Late as usual, but here it is. April was about the two Alien movies (there are only two), Beatrix Potter, and plenty of Arthurian retellings – specifically three TV shows that are fascinating in how different they are from each other while still being recognizably based on the same source material.
Furthermore, none of them are very good. It made me wonder what a good adaptation would look like? It would have to span several decades, feature aging actors, contain dozens of narrative tangents and cul de sacs, and not be afraid to go to some very strange places. It would also have to settle on a central theme, which might be the most difficult thing of all considering the number of writers who have brought their own perspectives and ideas to the Matter of Britain across the centuries.
Personally, I think that the legends do better in print than on-screen, and many talented authors that have handled the material come to mind: Rosemary Sutcliffe, T.H. White, Bernard Cornwall, Roger Lancelot Green, T.A. Barron, Mary Stewart, Kevin Crossley-King (though I’m leaving out Marian Zimmer Bradley). One day I’ll get through all of them, though I managed to check a few off the list this month.
Logan’s Story by Anne M. Martin
According to the afterword, this book came about because readers petitioned for a story about Logan, the single male member of the Babysitters Club. That fans managed to will this book into existence, to saying nothing of wanting it in the first place given that the series is meant to be about seven unique female protagonists, is probably the most fandom thing I’ve ever heard of.
The premise of the book is that the Babysitters Club ask Logan to become a fulltime member for the duration of Dawn’s trip to California to be with Jeff, who has just gone through an emergency appendectomy. Why does he need his sister there for this fairly straightforward operation and recovery period? Unclear.
Logan agrees, but then finds himself torn between taking on more babysitting jobs and football practice. When some teammates catch him babysitting and hanging around with the girls in the club, they start calling him Lois and hassling him for having a job that’s traditionally meant for girls.
It resolves when Logan gets over himself, concentrates on training, bests the main bully in winning a place on the track team, and then realizes that having a bunch of attractive girls cheering him on from the sidelines actually ups his manliness cred. (Seriously, I’m not sure why he didn’t twig to this to start with. It’s been a while since I was thirteen, but wouldn’t having a girlfriend at that age be considered fairly impressive among his peers?)
In the inane B-plot, the babysitters decide to open a booth at the annual health fair, handing out pamphlets for babysitting safety tips. This is where the big drama of the book goes down, in which Logan is so embarrassed to be caught babysitting the Hobart boys that he lets them go into the bathroom by themselves, after which the youngest goes missing for a while.
This was ghostwritten by Peter Lerangis, and I give him credit for writing Logan with a distinct voice. It’s not just the gender-related stuff (like when he has no idea what Mary Anne is talking about when she tells him Jenny Prezzioso wears Lauren Ashley pyjamas) but also the character’s methods of babysitting, his relationship with his family members, and how he grapples with bullying. There are also some funny touches, such as the child-like logic of the Hobart boys (one of them figures out where north is by licking his finger and holding it in the air – clearly he’s gotten this mixed up with how you figure out which way the wind is blowing), and Kristy stepping up to put her smartarse qualities to good use (Bully: “You girls ever need another member, you know who to call.” Kristy: “Don’t push your luck. We have a minimum IQ requirement.”)
I also want to briefly draw your attention to the cover, which is fairly amusing. The guy striking the alpha pose is clearly meant to be the main bully, but why is he in full football regalia, including shoulder pads? He’s at a health fair! Even less impressive is the tagline: “No one calls Logan a girl and gets away with it!” Oof. I thought the book was meant to be fighting sexism, not endorsing it. Why would you use this phrasing as a pitch for a book that’s predominately going to be read by teenage girls? (Then again, they quite literally asked for it…)
The Babysitters at Shadow Lake by Anne M. Martin
So, what contrived bit of nonsense will these books come up with next in order to get the protagonists off on a vacation for another Super Special instalment? As is often the solution: rich people.
Turns out that Watson has an aunt and uncle who are preparing their will and would like to leave him a holiday cabin on the shores of Shadow Lake. Of course, by “cabin” they mean a luxury holiday home with a live-in caretaker and room for Kristy’s entire family, all the Babysitters Club members, and an assortment of other children that accompany Karen and David Michael.
(This is actually a hilarious bit of contrivance. Why on earth do two elderly people who don’t seem to have any children need to own a mansion by the lakefront that contains bunkbeds enough to accommodate over twenty people? They don’t, but hey – that’s rich people for you).
As ever, the besties forego spending their vacation together in order to split up and have their own mini-adventures – otherwise the ghostwriter would be forced to repeat themselves in recounting the same events through half-a-dozen different perspectives.
This time around, it’s Jessi who gets the inevitable “holiday romance” subplot, featuring a guy that she’ll never see again. After striking up conversation with a cute boy, she soon gets incredibly guilty about the fact she’s cheating on Quint, her New York boyfriend. Girl, you’re eleven. Also, you’ve met Quint exactly twice. You’re allowed to talk to other boys. The whole thing gets resolved when she realizes the two of them don’t have much in common, and he has a girlfriend anyway.
Kristy learns how to drive a boat (off-page, for some reason) and organizes her friends to camp out for the night on the island in the middle of Shadow Lake. That’s it really, though she does set up the framing device in which all the kids on the trip put together a diary about how much of a great time they’re having in order to coax Watson into accepting the cabin.
Perpetual Butt-Monkey Mallory has even less of a plot to work with, in which she spends the entire holiday bitten by various insects, and so takes to wearing elaborate headgear and baggy protective clothing to the point where none of her friends want to be seen with her.
Claudia notices that there’s going to be a boating competition in which various yachts are elaborately decorated for a parade, and she manages to decorate the cabin’s little motorboat as the legendary Lake Monster (out of green towels, somehow). Meanwhile, Stacey is getting pestered by Sam, who keeps calling her “dahling” and other annoying endearments, which is resolved when he… just stops doing it. It’s kind of a weird one, though we do get a series first: a single chapter narrated by Sam.
Dawn gets the requisite mystery, in which she learns from a shop proprietor that he was once engaged to a young girl called Annie Baynard who lived in a mansion on the island in the middle of the lake. The Baynards were a reclusive family who would send their servants out to bring back necessary supplies, and seldom left their home. Then one day, they all disappeared without warning. There was no sign of any disturbance in the house, and no bodies either. (And as Jessi points out, if it had just been the family that went missing, it could have been explained as the father running into debt trouble or something. But everyone, including the servants, were gone without a trace). A year later, the house mysteriously burned down, leaving only the brick foundations.
In a strange inverse of the usual “everything except for ONE clue gets resolved” type of mystery featured in these books, absolutely NOTHING about this scenario is explained. Not the disappearance, not the fire, and not the mysterious locket that Dawn finds with the initials A.B. engraved on it. (She ends up giving it to the store proprietor, telling him it was a gift from Annie’s spirit).
And because the babysitting angle is unavoidable, it turns out that David Michael and Karen are allowed to bring friends of their own (Linnie and Nicky for the former, and Hannie and Nancy for the latter). The proviso for Kristy being allowed to bring so many of her own friends is that they’ll take turns babysitting the kids, free of charge. Karen and David Michael narrate a couple of chapters each, in which they’re given the incredibly annoying verbal tick of not using any contractions (“do not” instead of “don’t” and “cannot” instead of “can’t.” What kid talks like that, let alone two of them??)
On that note, I believe this is the first time Nancy Dawes has featured in a Babysitters Club book, and for the trio to be referred to as the Three Musketeers, as per the Little Sister books. There’s also a minor gaff when one of the girls compares Shadow Lake to Camp Mohawk from Babysitters Club Summer Vacation, which was changed to Camp Moosehead in the reprint for obvious reasons. I guess someone missed it this time around
Finally, it’s summer, which tracks with it being spring back in Jessi’s Gold Medal, but the time flux is certainly well underway at this point. I’m using Halloween as the touchstone for annual timekeeping in the series, but I’m pretty sure we’ve gotten through a few summers by now.
