Le Morte D'Arthur, Vol 1

This is the first volume of Le Morte d'Arthur and shouldn't be seen as the first book of a trilogy, just the first half, and not meant to be read alone. I agree with the reviewer who said this is not for the faint of heart, and few general readers are going to find this a great read. If you're

Show More

looking for an absorbing, entertaining read with characters you can relate to and root for, you're absolutely, positively in the wrong place. Read instead Arthurian novels such as T.H. White's The Once and Future King or Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy. There are countless other such novels inspired by this material worth reading, and I've read a lot of them.

But I did find it interesting at times going through this, one of the ur-texts as it were of Arthurian legend. There are other, earlier works of Arthurian literature: Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain (1136), Chrétien de Troyes's Arthurian Romances in the 12th century and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival in the 13th century are among the most notable. But Malory drew from several sources, so much so he's often described more as the "compiler" than the author of the work. I own a edition in two volumes that comes close to 1,000 pages. So this is an exhaustive resource of all sorts of facets of the legend. The story of Tristram and Iseult is here, for instance.

And this is a medieval work, so it's imbued with its assumptions and attitudes. Obviously a source of outrage to some reviewers, and even by the standards of the time, comparing this to how women are treated in say Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales--well, women don't come off well here. Misogyny abounds. And knights are held up as paragons who commit a lot of heinous acts and just plain WTF. A lot is repetitive and a slog--as one reviewer put it too much is "joust, joust, joust." And this was written about half-way between Chaucer and Shakespeare. With the spelling regularized it's quite readable, much more so than unmodernized Chaucer. But with those that choose to preserve the archaic words, that means wading through words such as "hight" (is called) and "mickle" (much). And there's just so much that can be excused by, well, "it's the times"--I found plenty of medieval writers who were wonderful reads, and just plain more humane: Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer. I can't see Malory as their equal--not remotely. But as a fan of Arthurian literature and someone fascinated by the Middle Ages, this did from time to time have its fascinations.

Show Less

This the real thing in Medieval romance. It is a text with the spelling, and the spelling alone, regularized to the modern taste. It is the final embodiment of the medieval romance and the birth of modern Sword and Sorcery fantasy. It comes in two volumes, totaling over 1100 pages. But the mood and

Show More

narrative style are those George R.R. Martin has in "Ice and Fire". Sword-fighting is dangerous business, and some good guys are not alive by the end. In fact only four main characters are alive at the end and of them one has been assumed into heaven, and another has been taken into Avalon from whence he shall come again. This book was a big best seller in the 1490's and has never really been out of print. And it was a printed book from the beginning, with only two manuscript copies being found. Both may have been submitted to the printers for typesetting. My favourite Book is Book IX"La Cote Male Tail" and the final book, which is tear jerking at its greatest. I've never stopped dipping into it , and any other version pales away when confronted with this beast! Be a man, and read the Malory! If you have trouble with the language, start reading it aloud, it'll be flowing in ten minutes!

Show Less

THE definitive version of King Aruthur and his knights. Hard getting used to spellings and word usage; but once that happened, it was enchanting and magical. I loved every bit of it.