Category Archives: Gawain

Lev Grossman on T.H. White and The Once and Future King

One of the subjects I will go on at length most often is, most assuredly, Arthuriana. My abiding love for that genre started with a gorgeous illustrated volume (an abbreviated Morte D’Arthur) given to me by my great-aunt, but really came to fruition during my Freshman year of college when I was assigned both The Once and Future King and The Mists of Avalon. Previous to this, the only fantasy I’d really read was Tolkien, L’Engle, Alexander, and some Terry Goodkind. And while Mists was very empowering, especially as feminist fantasy, T.H. White’s The Once and Future King changed the entire landscape of how I viewed fantasy storytelling.

If I had one book to keep with me until the end of the world, it would likely be The Once and Future King. I had no idea fantasy could be so multi-faceted, so humorous (and hilarious) and yet poignant. I can’t get through the damned book without sobbing (the scene with Gawain and Arthur in the tower… egads… hand me some Kleenex). But I can’t read it, either, without getting completely lost in the narrative, the philosophy, the language. It is, as far as I’m concerned, a truly magical book.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that I read an NPR article today, where Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians, had something very similar to say. You ought to read/listen and take note. But here’s a good bit:

The Sword in the Stone set the standard by which I judge all historical fiction. It is also the most perfect story of a childhood ever committed to paper, and it is only the first part of The Once and Future King. What follows — Lancelot, Guinevere, Gawain, the Holy Grail — is a foregone conclusion to those who know the story of King Arthur. White took hold of the ultimate English epic and recast it in modern literary language, sacrificing none of its grandeur or its strangeness (and it is very strange) in the process, and adding in all the humor and passion that we expect from a novel. What was once as stiff and two-dimensional as a medieval tapestry becomes rich and real and devastatingly sad.

It’s no exaggeration to say that after reading The Once and Future King, I never looked at Arthur, or fantastical writing the same. And I am so thankful for that.

Arthur Re(du)x – Part One

I can’t say for sure, but I think the first time I ever saw something remotely Pre-Raphaelite was in elementary school upon visiting the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. It very well could have been this painting, though I’m not sure when it was acquired. Regardless, I remember returning from the museum on an absolute high, my mind alive with the images I’d seen and thrilling at the prospect of such visual imagination.

Throughout college, I learned a great deal more about the Pre-Raphaelites, and they and their brotherhood (and sisterhood, et al) continued to crop up during my Arthurian studies.

And the more I read of Arthur, the more books and romances and poems I crammed into my head, the more I wanted the vision of the Pre-Raphaelites. Malory is fun, but he is also quite brutal. Even T.H. White on his best day can be a little laughable, a little more distant. I could never find that “true” telling that I was looking for, that pure Arthurian vein.

When I sat down to write Queen of None I was simply working a retelling of the story of Arthur, his knights, and his family; in a way it’s the Masters thesis I wish I’d done. But it became abundantly clear, as I was writing, that the female-driven storyline was in many ways a vision much in line with the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. Hwyfar, the scarlet-haired, earthy seductress; Gweyn, so rounded and lovely and sad; Morgaine, dark and severe; and of course, Anna, Arthur’s brother, another golden child. Their faces are so striking to me in my mind, their clothing so resplendent and sumptuous…

I digress a bit. While I wouldn’t ever say that Queen of None is not, technically, medieval, it is however a medieval vision through the eyes of the Victorian, as well as through my own. It’s almost utopian in that the religious aspect is mostly eradicated and, at least I’ve attempted, to convey a sense of visual depth. Free from historical timelines, fashions, and customs, I’ve concentrated on one thing: characters and stories. Because, well, there are lots and lots of them.

My sources have been all over the place. I mean, we’re talking about almost 1500 years worth of poems and romances. But because I’m just looking at the stories, I totally cherry picked. I had thought I was going for a more pure retelling at first, since Anna herself is in that first wave of Arthurian characters along with Gawain, Bedevere, Cai and other early well-known folks.