Arthur: The Always King by Kevin Crossley-Holland and Chris Riddell
I don’t envy the author who is commissioned to write a children’s book containing the entirety of the Arthurian mythological cycle, which has been steadily growing over the last thousand years, with every new retelling adding something new. What exactly is the definitive take on King Arthur, especially since so many of the perceived “essential” elements (the love triangle with Lancelot, the Quest for the Holy Grail, the existence of Mordred as Arthur’s incestuous bastard) are relatively newish additions, and which have themselves been shaped and changed over the course of storytelling history?
For example, which knight do you associate most closely with finding the Holy Grail? Percival or Galahad? Because in different narratives, they each discover this mystical artefact, but details such as the Fisher King, the Castle Carbonek, and the Grail’s connection to Christ and Joseph of Arimathea all depend on what ancient tome you’re reading. As such, many modern retellings try to incorporate as many different elements as possible, creating yet more versions of the story.
For me, the two frontrunners for achieving the task of streamlining and consolidating the massive breadth of the mythology have been Rosemary Sutcliffe and Kevin Crossley-King, the latter having also written the award-winning King Arthur trilogy (which is coming up fast in my TBR pile).
Crossley-King hammers the myriad of stories into eleven chapters, seven of which are styled as Seven Great Trials that the Knights of the Round Table must face in order to maintain Camelot as a place that upholds the ideals of chivalry and justice. They are: Friendship and Bravery, Love, Honour, Magic, the Quest for the Holy Grail, Love and Loyalty, and the Blood Knot. Each one pertains to a different knight (as well as King Arthur himself) and tracks the inevitable dissolution of the kingdom.
Crossley-King clearly knows his stuff, and the amusing thing about this story is that he can spend several paragraphs on the minutia found in the oldest, darkest, most obscure Arthurian texts, while cheerfully skimming over some of the more dramatic developments in the story. For example, Percival’s introduction contains details from Christien de Troyes’s Perceval, specifically his theft of a ring and a kiss from a lady called Blanchefleur he meets on the road, and yet here’s what he has to say about the conception of Mordred, in a conversation between Merlin and Arthur about Morgan:
“She’s your half-sister,” said Merlin. “I also know that you’ve made love to her sister Morgause.” “Without knowing it,” replied Arthur. “She gave me a potion. I thought she was Morgan.” “And what you also don’t know is that Morgause is bearing your baby. A baby boy. He will be called Mordred.”
Um, okay. We get absolutely nothing about how Arthur and Morgan came to meet each other or the nature of their relationship, and certainly nothing about why Morgause decided to seduce Arthur in the form of her younger sister. That’s literally all we’re given on the subject, and the fact that Morgause never really appears on the page makes me wonder why Crossley-King didn’t go for the usual technique of conflating the two sisters, thus making Morgan the mother of Mordred.
But you can tell that Crossley-King is delighting in these little details, which were no doubt picked up across many years of absorbing as many different Arthurian retellings as possible. They can get wonderfully random at times, such as the detail of Gawain’s strength waxing and waning with the noon sun, or when Sir Dagonet appears as a disembodied voice to tell Arthur: “Merlin’s apprentice, Nimue, has used her magic and taken away my body. I accused her of doing away with Merlin and she raged at me. She’s taken me away for a year and a day, but I’ll still be here my king, whether you know it or not.” And... that’s all we get on that front.
At another point, a knight is given a cloak lined with fur from a Barbiolete: a creature from India that is described as having a white head, scarlet back, green stomach, and blue tail. The description has no other relevance whatsoever in the overarching story, and might just be there simply to give illustrator Chris Riddell the opportunity to depict it on the page.
Crossley-King does seem to reveal in the strangeness and oftentimes randomness of these old legends. Many characters are introduced, only to completely drop out of the story without warning. There’s little attempt to explain motivations or to rationalize the frequent baffling behaviour of these people. Yet other times he’ll take the time to capture a person’s soul, such as the nameless old nursemaid who grieves for the young woman who was killed in her charge, and there are some beautiful descriptions, such as this portrait of Sir Ector:
“A chunk of a farming man with an open smile who had a way of whistling back at the choughs and curlews. A man who had learned to read and loved nothing more than to surround himself with candles and open a manuscript across his lap and tease out an old story.”
As big as the book is, there are some notable omissions. There’s no Loathly Lady, which is my favourite story in all of Arthuriana (and I bet Riddell could have done her ugliness justice), and no Elaine either. Neither is there any proper closure on the love affair between Guinevere and Lancelot, which is a shame since I’ve always felt their farewell at the convent is the most poignant part of the whole thing, in which they say goodbye to each other without allowing themselves to touch.
Ultimately everything coalesces around the famous love affair and the misbegotten bastard, which is how most Arthurian retellings depict the fall of Camelot. Over the course of all those centuries, they’ve become inextricable: one or the other could not have destroyed the kingdom (Arthur would have ignored the affair because he loved his wife and best friend; Mordred wasn’t popular enough on his own merit to ferment an uprising against his father), but because Mordred exploits Arthur’s commitment to law and justice and equality, Guinevere and Lancelot can be used as a bludgeon against him.
That’s what makes it a tragedy – it’s one of human foibles and human mistakes, all based in love and desire and incest and adultery.
As mentioned, Chris Riddell provided the illustrations, who has also been behind recent new editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Little Prince. I’d have thought his distinctive style would have been better suited to more quirky fare, but they end up working really well besides Crossley-King’s prose and the inherent mysticism of the Arthurian stories, even though there’s an odd tendency for faces and figures to droop diagonally to the left. Was he drawing on a slant or something? (Also, one depiction of the Green Knight shows him in shades of BLUE!)
But there’s so much expression on the characters’ faces, so much detail on the clothing and regalia, so much energy and movement and kineticism. Neither does he stint on the more violent aspects of the tales, with plenty of bloodied corpses, nor the sexual content either (okay, it’s still pretty child-friendly, but when Guinevere and Lancelot are caught en flagrento, it’s pretty obvious to older readers what they’ve been up to).
Some other minor observations: I get the sense Crossley-King doesn’t like Guinevere very much, as there’s very little insight given regarding her thoughts and feelings. There’s no conflation between Nimue, Vivien (who doesn’t appear) and the Lady of the Lake, even though they can often be combined in retellings. In fact, he does well in avoiding Composite Characters altogether, as Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are (correctly) described as two completely different swords. I appreciated that Crossley-King chose to dive headfirst into the mystical side of early Christianity, filled with miracles and holy artefacts and mysterious visions, which completely avoids the gimmicky Evangelicalism that we’re stuck with today.
This book also introduced me to Dagonet the jester, an established Arthurian character I had honestly never heard of before – and then he ends up being a major character in Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword as well (see below). Finally, it all ends on another delightfully weird coda, in which Merlin has been transported from the Hollow Hills to a glass castle far out at sea, where he watches and waits for Arthur’s return, guarding thirteen treasures of Britain that had no part in this story whatsoever. Weird to the very end, I love it.
There’s no such thing as the definitive Arthurian retelling, as there are simply too many variations at this point, all of which come with their own ideas and understanding of what it all means. This comes reasonably close though, and would be a great gift for any budding Arthurian fan.
The Night of the Unicorn by Jenny Nimmo
Jenny Nimmo wrote one of my favourite children’s books (The Silver Spider) so I always try to keep an eye out for her work. This short chapter book is a sweet little tale about things that may or may not actually be happening – namely the arrival of a unicorn.
Amber wakes up in the middle of the night to see a sky fill of shooting stars; an event that promises magic and discovery. But the next morning she wakes up to find that her favourite hen has disappeared from the henhouse. From here, little story-strands weave themselves throughout the chapters: Amber looking for her lost hen and befriending a new boy at school called Luke, Hennie the missing hen trying to find her way back to the farm after her midnight wanderings, Luke trying to cope with the absence of his mother, and the strange white horse that arrives at the local animal sanctuary.
