried to reread The Mists of Avalon, I did attempt to read GWTW again in my twenties and was aghast at the racism and had to stop. A post for another time is the particular feeling of re-reading a book from childhood only to discover you have so changed).
So when I saw the description of Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword as an epic to rival that of The Mists, I eagerly picked it up – undaunted or swayed by the mighty thousand pages. And I did enjoy the first 700 enough that I kept going. But eventually the slog got me. The epic quest too much for this failed knight. The weight of the journey too much to bear. Etc repeat.
In this one we follow Collum as he arrives at Camelot ready to prove himself (despite his humble birth) as a knight worthy of the round table. Only to find that Arthur is dead, along with most of the knights, leaving behind a motley – and diverse – crew of remaining knights: made other by race, sexuality, gender identity, ability and age in a sort of procession of difference that invites at least the tiniest of raised eyebrows.
The cadre assembles in a quest to restore peace and order to the kingdom with typical and not-so-typical adventures along the way (the better parts are those digressions that give the back story to the assembled knights – novellas in themselves and each complete with a heroic arc). Throughout we grapple with questions of god and magic and how allegiance to one or the other or both or neither might sway one’s fate (this point is – at best – belaboured), as well as those of loyalty and honour. You know, all the best you might hope for from an Arthurian retelling.
But I have to tell you – when all was said and done I was bored by the book. Bored particularly by the fairies and the endless hand wringing about whether we are a land without God (spoiler: no God). So should you find yourself aching for something mystical and heroic and of another place and time let me commend you instead to… something else. Let me know your preferred Arthurian legend and maybe I’ll give that a go instead.
Literary Vice 