But all along the way I’ve been surprised, and I want to share some of the insights I’ve had with you.

Throughout the month of December, I’m going to be writing a little series on rewriting Arthuriana. Next up will be “Loving Lanceloch” – a look at what happened when I to exclude my least-favorite knight, only to find that he shouldered his way into the story and, in the end, became one of my favorites.

Suggested Arthurian texts for the curious among you:

The triune – Start with Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (good translations are easy enough to find) – then move to Tennyson’s take on Malory, with his own Victorian colorings in Idylls of the King and, finally, see what T.H. White does to the whole story in his brilliant The Once and Future King.

The Queen, the Knight, and Arthur

If you’ve followed either of my blogs, listened to my podcast, of likely talked to me for all of ten minutes, you’ve probably gathered that I have a thing for Arthuriana. My love of the genre is deep-seeded, having taken root somewhere in between watching The Sword in the Stone and receiving a book from my great aunt on the subject (I can’t seem to locate the book, but it had fabulous illustrations, including a brilliant one of Morgause holding up Mordred as a newborn amidst the rocky sea and churning waves).

But it wasn’t until college that something really clicked with me, something started reverberating in my brain, in regards to Arthuriana. I took a seminar my freshman year at UMass with Dr. Charlotte Spivack, who was a remarkable teacher with a rigorous syllabus (she’s got some impressive titles to her name, I’ve learned, too). It was in Dr. Spivack’s class that I first encountered a full treatment of the Arthurian myth, from the earliest scraps of poetry and Celtic beginnings to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. It’s also the first time I learned about Sir Gawain. (More on that to follow)

When I transferred to Loyola College, I was lucky enough to yet again find myself amidst impressive medievalists (and started to realize that such a title was what I wanted to be, should I be able to attain it). Dr. Kelly DeVries, a historian, taught a senior history seminar on the legends of the Middle Ages, and of course we encountered Arthur again, though from a less fictionalized slant.

By graduate school, I decided to go full on Arthuriana. I worked with Middle English manuscripts, familiar and obscure (my favorite moment being when I discovered a work that had hardly ever been written about called Outel and Rolande–which was Carolingian, but still, chivalric) and wallowed (rather miserably) in literary criticism. Most of my research pertained to Malory, however, who hated Gawain a great deal but had many fascinating things to say about Sir Palomides. I even did a few conferences. Then I had a baby, and wrote a hasty thesis about Marie de France and William Morris’s treatments of Guenevere before finally graduating and realizing, quite clearly, that I wanted to write fiction.

Two years after, with the dawn of 2009, I found myself beginning the first lines of Queen of None, where Anna Pendragon (the oldest mentioned and most often forgotten sister of Arthur) reflects on her birth, her family, and her curse. It is very much her story, told in the first person, but there are a few things that I knew I wanted to do differently right away.

First and foremost, my Carelon (rather than Camelot) is fantasy literature. It is a re-imagining without the Christianity and, more importantly, without much of the history of our world at all. Now, this might seem entirely peculiar. But for me, what’s important about Arthuriana are the stories, the characters, and the setting and attempt to shove it into a Christian nutshell always made me lose my suspension of disbelief. I loved Mists of Avalon, but the ending always irked me; and as much as I adore The One And Future King, it borders on farce too often to take seriously.

And oddly enough, removing religion and history don’t do much to change the stories at all. Yes, I have a Britain (Braetan), and an Arthur and a Merlin, Morgaine, Gawain, etc. But I’m playing a great deal with some of the older texts; for instance, Arthur marries three separate women during the course of the books (one of the oldest poems mentions three inconstant wives of Arthur, all named Gweynevere).