It’s a very dreamy and whimsical little story, with delicate illustrations by Terry Milne. It reminded me a little of a Studio Ghibli film, in that the stakes are low and the plot is meandering, all shot through with a mystical ambiance in which the characters get what they need (as opposed to what they want) in an unexpected way.
Into the Land of the Unicorns by Bruce Coville
Good old Bruce Coville, one of the unspoken heroes of children’s fiction in the nineties. Seriously, he did the Nina Tanleven Mysteries, the My Teacher is an Alien series, the Magic Shop books – all staple reads of my childhood. And these, The Unicorn Chronicles, which I sadly missed out on as a budding horse girl.
The story behind these books is itself an interesting one. This, the first book in the series, was first published in 1994. The Last Hunt, the fourth and final book in the series, didn’t arrive until 2010 That’s an incredibly long wait for a children’s book (any original readers would have long since grown up during that time frame!) and the last book is at least five times longer than the first. In fact, while I was reading this, I found myself thinking that the books wouldn’t look particularly attractive when shelved together, given how bloated the later instalments would look in comparison to this one.
Then lo and behold, I discover that recent reprints have split the four books into seven, just to even up the page count. I may have to invest in a boxed set.
It starts with a fairly gripping hook: young Cara and her grandmother are being stalked through the city streets during a snowfall, and take refuge in a church to try and hide from their pursuer. Rather than console her granddaughter, Grandmother Ivy gives Cara a strange amulet, instructing her to climb to the top of the belltower and throw herself over the side at the tolling of the bell, after repeating the incantation: “Luster, bring me home...”
Cara summons her courage and obeys, only to wake up in Luster, the land of the unicorns. There she attempts to follow the next part of her grandmother’s instructions: to deliver the amulet to “the Old One.” Unfortunately, she has no idea who this person is, or where she can find them.
It’s a fairly standard portal fantasy, in which our young protagonist learns more about herself while traversing a wonderous fantasy world, complete with a range of animal sidekicks (the unicorn Lightfoot, the man-bear Dimblethumb, and the monkey-like Squijum) but Coville writes with a surprising amount of darkness. There is danger and suspense here, and the magic of the unicorns comes at a steep price. In other words, don’t expect the cutesiness of My Little Pony.
A Glory of Unicorns edited by Bruce Coville
This compilation of twelve stories edited by Bruce Coville were clearly inspired by his writing of The Unicorn Chronicles. Not only does he contribute a story that’s set in the world of Luster, featuring Cara’s grandmother Ivy as a young girl, but it’s named for the collective noun he coined for unicorns: a glory (though I believe the most recognized term is a blessing of unicorns).
In his introduction he states that one of his prerequisites for the collected tales was that the unicorns not be “sappy.” To quote: “the writers of these stories... know magic is tough, love hard and demanding, and unicorns not as easy as some of us might like to think; neither safe, nor sweet, nor simple.”
Big “he’s not a tame lion,” energy here, and though the stories themselves are still for young readers, they touch on themes of death, dishonesty, war, loss and responsibility. My favourite would have to be “The Ugly Unicorn” by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, set in Ancient China and involving a young blind girl who gets caught up in an expected love story involving a unicorn that isn’t what he seems.
The book is also illustrated by Alix Berenzy, an artist who is immensely talented, and yet doesn’t seem to have contributed to many publications. It’s a shame, as her style is perfect for these sorts of fairy tales (ornate but grounded in reality), and seeing her work here makes me want to track down A Frog Prince, her take on (duh) the frog prince fairy tale which I remember fondly from childhood.
The Book of Unicorns by Jackie French
Prolific and well-respected Australian children’s author Jackie French is behind this anthology, though I suspect it was a fairly casual effort. There are six stories in all, but the last one is longer than all the others put together, taking up just over half the book in its entirety.
Why do I get the feeling she wrote that one first, realized it was too short to publish by itself, and so scribbled down some more half-formed stories in order to fill out the page count? I have absolutely nothing to back that up, but aside from “A Visit to Aunt Addie’s,” this aforementioned final story (“The Lady of the Unicorn”) is really the only one worth reading. Not there’s much of a time commitment at work here: one of the stories just two pages long.
But I liked “A Visit to Aunt Addie,” in which a boy is encouraged by his father to go up into the hills to meet his great-aunt, who has apparently been living there in isolation for many years. Doubtfully he heads off, only to discover a magical sanctuary where Addie lives unmolested by the difficulties of rural life in the Australian outback – though at a price.
“The Lady of the Unicorn” is a post-apocalyptic tale in which society has reorganized into small tribes after some cataclysmic event. Ethel is the titular Lady of the Unicorn, the ostensible leader of a small community, even though the matronly Margot does most of the work. When Ethel goes exploring the countryside, she ends up befriending a giant called Alice who lives on the outskirts of the village, along with some of her even more reclusive acquaintances. Soon enough, they return Ethel’s kindness when her home is threatened by raiders.
All these stories are set in Australia, which makes for an interesting setting for a creature that’s usually equated with European-centric forests and meadows. Still, the traditional lore about unicorn powers (often to do with healing and cleansing) contrast well with the harsh environment, and it’s no accident that most of these stories have vitality and restoration as a core theme.
The Unicorn Anthology edited by Peter Beagle and Jacob Weisman
The third short story collection about unicorns I read this month led me to wonder about the limited ways in which such creatures are written about. There are no definitive stories about them in myth or legend (not like there are for dragons or giants or selkies or other magical creatures), and the only traditional tale about them I can recall off the top of my head is the one in which a unicorn cleanses a pool polluted by serpent’s venom by dipping its horn into the water.
That and the general wisdom that it takes a young maiden to lure a unicorn out into the open, that a unicorn horn can be used to detect poisons, and that they all turned into narwhals because they didn’t get to Noah’s Ark on time. I believe they’re also mentioned briefly in the Bible, but none of these are really stories, just anecdotal folklore. They’re creatures of magic, who can uplift spirits just by existing... and yet, the existence of a spiralled horn on their foreheads is a very visible indicator of the danger they pose.
Often they’re simply used as emblems for purity or innocence or the balance of nature, and very seldom do they get characterization of their own: for example, the unicorns in Ridley Scott’s Legend, the one that Arthur shoots in that Merlin episode, and the one whose blood Voldemort drinks in Harry Potter are more symbols than anything else, as in all cases, the deliberate slaying of a unicorn causes death and destruction.
Anthropomorphic unicorns which are more central to any given narrative seem to lose a bit of their mystique, as ones like Jewel in C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, the herds in Meredith Anne Pierce’s Firebringer trilogy, and the assorted unicorns of My Little Pony aren’t really all that different from talking horses, just with a horn on their foreheads. The choice seems to be between mystical, unknowable creatures, and a more grounded depictions of a unique horse breed whose most surprising feature is the ability to talk.
In fact, the story that best captures both the innate mystery of unicorns, while simultaneously featuring a unicorn as a talking three-dimensional character in a story that still feels very rooted in ancient fairy tale traditions, is Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, and that’s a relatively modern tale.
In other words, the unicorn as a concept, creature and/or character is appropriately elusive.
There are sixteen stories here, with some notable contributors: Patricia McKillip and Garth Nix are the main reason I checked this out, along with Nancy Springer (author of the Enola Holmes books), Jane Yolen, Bruce Coville (see above), Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Beagle himself. I won’t go through all the stories, but they definitely skew more towards the “symbolic mystique” version of the unicorn than the “magical horse” kind.
Here, unicorns manifest as whiskey with unicorn labels on it that will heal any ill, or a protective tattoo that keeps a man safe in Vietnam, or a unicorn horn that’s been fashioned into a dildo (for real). One exists on the periphery of a pregnancy drama, another in a hidden sanctuary on a forgotten highway, and some in another dimension into which children are disappearing, leaving no memory of themselves behind.
