T H White: The Once and Future King

Post by **peter** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:23 am

Picked it up from 1 pound in a charity shop. Started it last night - a bit more aimed at kids than I'd expected and oddly quirky in spots, not a bad start but I'll reserve judgement until I've got a bit more of it under my belt.

Anyone else read it

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:43 am

Long time ago. That's the one that Disney's Sword In the Stone is based on.

My own introduction to Camelot was IIRC, Roger Lancelyn Green's version.

--A

Post by **aliantha** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 5:05 pm

The Once and Future King was my first literary introduction to the Arthurian cycle, I think. Unless it was Mary Stewart's novels... No, I think I read T.H. White when I was in junior high.

Post by **peter** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 5:40 pm

Well, I'm just about to start on my second night of it which will probably be the make or break of it.

Post by **DoctorGamgee** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 10:24 pm

My intro was via Camelot, the musical. Which is also based loosely on this book.

Post by **peter** » Wed Oct 05, 2016 4:11 am

The book seems to mix time-frames with gay abandon - I'm at the bit where where Arthur is heading off to meet Robin Hood.

Post by **Avatar** » Wed Oct 05, 2016 4:42 am

Uh...no comment...

--A

Post by **DoctorGamgee** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 4:10 am

Avatar wrote:Uh...no comment...

--A

What he wants to ask, is, "which one: Kevin Costner, or Mel Brooks?"

Post by **Avatar** » Thu Oct 06, 2016 4:50 am

My personal favourite is Locksley.

--A

Post by **peter** » Fri Oct 07, 2016 6:21 am

I don't know........ I am struggling with it to be honest. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just not hitting the spot for me. I think me and TOAFK are going to part company.

Post by **Avatar** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 5:00 am

I don't blame you. I swear I don't remember Robin Hood being in it...

--A

Post by **peter** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 7:11 am

The meeting is engineered by Merlin when Arthur requests that his companion Kay be allowed to be transformed into another animal briefly - a feature of his training that hitherto Kay has been denied. Merlin says he cannot do this but instead arranges a quest for the young pupils in which they meet Robin Hood, rescue their castle workers from Morgan la Fey and Kay kills a Griffen.

Post by **JIkj fjds j** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 6:25 pm

That puts the pupils in Sherwood Forest. Is that the same location as Merlin - the rickety shack balanced precariously atop a pile of crumbling bricks, or the cottage in the woods?
As I recall the weather in the story was said to be very warm. Warm enough to grow oranges in the South of England.
I'd like to think Merlin was living in the Heart of the Land - at Cov!

Post by **peter** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 8:59 pm

He was certainly first encountered by Arthur in a cottage in a clearing in the woods some way from Arthur's home. If you want him in Cov Rune, be my guest (my own location's prior claim to house his residence not withstanding

).

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:29 am

I liked Bernard Cornwall's version, which has Arthur as a pre-Roman Welsh warlord.

--A

Post by **peter** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 6:49 am

Does it portray Merlin as 'wizad' in the usual sense Av or more as druid mystic?

Post by **JIkj fjds j** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 1:25 pm

peter wrote:He was certainly first encountered by Arthur in a cottage in a clearing in the woods some way from Arthur's home. If you want him in Cov Rune, be my guest (my own location's prior claim to house his residence not withstanding ).

The Forest of Arden is as good a place as any.

However, that is certainly a good find, peter. The home from home of Merlin the Magician in his crumbling tower of stone, and the fall of Kevin's Watch in The Runes of the Earth. Like something out of a dream, when you think about it, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that SRD had used these comparisons weaving his own tale.

Post by **Cord Hurn** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 6:26 pm

I guess what I liked best about the T.H. White version of the Arthurian legend is that I felt I was really getting inside the heads of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, and really feeling close to them as real people...no "legendary distance" between them and me. But it has its frustrating side, because the fall of Arthur's ideals is seen as inevitable due to a sin he didn't know he was committing (sleeping with his half-sister Morgause thinking she was Guinevere, which produces his antagonist son Mordred).

Post by **Vraith** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 9:26 pm

The problem with the tale:
When you are young enough to enjoy the story for itself, moral/philosophical judgmentalisms sneaks in slyly...by the time you're old enough to engage the moral/philosophical, the judgments are simplistic and the story is baby-talk.

[[don't mean young/old in absolute year designations---people evolve differently...but to really work, one has to encounter it at just the right time in ones life for it to be meaningful in a serious way.]]

Post by **peter** » Fri Oct 28, 2016 7:50 am

The above few posts have re-kindled my interest somewhat to the extent that l will probably pick up the book and continue at some point, most likely when I'm exhausted by, or have exhausted my stock of 'main books'.