Now, I’m moving on to Sir Gawain’s story. Gawain is Anna’s son, and features a bit in Queen of None; but as Anna is rather self-absorbed, he only makes appearances when they aren’t arguing, which is rare. In tradition, Gawain’s character is turned about and upended constantly. He starts out as a hero, one of the earliest mentioned knights along with Cai and Bedevere. By the time Malory has his hands on him, and the whole of the Orkney clan (including Gaheris and Gareth), he basically demonizes him and turns him into a bloodthirsty murderer.

But I am drawn to that dichotomy, to that tension. And my Gawain is complicated. On the one hand, he is a formidable warrior, known for his prowess far and wide. But it comes with cost. In the current book (tentative title Knight of the Blood to indicate his connection to Arthur, etc… not sold on it, but gotta call it something) Gawain takes the story from where Anna left it, filling in the blanks regarding the knights’ campaign in the north, what he encountered there, and how he’s trying to reconcile his violent nature with his learning. Because Gawain would have been reared at court, he’s had a top-notch education at the hand of the Avillionian monks. While not religious, he claims that his power is still something given to him by some divine force simply because he cannot accept that the ability to kill so many, so quickly, so well, can be from him only.

The story concerns Gawain and some primary knights (Bors, Lionel, Gaheris, Palomides, and occasionally Lanceloch)  and King Pellinore, as well as the Questing Beast, and the Queen’s sister Hwyfar. It’s a bit more lighthearted than Queen of None, but with more philosophy in a way. Anna is a woman of action, when pushed to it; her book dealt entirely with her own revenge. Gawain’s book really is a quest, a search for his own identity among the knights, his family, and his realm. But most importantly it’s him trying to balance his blood-thirsty nature with the mind of a thinker.

Eventually, the plan is to write a series of books–which could each stand alone, if necessary–that take place over three generations, starting with Anna then moving to Gawain and his brothers, then ending after the fall of Carelon with Gaheris’s daughter (I think) returning to Orkney.

However it ends up, I’m having a blast doing research. Collecting bits and pieces of the mythology and then fashioning them together into something new; it’s thrilling. I haven’t been this excited about a project in a while, and it’s rather nice to have a mythology to lean on, rather than make mine up entirely (as with The Aldersgate and Peter of Windbourne).

A bit of an excerpt, and that’ll end the babbling. The scene takes place after the last battle of Hropnar’s War, where Gawain single-handedly saved his retinue before falling to one of the northmen’s axes. Just as he’s about to take the death blow, Palomides intercedes and Gawain is only wounded. However, in a blood fury, Gawain turns on Palomides and has to be subdued. He wakes in his tent, with Bors attending to him:

Bors was growing frustrated, I knew, his frown deepening into his beard. “Come, lad, you’ve uttered naught but five words to me. You won’t die now, but if you keep this up it’ll come swiftly to you. If that’s what you were seeking on the field, then so be it; but leave me out of it, you hear? I’ll have no such guilt on my conscience. I’ll not be the one to bear it.”

“Bors. You lout,” I said. “That was a bigger speech than you’ve ever given…” I coughed, the labor of speaking sending daggers of pain down my side and across my back. “How many cups have you had?”

A smile, like a child discovering their naming day giftm spread across his face. Bors took my slightly less mangled hand in his and kissed it. “There’s my lad.”

“Water?”

He brought it to me obediently, a perpetual grin on his face. That I know, Bors never married nor had children, and though he was not quite old enough to have been my father, still he looked to me as a son.

Bors helped me sip a bit, each drop burning as the last, and wincing I rested back down on the pillows. I knew no other knights had such luxuries; the pillows, the clean water, the fresh linens. I was the King’s nephew. And a hero. Even if I had refused it, I doubt I’d have been able to avoid it, and so I did not let it trouble me.

I expected to meet Bors’s grin again, but when I looked to him—my lips still afire from the water—he was somber.

“I find it best, Gawain, not to question the gifts of the gods,” he said, taking my hand again. “It’s a right pain when they choose, and their reasoning’s quite beyond me. But before this life is over, you must make your peace with it… one way or another.”