In other words, very few of these stories are actually about unicorns themselves. They’re used instead to tap into themes of innocence, purity, rarity and mortality, with unicorns often as symbolic window dressing. That said, a couple weave in the familiar traditions associated with them: the horns used for medicinal properties (scientists travel to another dimension in order to harvest them) or the unicorn hunt (one explores the relationship between a hunter and his bait) or the unicorn’s attraction to virgins (a gay teenager unexpectedly loses the ability to ride a unicorn in a weird alt-world riding competition).
So, a very eclectic collection here, and if you’re coming strictly for the unicorns, you’ll probably be disappointed. Most of the stories here are more to do with what unicorns mean, what they promise, how we feel when we think about them.
To be frank, the most interesting offering was Beagle’s introduction to the book, which reads like a rather exasperated admission that he’ll always be best known for having written The Last Unicorn, comparing his situation to Leonard Nimoy’s complicated relationship with Spock. According to him, he’s still referred to as “the Unicorn Guy” and that the book was “an exhausting, frustrating horror to write.”
Still, having written a few sequels in the intervening years, he seems to have made his peace with it all, stating: “without that damn unicorn, would so many people have discovered my ghosts, my poetic wanderings, my women warriors, my ragtag wizards?” So yeah, mixed feelings on his most famous novel, though he seems to be in a good enough place with it now.
Merlin: The Old Magic by James Mallory
Back in 1998, the Hallmark Channel released a miniseries that adapted the Arthurian cycle in broad strokes (Arthur’s ascension to the throne, the birth of his illegitimate son, his marriage to Guinevere, and the eventual fall of the kingdom). It made several creative decisions that truncated the storyline or combined several of the characters (Morgan le Fay is Mordred’s mother, Elaine is Lancelot’s preexisting wife and the Lady of Shalott, the Quest for the Grail occurs largely off-screen) and a framing device that set it apart from most adaptations: it’s all told from Merlin’s point-of-view, he having been created by the goddess Mab to bring back the Old Ways to Britain’s soil, only for him to reject her cruelty and manipulation.
Between the two of them, the likes of Vortigern and Uther, Igraine and Arthur, Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table, become mere pawns in an ongoing chess-match played out for control of Britain. As well as that, the miniseries also found room to introduce some original characters, such as Martin Short as Frik, Mab’s gnomish manservant, and to drastically reimagine some traditional characters: Nimue is still Merlin’s love interest, but here she’s a Christian noblewoman played by Isabella Rossellini, and has no association whatsoever with the Lady of the Lake.
It was a big hit for the network, and spawned an onslaught of similarly structured miniseries based on other popular fantasy properties (Gulliver’s Travels, Jack and the Beanstalk, Arabian Nights, etc).
What most people don’t know is that the whole thing was then adapted as a novel by James Mallory, which was then (annoyingly) published in three separate volumes. And to say that he adds to the depth and breadth of the story is an understatement. This first book for example, covers about thirty minutes of the miniseries: the entirety of Merlin’s youth and apprenticeship with Mab in the underground Land of Magic. At the point in which it ends, Arthur hasn’t even been born yet!
There are brand-new characters, such as Idath, the god of winter and death, and Herne the Hunter, portrayed as a follower of the Old Ways who becomes a precursor to Robin Hood. There’s more background on Merlin’s mother Elissa, who was a novice at Avalon before being cast out after the disappearance of the Holy Grail (which we learn more about in the second book) and chapters that delve into Merlin’s formative years, as when he joins up with the Wild Hunt, or visits places like Anoeth and the Forest of the Night.
Mallory certainly did his research into the legends, as along with appearances from entities such Cath Palug and Jack O’Lantern, there are plenty of namedrops (Ragnell, Morgause, Bertilak and Ganieda are all mentioned, though none of them match their traditional counterparts) and mythological nods (a rider on the Wild Hunt randomly yells: “tell them in Arcadia, the Great God Pan is dead!”) scattered throughout.
It’s fascinating stuff really, and though the prose is pretty straightforward, it’s surprisingly dense and rich for a commissioned tie-in novel. If memory serves, Mallory sets up some elements that don’t have payoff until the final book, which is itself entirely original content – much like how many of the deleted scenes in the extended editions of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings would connect to each other, despite not being in the theatrical cuts.
In this case, Mallory sets up the Horn of Idath as an important MacGuffin. It’s in the possession of Herne, and after he’s turned into an oak tree (as per the legends surrounding this figure) Frik hides the horn in his branches, only to retrieve it years later to help defeat Mab with its time-altering abilities. In sounding it, Merlin and Frik are given the time they need to ensure Mab is forgotten throughout the world by spreading the stories of King Arthur without Mab’s presence in them – this having long been established as only thing that could defeat her.
To reiterate: none of this is in the miniseries itself, and is actually an improvement of what plays out on the screen (which is people just turning their backs on Mab). It really is impressively done.
I recall reading these books as a teenager and loving them, so it feels great to return to them all these years later. That said, I only have the first two on hand, and most online editions of the third and final book are priced at a level I’m not prepared to meet. Fingers crossed that I happen upon it in a second-hand bookstore at some point.
Perceval: The Story of the Grail by Chretien de Troyes
I finally did it – I completed Perceval: The Story of the Grail, which I’ve had checked out from the library since April 2023. It’s a weird, complicated, simplistic, repetitive, sprawling narrative, as infuriating as it is fascinating, and what’s more – isn’t even written by a single person.
Although credited to de Troyes, who started the whole thing around 1181, the manuscript remains uncompleted (in midsentence at that!) only to be picked up by four other writers at different points in time before reaching its conclusion. Called “the continuations,” they overlap and contradict each other, involving things such as one writer describing the death of a supporting character, only for him to pop up again, alive and well, in a later one. That’s the most egregious example, but there’s plenty more, since these continuators were writing independently of each other.
These continuations themselves also have several variations, just to make it all super-complicated. So along with all those other adjectives I affixed to Perceval, it’s also very inconsistent.
Arthurian legends are best categorized into groups: there’s the stuff about his childhood leading up to the Sword in the Stone, the love triangle with Lancelot and Guinevere, the messy dealings with Morgan le Fay and Morgause, side characters such as Gawaine going off on his own adventures, and then of course: the Holy Grail.
If Arthur had any pagan roots (which he certainly did, having stemmed from Welsh mythology) then the introduction of the Holy Grail is the most powerful signifier of how the body of legends became Christianized over time (a little like Friar Tuck’s late arrival to the Robin Hood stories). In essence, the story is about various Knights of the Round Table – usually Percival or Galahad – going in search of the cup that caught Christ’s blood at the Crucifixion. Or the one he used at the Last Supper. Sometimes both.
The concept was probably inspired by Welsh and Irish legends of a Cauldron of Plenty, and dozens of medieval manuscripts detail the various quests undertaken to discover its hiding place (Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival is another important one). It was the MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (though interestingly, King Arthur is never mentioned in that film), as well as in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (albeit in a very different form – there it symbolizes a bloodline) and the Sierra game Conquests for Camelot, in which you play as King Arthur on a quest to find the Grail to restore balance and harmony to the kingdom.
Funnily enough, the Grail is never mentioned in the Bible itself, unless you count the fact that Christ – in sharing wine with his disciples – would have logically had to have used a drinking vessel. But no “Holy Grail” is mentioned anywhere in its pages, for all its subsequent Christological significance. These days, the Grail is more likely to be considered the symbolic embodiment of the search for spiritual enlightenment and reconciliation with God.
Here in Perceval, the Grail (or graal) is not even hugely important, at least not by itself. Equal reverence is also given to a lance, a silver trencher, and a broken sword that appear as part of a procession alongside the vessel, which is never even referred to as “holy.” This is not unsurprising, as Perceval was one of the first surviving manuscripts to even mention a Grail.
It’s essentially Early Instalment Weirdness of the Grail legends in their entirety, and though it contains some familiar elements such as the Fisher King, a woman called Blanchefleur, mortally wounded kings that are in need of miraculous healing, and Sir Kay being a right dickhead, neither does it feature some of the more “essential” aspects we’ve since come to associate with the Quest for the Grail: no Castle Corbinek, no Siege Perilous, no Bors or Galahad, no associations with the cup used at the Last Supper.
