I have actually reviewed it four or five times already, given that I was Wanted to read it once again, as well as got a hardback duplicate from the collection, however the kind injure my eyes.
Reading it on Kindle software application on iPad is a reward for old eyes. Anyhow, the story itself. My preferred components will always remain in the very first part of guide, when Merlin tutors the young Arthur, or Wart, as he is nicknamed, in the methods of the world by altering him into a beast or a bird or a fish or a pest. Those little vignettes are so captivating. This remarkable book shatters just about every myth surrounding American government, the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers, and offers the clearest warning about the alarming rise of one-man rule in the age of Obama.
Most Americans believe that this country uniquely protects liberty, that it does so because of its. The Once and Future King. The Once and Future King by T. The Once Future King by T. The Book of Merlyn by T.
Candle in the Wind by T. The novel really concludes with the 4th book The Candle in the Wind as the last battle between Arthur and Mordred is about to begin, but this audiobook then adds The Book of Merlyn, which may be good for completists, but which I found disappointing, as on the eve of the last battle Merlyn takes his former pupil off for a night of anachronistic political and philosophical debate with Badger and company about why humans wage war and what might be done to prevent it.
Apart from Arthur changing into an ant and a goose to experience two different social systems, there is little "story" in this last book: too little Arthurian Matter and too much Whiteian Musing. Jason Neville does a marvelous job reading the long work, effortlessly giving different characters distinctive voices and personalities without over doing it so that, for example, his female characters sound like human beings rather than like a man imitating "women".
And his King Pellinore reminds me of John Gielgud. I recommend this audiobook for anyone interested in the Matter of Britain or philosophical and well-written fantasy. And T. In all three cases, we are perfectly familiar with the subject matter. The delight is in seeing how each artist makes the familiar material new.
The only question is, do they succeed? He is a supreme craftsman of the language; his descriptions of human feelings, or pieces of armor, or birds and beasts and landscapes—especially birds and beasts and landscapes—can be astounding in their precision and clarity. White the Naturalist at work. He also has a lot of fun with time: Wart, Sir Ector, Lancelot and Guinevere are living forwards through time as Merlyn is living backwards, but even that is not strictly adhered to.
Merlyn knows about microbes, yet Sir Pelinor wears spectacles behind his visor. At one point Merlyn asks for his hat and plucks from the air a black topper, circa , which he throws back into the void, calling it an anachronism. It took me some chapters to settle down into willing-suspension-of-disbelief. With the second volume, The Witch in the Wood, things start getting psychologically complex and deeply insightful. They are fripperies to the soul of man.
What does it matter if Antony did fall upon his sword? It only killed him. It is the mother's not the lover's lust that rots the mind. It is that which condemns the tragic character to his walking death. It is Jocasta, not Juliet, who dwells in the inner chamber. It is Gertrude, not the silly Ophelia, who sends Hamlet to his madness. The heart of tragedy does not lie in stealing or taking away. Any feather-pated girl can steal a heart.
It lies in giving, in putting on, in adding, in smothering without the pillows. Desdemona robbed of life or honour is nothing to a Mordred, robbed of himself—his soul stolen, overlaid, wizened, while the mother-character lives in triumph, superfluously and with stifling love endowed on him, seemingly innocent of ill-intention. Mordred was the only son of Orkney who never married. He, while his brothers fled to England, was the one who stayed alone with her for twenty years—her living larder.
Now that she was dead, he had become her grave. She existed in him like the vampire. When he moved, when he blew his nose, he did it with her movement. When he acted, he became as unreal as she had been, pretending to be a virgin for the unicorn. He dabbled in the same cruel magic. He had even begun to keep lap dogs like her—although he had always hated hers with the same bitter jealousy as that with which he had hated her lovers.
But the final installment of the story, The Book of Merlyn, very nearly destroyed the delight I had taken in the first four books. Some years ago, I read that J. Tolkien always insisted his Lord of the Rings should never be read as an allegory of the Second World War. Writing during the war, White draws definite parallels to his own times, even going as far as to tell us Mordred is forming a Fascist organization that threatens Jews. It sounds preachy, sanctimonious the besetting foible of people who, like White, are agnostics and limiting.
The anachronisms mentioned above are fun; these just get heavy-handed. Oddly, much of this occurs in the fourth book of the series, The Candle in the Wind. I ignored it because the story was so compelling. But by the time we hit the committee meeting in the final volume, I was just waiting for the thing to end. This extended meeting between Arthur, Merlyn and an assortment of woodland creatures, concerns war: its roots and its eradication. That had always been at the heart of the Arthurian project: the rechanneling of violence to good ends the Medieval concept of chivalry.
They struck me now as all rather shopworn. Likewise, seeking a cure to war while insisting upon the individuality of man seems to me a logical Mobius Strip. The conversation in this last book gets as tangled as the anachronisms in the first four.
In the end, the committee is really a conclave of central planners trying to construct heaven on earth—forgetting that, like the poor, war will always be with us. White the Agnostic at work. If you exclude God from the universe, complaining about sin strikes me as pointless. Then I found I was wrong. But no star for The Book of Merlyn. However, our reader, Neville Jason, would get six stars if that were possible. Maybe even more. I first read this book in , and it was always a great favorite; the layers of Arthurian myth with White's dry wit and time-bending sensibilities as if Camelot were set in circa WWI Great Britain.
This version is an admirable reading, Neville Jason provides finely-honed voices and the perfect slightly-ironic intonation that catches the tongue-in-cheek nature of this book. There is a chapter new to me, actually two. The "Mrs Mim" section was absolutely not in my edition, and features a wizard's duel between Mrs Mim and Merlyn.
Reminds me of some other book about wizards I've read recently, can't think which one, though. And the Book of Merlyn is at the end, an addition to the version I read, advice to the king from his departing tutor. Good Ones. Since you can get these five books for one credit, go ahead and get it, instead of one book at a time. Believe me if you buy the first book, you are going to want the second and if you buy the second, etc. Since this is five books I will go over each, in case you buy one at a time.
I will try an be brief. I mean if if takes you as long to read the review as the book, why not just get the book. This is the best of the five and is mostly a fantasy. There is also an interesting part on boar hunting. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Summary: Jack's a warlock - an unfortunate profession in an anti-magic kingdom, and more so now that his master's the prince himself.
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