There are many stock characters that will turn up in more detail in later Arthurian legends, such as loathly ladies, distressed damsels, friendly hermits and deceitful succubus, but taken by itself, the story relayed here is completely insane.
It begins with a young boy called Perceval, growing up in the Welsh forests with only his mother for company. One day he sees a group of knights and becomes seized with the desire to travel to King Arthur’s court and join their ranks. Despite his mother’s pleading, off he goes, which leads to an ongoing series of adventures that alternate between himself and Sir Gawaine, who provides a more earthy, experienced, rough-readiness portrayal of knighthood in contrast to Perceval’s naivety.
We will never know what de Troyes had planned for the ending of his story, or the answers to any of the mysteries he raises in regards to the strange castle where the grail, lance, trencher and broken sword are kept – as stated, he died before it could ever be completed. The writers that picked up where he left off naturally add their own ideas to the proceedings, and it all makes for a rather bittersweet What Might Have Been.
But there’s some fascinating material here, especially in regards to some of the periphery characters. Here’s an example:
“And the king, who was fond of Kay and held him dear at heart, sent to him a most learned doctor and two girls who were pupils of his, who put his collar-bone back in place and bandaged his arm and joined the broken bone.”
Um... two girls who were the pupils to a learned doctor? In the twelfth century? Can we get more of them please?
Then there’s the craziness of the characters themselves. After a perfectly courteous conversation with a stranger, Gawaine introduces himself, and is met with this:
“In faith, then you’re very bold or very foolish to tell me your name when you know I hate you mortally. It grieves and annoys me desperately that I haven’t got my helmet laced on and my shield hung at my neck; for if I were armed as you are, you may be sure I’d cut your head off instantly – nothing would stop me!”
Poor Gawaine has no idea what’s going on, and neither does the reader. Arthur can be a bit of a weirdo too, as when Perceval approaches him in the grand hall of Camelot and is met with this:
“The boy went up to him at once and give him such greeting as he knew. But the king was still lost in thought and did not say a word. The boy addressed him a second time; the king thought on and said nothing.”
Like, dude. This kid is right in front of you.
As for Perceval... well, he can be a bit of an asshole at times, whether it’s abandoning his mother in a faint or assaulting a girl in an attempt to get his hands on her ring – both times without any sense that he’s doing anything wrong. Later he decides to return to his home to check on his mother, but it’s unclear why he didn’t do this when he saw her faint:
“I don’t know if I’m near the house where my mother lives, but I pray to God that He may lead me to her so that I may see her again, for I saw her faint and fall at the foot of the bridge before the gate, and I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. She fainted with grief because I left her, I know it. So I can’t stay, not until I know how she is.”
As for the girl he assaulted, he later runs into her betrothed, who treats us to some Victim Blaming 101:
“A Welsh boy chanced to come there. I don’t know who he was or where he went, only that he went so far as to kiss her – by force, so she told me. And if she lied, then what was to stop him doing more? And even if it was against her will, wouldn’t he have then done all he wanted? Yes! No one would believe that he kissed her and did no more, for one thing always leads to the other. If a man kisses a woman and does no more when they’re alone together, then I think it’s his decision, for a woman who yields her lips gives the rest most easily to her whoever makes the effort. And though she may defend herself, we all know, without any doubt, that a woman wants to win in all things but one: that struggle in which she grabs the man by the throat and scratches and bites and wrestles, but wants to be beaten. She struggles, but she longs for it; too cowardly to grant it, she wants it to be taken by force, but then shows neither willingness nor thanks.”
Yikes! Eventually Perceval and Blanchefleur fall in love, though the nature of their union differs depending on what continuation you’re reading. In one, they get down to business pretty swiftly:
“Don’t think it wicked or foolish that I’ve come here for your love, for I’ve longed for you so much. And I tell you in all truthfulness, I would never take a husband if it meant being untrue to you.” Perceval took her in his arms, for he greatly desired the pleasure of her embrace, and he found it pleasing indeed. He kissed her a hundred times without stopping. I don’t want to tell you about the rest of what happened, but if Perceval did no fail to do more, Blanchefleur did not object, for she was so full of courtesy that on no account would she refuse anything he wished to do.”
In another, they’re allowed to have a little fun together before the marriage vows:
“She came to Perceval’s bed, naked beneath her shirt and mantle, and leaned on the edge. Perceval, who had heard her coming, took her in his arms and hugged her tightly beneath the sheets and kissed her sweetly. They both took great pleasure in each other, and they could need feel at ease with their kissing and embracing, for it went no further. They preferred to wait until they could be together without sinning.”
And in another, Perceval clearly doesn’t quite grasp the definition of chastity or wedlock:
“I want to go to my sweetheart Blanchefleur... and by my soul... I want to marry her. I shall live more chastely then, and the man who lives a holy life and keeps himself pure and preserves his chastity and virginity will find it to his advantage, for, as any priest will testify, he is loved and cherished in this life and his soul will be secure in the next. That’s why, my lords, I want to live chastely, to be of greater worth. That’s why I wish to take a wife... to lead a clean and wholesome life and to guard and keep myself from sinning.
There’s also some interesting facets in the treatment and portrayal of women, which surprised me in a lot of ways. Early on, someone says this:
“In King Arthur’s land girls are protected; the king has given them a safeguard, and watches over them and ensures their safe conduct.”
In going to help a young lady, Perceval is given some advice by her, and he tells her:
“I know of no monk, whom I would trust more than you.”
Even later, this happens:
“[A knight] is beating a girl terribly, who is crying that she would rather die than lie with him, for he has killed the one she loved. The knight calls upon the hermit to marry them, and threatens him with ill treatment if he refuses; but the hermit says he will do so only if the girl consents. Perceval tells the knight that he is foolish to try and take her as his wife by force, and that it is wicked for a man to dishonour a woman, because it was through a woman that the world was redeemed: “woman was the first bridge,” he says, “by which God passed into Hell to rescue all his friends.”
In other words, the text can be remarkably kind to women. Unfortunately, the antisemitism is off the charts:
“With their spite the false Jews, who should be put down like dogs, did themselves great harm and us great good when they raised Him to the cross, for they damned themselves and saved us.”
As is the homophobia:
“Those wicked souls who prefer young men to girls: truly, it’s a wonder that the earth doesn’t swallow them all at once, they’ll burn most terribly on Judgement Day... those who are stained with such a horrible sin may well be dismayed... whoever is taken in such a sin will be damned at the end, and maybe his body be burned by a terrible fire, for I abhor that kind of carnal pleasure. Blessed be the man who cares for his wife or his sweetheart, and loves her dearly.”
Yeah, unfortunately you can see why Hitler loved this material. On the other hand, it also has nothing but contempt for rich people:
“We have seen a good many celebrations for a knight... where lords have promised the minstrels their gowns on a certain day, but when they came for them they came empty-handed, for the lords had used them as payment to their boys, their tailors, their waggoners and their barbers. Damn lords who make such a promise! Maybe he never share in the prayers or in the mass who parts with his garments in such a way, or promises to reward a minstrel well and does no such thing, but rather stuffs him full of lies; such promises are merely dreams. The world is becoming very stingy now, because now one’s respected if he isn’t rich. But I value wealth very little indeed, for it can bring no one any good: a curse on the worldly wealth.”
On the whole, everyone is just so dramatic, wallowing in repetitive and ponderous dialogue. Here’s Gawaine when he finds out Arthur has promised his sister in marriage:
“How could my uncle do me such a disgrace and injustice and deal me such a base insult as to give my sister to the man who was charging me with treachery? And to marry her without my assent or agreement? You can go and tell the king that I shall never be his vassal or return to him or to his land or country, until he comes and seeks me in a strange and distant land with three thousands knights of worth, most finely dressed and equipped.”
And if you think that’s an overreaction, here’s how Arthur responds:
“When the king heard this he was stricken with the deepest anguish he had ever felt in his life; he nearly went out of his mind with grief. The king and his noble company were all downcast; the jou they had been feeling fled away and they were lost in sorrow. Guinevere was grief-stricken, and Ygerne fainted, and Clarissant held herself to blame, grieving bitterly that Gawain had left the king’s court because of her impulsive act.”
Verily, this volume is full of hyperbole. Every woman is the most beautiful one ever seen, every battle the most ferocious one ever fought. Oh, and then there’s the stilted speech patterns, which reminds me of Perd Hapley from Parks and Recreation:
“Tell me now, what causes this king joy and grief?” “I will tell and straight away.”
There’s also plenty of Aesop Amnesia within the text itself, as when Perceval’s first instructor tells him...
“What a man can’t do he can learn to do, if he is willing to work and apply himself. All crafts require heart and toil and practice: with those three things they can be learned.”
... only for Perceval to gain mastery of the sword, horse and lance instantly:
“The boy began to carry the lance and shield as perfectly as if he had spent his life in tournaments and wars, and ridden through every land in search of battle and adventure; for it came to him quite naturally, and with nature instructing him and his whole heart determined, he was bound to have no difficulty.”
There are some rather unchristian sentiments:
“She had quite recovered from the blow, but she had no forgotten or forgiven the shame, and a man does ill to forget a shame or injury done to him – the pain passes but the shame remains in a staunch and vigorous man, but in a man of little worth it dies away and cools.”
But also some that are relevant to this day:
“A man who honours a worthy man soon earns a great reward; but a man who serves a wicked man ill bestows his service. And when one really comes to know some of those thought to be worthy men, one often finds, to put it plainly, nothing in them but a bag of wind. The wicked often deceive people and turn their heads by appearances: there are some very stupid folk who praise a man for his apparent worth, not according to his deeds or wisdom.”
Sometimes the boring bits are skipped, which is nice:
“The boy told him, just as you have heard in the story. To repeat it would be a bore and pointless: no story benefits from that.”
“I shan’t go on about the dishes: everyone had so many at his table that it would be boring and tiresome to describe them all, so I shall say no more about them now.”
And sometimes they’re not:
Gorneman ordered plovers and pheasants and pies to be brought at once, and had the table-cloth spread. Then they washed their hands and ate. They did not take long about it, but ate quickly indeed, and then ordered the table to be cleared, which it was at once.
Sometimes interesting parts are left out:
“No one should repeat or describe the great wonders he encountered, which gave him many fearful moments. Anyone who does so will be sorry, for they are part of the mystery of the Grail. Anyone who decides to tell of them, except as they should be told, will suffer great ill and woe.”
And then the narrative gets weirdly personal about doing so:
“He rode on all day long until evening, but encountered nothing worth relating – so says the true story of Perceval, but now there are many worthy fellows going round these courts as storytellers, who are twisting the good stories, distancing them from their sources and adding so many leis that the stories are killed and the good books are dishonoured. And those who hear and listen to them don’t know what good stories are; no, when those minstrels sit in their houses for the night and they get them to relate some adventure, they think they’ve heard the whole story, but they’ll never hear it in their lives. They make them believe a pack of lies, and they’re good at padding and stringing them out.”
And then even more personal about lawyers:
“Knights are becoming lawyers too, coming and going to law-suits every day. When a worthy man, with wealth worth grabbling, is involved in a case, everyone in the court seduces him, happily offering their support for money. Then, if he defends himself well in court and wins the case, they promptly expose him, making him repeat his promises to them, thus putting him in transgression of the law. So he’s charged on his own testimony, and fined heavily. A knight does little good by involving himself in a law-suit against another.”
There are plenty of nuggets of wisdom strewn throughout (“teaching a fool is a hard task” and “this world is a battle, no one living in it is at rest” were two of my favourites) as well as some interesting variations on Arthur’s family tree: his father is referred to as Uterpandragon, and he’s described as having two granddaughters: Trancree la Petite and Beatris. Ygraine is still alive, and Gawain has a son – not that he cares all that much. When the boy is kidnapped, we’re told: “he knows nothing about searching for children and goes home.” Dad of the year!
There are frustrating (though seemingly deliberate) contradictions: early on a knight encourages Perceval not to ask too many questions, but later at the Fisher King’s castle he’s scolded for not asking about the nature of the procession that takes place in front of him, which would have broken the curse on the castle’s inhabitants, as well as the usual tropes of Arthurian legend, whether it’s people giving oaths that cannot be broken upon their honour, or everyone randomly running into their secret relations in the middle of nowhere.
And of course, the unmitigated weirdness of it all, whether it’s a giant hand passing through the window of a church to snuff out a candle, a disembodied voice emerging from the heights of a tree to waylay a knight, or a young woman carrying on casual conversation while cradling the headless body of her beloved in her arms.
As you can see, there’s a lot to process, but it’s ultimately about two things. Firstly, the growth of a young man into a knight, in which Perceval goes from a wild and almost primitive boy from the wilderness, to a shining example of chivalric knighthood. Early on he commits acts of violence and callousness, but that he excels as a warrior means nothing when he fails in his spiritual quest after reaching the Fisher King. We’ll never know what de Troyes had in store for his storyline, but later contributors link it to the symbolism of the broken sword. Perceval develops his spirituality alongside his martial prowess and so is able to reforge the blade... though a nick in the hilt demonstrates the inherent (and permanent) imperfection of mankind.
It’s sprawling and random and confusing, and because so many people have contributed to it, you’re left with a range of different stories all poured into a singular narrative, from a myriad of sources that have been lost to the mists of time. But it’s fascinating to see what’s been woven in, and how it’s contributed to the wider Arthurian legends as a whole. Here, Perceval is obviously the Grail Knight, but later Galahad will take his place. By the time we get to Crossley-King’s Arthur: The Forever King and Grossman’s The Bright Sword, they’re both involved, along with Bors. The story gets changed and consolidated over time.
Reading it was a bit of an ordeal, but I’m glad I powered through. It inspired so many other Grail retellings and contains so many details and events that I had to remind myself were some of the earliest recorded examples of their kind. Like the Grail itself, the manuscript overflows with the light of inspiration: stories and symbols and characters that have been poured into the great cauldron of Arthurian legends. Every new writer adds and takes a little from this cauldron, and this was one of the earliest contributions to that ever-growing body of myths.
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
I find Lev Grossman’s books (or at least The Magicians trilogy, the only other books of his that I’ve read) more interesting than enjoyable, but there was no way I wasn’t going to read a brick-sized novel on Arthurian legends by an author who loves to deconstruct.
That said, there’s only so much deconstruction a person can take in a series of tales that extoll the virtues of chivalry, honour and valour. When the characters in this book undertake a rescue mission to find Sir Kay, only for him to hang himself the same day they all return to Camelot, or a saint miraculously appears in the sky to spread peace between two armies, only for a giant to abruptly snuff her out... well, it gets a bit wearisome. We get it Grossman, you’re edgy.
(That said, some of the deconstruction works. I loved the chapters on how pure-and-perfect Galahad wanders across the land, performing so many miracles and saving so many souls, that it eventually gets boring. Even T.H. White commented on the fact that being such a blatant Gary Stu sucked all the drama and suspense out of a story).
But there’s also enough sincerity and hope to carry a reader through the grim-darkness of it all. Like Perceval in The Story of the Grail, Collum has come to Camelot in the hopes of becoming a knight and joining the Round Table. Like Quentin Clearwater, Grossman’s protagonist in The Magicians, he’s deeply self-loathing, and desperately searching for something to make him complete – like say, brotherhood among the finest knights in the land.
But of course, Collum is in a deconstruction of the legends, and ends up arriving at Camelot after Arthur has been killed by his bastard son Mordred at the Battle of Camlann. Lancelot has left for a monastery, Guinevere is in a convent, and all that’s left are a handful of men: Bedivere, Dinadan, Constantine, Palomides, Villiars and Dagonet the Fool. They’re hardly the elite, but with a succession crisis on their hands and several contenders to the throne, they’re all Camelot has left.
From there, the story spirals out into several direction – including backwards, as there are many chapters that detail the trials and tribulations of the aforementioned knights while Arthur was still alive. They all have precedence in the myths, but we know very little about them. As such, Grossman feels free to put his own spin on their characters: Palomides is a Muslim grappling with questions of faith, Dinadan is a transgender man, Bedivere was in love with Arthur, and Dagonet suffers from depression. Then there’s Grossman’s OC, Collum himself, who was horrendously abused as a child, and (as is often the case) not only believes he deserved it, but that entry into the Knighthood of the Round Table will make him redeemable in the eyes of the world.
Yeah, Grossman really doesn’t stint on the psychological traumas in this one. That’s not even getting to what poor Nimue went through, or exploration into the purpose and futility of the quest for the Holy Grail, or a new twist on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere. Furthermore, Arthur might be a posthumous character by the time the story starts, but there’s plenty of time and space given over for a character study on the famous king, either in chapters about himself, or in other characters speculating on what he was like, where he went wrong, and why he was such a legendary king.
Plenty of familiar faces turn up: Morgan le Fay decides the throne should be hers and musters the Wild Hunt in a bid to take it. The Lady of the Lake eventually makes an appearance, and she’s not impressed. There are angels and saints, hermits and wounded kings, demons and gods, fey folk and dwarfs – and the Questing Beast, of course. Man, these legends really are a treasure trove of wonders. (Fair warning though, if you’re a particular fan of Lancelot or Merlin, you probably won’t like how they’re characterized here).
There’s also a good chance that this will be most appreciated by those that already have a deep familiarity with the stories upon which this is based. It’s obvious that Grossman knows his stuff when it comes to the Arthurian mythos, and there are all sorts of references and Easter eggs strewn throughout (and I probably only caught half of them). It’s comparable to Arthur: The Always King in this regard – though with about a thousandfold more obscure allusions. One chapter made me laugh, in which Collum goes on what can only be described as a spirit quest, in which the prose is essentially: “and then this happened, and then this happened.” The recorded events are all so weird and arbitrary, and it’s exactly like what went on in Perceval: The Story of the Grail.
Although I don’t like to speculate too much on the designs and intentions of authors, one can’t help but feel that Grossman is an atheist grappling with the presence (or absence) of God – not only in the real world, but in the stories he clearly loves so much. How do you square the existence of angels and saints and miracles in a world that’s also so terribly cruel and random? When you write your own story, you essentially “become” God, so should you craft something that has structure and purpose, or should you remain true to your understanding of the chaotic meaninglessness of the real world? How do you deal with characters who exist in a preestablished setting that filled with Christianity and paganism, especially when you don’t believe in such things yourself?
Like I said, I’ve no idea where Grossman comes down on when it comes to the answers to these questions, but he’s damn well going to do his best to raise them. In that regard, it’s rather fascinating to read the latest take on what Arthurian mythos in its entirety actually means. What is the purpose of the Matter of Britain? For instance, Chretien de Troyes uses the Quest for the Grail as a metaphor for spiritual enlightenment and becoming a knight. T.H. White used it as part of his commentary on human nature and how to rule over the minds of mankind (the quest being concocted as Arthur’s latest attempt to corral his kingdom into peace). In Grossman’s hands, it becomes a weird sort of test, a search for meaning and understanding and communion with God that can never fully be achieved.
And yet for all of Grossman’s cynicism and frustration with God (or religion, or the universe, or whatever you want to call it) sometimes miracles do happen.
It’s a huge, messy, complicated, fascinating, heartbreaking novel, and I raced through it at breakneck speed. It’ll be a few years until I return to it again, but I suspect I’ll enjoy it much more the second time around, when I have time to savour its twists and turns, and (hopefully) have an even greater understanding of Arthuriana in order to appreciate the full reach of this tome. More than anything, this book made me want to read more of everything involving King Arthur and his court. Whew, what a ride.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
This is going to feel like the odd one out for this particular month, and that’s because it was watched very spur of the moment. Every Thursday night my mum comes over to my place and we watch an episode of a show together: in this case, Death in Paradise, which contained an episode that was very clearly inspired by Hitchcock’s (and Patricia Highman’s) famous story about a man who wants to “swap murders” with a complete stranger in order to provide each of them with the perfect alibi and zero motivation.
After explaining this to mum, she expressed interest in seeing the film, and – well, here we are. You already know the plot: rising tennis star Guy wants to divorce his wife and marry a senator’s glamourous daughter, while narcissistic Bruno wants to be rid of father for reasons that remain a little opaque. The two strangers strike up a conversation while on a train (though there’s no reason not to believe that Bruno has carefully staged this “accidental” meeting) and Bruno floats his idea for a perfect murder.
It’s a compelling plot, though one that relies heavily on Guy (Farley Granger) being a profoundly weak-willed and therefore rather contemptible man. He could have excused himself on the train. He could have gone straight to the police. He could have thrown the tennis match. Instead, he just lets himself get into deeper and deeper trouble. He’s not helped by his would-be fiancée Anne (Ruth Roman) who spends the film’s duration in a state of tearful, breathless worry.
No wonder audiences prefer the sultry, seductive Bruno (Robert Walker) and the bespeckled, somewhat gauche, but indomitably cheerful Barbara (Anne’s sister, played by Patricia Hitchcock). They exist on opposite ends of any personality spectrum you can imagine, and are fascinating in how their larger-than-life personalities are able to dominate any scene they’re in – and any other character they share the screen with.
Alien (1979)
My sister has been telling me for a while now that she’s never seen this movie, so while her partner and son went camping for the weekend, she came over to finally watch it. Like most cult classics and/or blockbuster hits, it’s an odd experience to view it for the first time outside its original context. You have to keep reminding yourself that nothing like this had appeared on the big screen back in the seventies, even though it’s been copied and parodied and homaged to hell and back by this point.
The most striking example of this is the presence of Sigourney Weaver, who at the time was a complete unknown, and whose role as the Final Girl would have come as a complete surprise to the initial theatre-going audience. She’s not even ranked first in the opening credits, and her Character Establishing Moment in which she insists on her fellow crewmembers going through regulation quarantine before they re-enter the ship even though one of them is badly wounded was probably designed to make her look like the bad guy.
Aren’t rules meant to be broken in these sorts of films? Screw the Rules, I’m Doing What’s Right and all that? In this case, the crew of the Nostramo really, really, really should have listened to Sigourney Weaver.
It seems completely redundant to talk about the film after being so prevalent in pop-culture for so long, though rewatching it after a few years’ hiatus reminded me of a few things I’d forgotten. Notably just how protracted the set-up is, in which the crew slowly wake up, slowly discuss an SOS transmission, slowly get the shuttle to land on a nearby planet’s surface, slowly explore the nesting area of the titular alien… I mean, I can respect that Ridley Scott took his time, but there’s no way a film would play out like this these days. Audiences are too impatient.
The other thing is that I was halfway through the film before I recalled that “human-looking character that’s secretly an android” is a thing in this franchise. It’s a funny detail here, since Ash technically doesn’t have to be an android – he could have been an overzealous scientist with his own agenda without the “he’s a robot!” twist and it would have made no difference to how the story plays out. In that sense, it’s rather interesting from a writing perspective that there’s no foreshadowing regarding the existence of androids in this particular dystopian future.
(I was actually surprised that the crew was surprised he wasn’t human. I had misremembered the other characters already knowing what he was and just responding in horror to the fact he’d gone rogue).
That’s one of the clever things about the screenplay: it has virtually no As You Know exposition. Instead, the characters talk about things naturally, without any “helping hand” snippets of dialogue for the sake of the audience. Whether it works in regards to the Ash reveal is up for debate, but it’s probably an underrated reason as to why the film is so well regarded. At no point does it hold your hand.
Aliens (1986)
Back in February 2017 I watched the first two Terminator movies and always meant to follow up with that other iconic female protagonist of the eighties, though it’s taken me a while to get there. And there’s an interesting comparison between the two women, who are both such titans regarding the representation of female characters in the sci-fi genre – Ridley was originally written as a man, whose character was then gender swapped with no fuss or rewrites, while Sarah Connor’s arc hinges on her ability to get pregnant and give birth. In other words, Ripley’s sex is irrelevant, while Conner’s is crucial.
(I also love that the anti-woke crowd are constantly using these female characters as “see, we’re not sexist because we LOVE these movies” examples, even though had they been released today they’d totally be complaining that Ridley was a bait-and-switch protagonist and thrown a conniption over Sarah’s anti-male speech towards the end of Terminator 2: “fucking men like you... you don’t know what it’s like to really create something... to create a life... all you know how to create is death and destruction.” Also, are they aware that Veronica was canonically transgender?)
Anyway, I digress.
A lot of what we immediately equate with these films actually didn’t appear until the sequel, and like The Empire Strikes Back, it introduces many of the franchise’s “must haves”: marines, the word “xenomorph,” the concept of an Alien Queen, and of course, the consolidation of the “someone is a secret android!” twist. In that sense, it’s in conversation not only with its predecessor but also with the second Terminator movie (and I can’t help but feel there’s a correlation between Bishop ultimately being a good android, and Arnie returning in Terminator 2 as an ally to Sarah Connor – James Cameron clearly liked that particular bait and switch).
On that subject, James Cameron also leans hard into themes of motherhood throughout this film. If you watch the director’s cut, you learn that Ripley was a mother who has since outlived her daughter, having been caught in cryogenic sleep for over fifty years. In the wake of her grief, she ends up bonding with a surrogate daughter called Newt, the only survivor of an alien attack on the colony that has since sprung up on the planet Ripley only just managed to escape from in the first film. They form a natural comparison to the Alien Queen, who gives off big Grendel’s Mother vibes when it comes to her monstrous brood.
To a certain degree it makes sense: if the first movie was about sex, then Aliens is about the potential consequences of that, though we think of this more as a sci-fi action flick rather than sci-fi horror, in direct comparison to the first movie essentially being a haunted house movie in space.
It’s a movie I can appreciate rather than enjoy. I’m certainly very grateful for the game-changing depiction of Ripley, which reset the board when it comes to how female characters are portrayed in genre films, and there’s no doubting Cameron’s expertise in directing a suspenseful set piece. But I’m not a huge fan of the franchise in general, and every other movie in the series has pretty much demonstrated why it’s a storyline with limited shelf life. (After watching this movie for the first time, my friend told me what happens within the first five minutes of Alien 3 and I almost threw something. Is there ANYTHING more aggravating than characters being killed off unceremoniously after you’ve just spent OVER TWO HOURS watching them survive the worst? That information alone is why I’ll never bother with anything else in this franchise. Well, maybe Romulus. I heard it was okay).
Miss Potter (2006)
There’s not a lot to say about this biopic about Beatrix Potter: it’s informative, heartrending, well-acted and beautifully shot: everything a biopic should be, even one that deals with a somewhat uneventful existence. In many ways, Potter had a charmed life (she was upper middleclass, made a fortune doing what she loved, invested in the preservation of the Lake District, and lived out her days in perpetual tranquility) though it was marred by one terrible tragedy: the death of her fiancé, Norman Warne.
Not just that, but the circumstances of his death were horrific. Their engagement was a secret, he died before she could get to his bedside, and so she was unable to publicly mourn him as a member of the family. She even missed his funeral. In many ways it plays out like a nightmare: the man she loved just disappeared from her life as though he’d never been there at all. It’s hard to imagine a crueller set of circumstances.
The film itself is most interested in this love story as its emotional centre, which is a shame in a way since a. it’s so damn depressing, and b. it neglects to explore some of the more interesting aspects of the publication process regarding her famous books. It omits, for example, the fact that Potter insisted on the iconic size of the books, as she deliberately wanted them to be designed for little hands. Neither does it delve very deeply into her inspiration regarding the lies of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Jeremy Fisher and so on. Instead, we see her interact with her watercolours in animated sequences, which are probably meant to be charming, but which end up making her look a bit of a weirdo.
Were it not for having already proved herself in Bridget Jones, I doubt Renee Zellweger would have ever been considered to play this quintessentially English writer/illustrator, and Ewan McGregor also plays against type as Potter’s rather nebbish publisher/love interest. Emily Watson is naturally good as Norman’s sister (though it’s annoying that she sprouts proto-feminist platitudes on independent women only to admit she doesn’t mean any of it when Beatrix confesses she loves her brother) and Anton Lesser and David Bamber (who will always be the original Mr Collins to me) pop up, as does a very young Lucy Boyle as the young Beatrix (I loved her sixteen years later in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) And then there’s good old reliable Bill Paterson with some very impressive mutton-chops.
It’s a perfectly inoffensive movie, and there’s not much more to say about it.
Arthur & Merlin (2015)
I do love watching a terrible movie, especially when it ends up surprising me. I very dearly wanted to watch Merlin and the Book of Beasts this month, but my download kept glitching, so instead I found this to tide me over. With a budget of three dollars and the third Guinevere this month (as in Camelot and The Winter King, below) who was glaringly anachronistic in hairstyle and makeup, it ended up being not hideously terrible – just fun terrible. In fact, there are plenty of decent payoffs to what initially felt like very random plot points.
King Vortigern is unable to unite the Britons against the Saxons because he’s under the control of Aberthol, an evil Druid who just wants to sacrifice as many people as possible to his dark god through senseless warfare. Arthur (spelt Arthfael) goes in search of Merlin (spelt Myrrdin) in the hopes of bringing a powerful magician over to their own side, leaving Guinevere (here called Olwen) vulnerable. Merlin is not so keen though... at least, not until he discovers just what they’re up against.
The whole thing has huge “let’s head out into the forest behind Jim’s house and shoot this thing on camcorders in our Halloween costumes!” vibes and that’s the fun of it. Everything looks recycled or handmade, and my favourite shot would have to be Arthur’s army bravely rushing towards battle to storm the castle. There’s five of them.
Arthur and Merlin: Knights of Camelot (2020)
Of the two almost identically named movies, I preferred the other one, as this was rather plodding at times, and made the mistake of taking itself way too seriously. In fact, this one felt like the love child of The Adventures of Maid Marian and Robin Hood: The Rebellion – not just because of a few returning actors (namely Jennifer Matter) but due to the pervading dark grittiness of it all.
It’s notable for taking place right at the end of the Arthurian cycle: Arthur is fighting wars in other lands (though not France against Lancelot) and Mordred has taken control of the throne in his absence, threatening to marry Guinevere after falsifying news of his father’s death. Hey, it’s broad strokes.
Arthur returns to England, and plenty of trekking through the forest and fighting through stone corridors ensues. The twist at the end is that Guinevere has been pining this whole time for Lancelot, and the two of them make their escape together just as Arthur reclaims the throne. Like I said, it hits some notes of the traditional story while completely disregarding them up at the same time.
Weirdly, the poster announces that the film features a “Game of Thrones legend,” though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who it referred to. No one listed as cast members on IMDB seems to have featured on that show, unless it was in such a minor capacity that they weren’t even credited.
Edit: Okay, I figured it out: it’s apparently Richard Brake, who is credited as “the Night King,” for two episodes. I can only assume they switched out the actors at some point, since there’s no way that character was only in two episodes.
The World of Beatrix Potter and Friends (1992 – 1998)
After watching Miss Potter, I naturally had to follow up with this, which I vaguely recalled from childhood. If nothing else, the opening song hit me like a ton of bricks when I heard it on a Spotify shuffle, though I wrongly equated it with The Secret Garden movie before realizing it originated here.
A nine-part series, it adapts fourteen of Potter’s stories, some of which were so short they had to be combined with other stories (leading to titles such as The Tale of Two Bad Mice and Johnny Town-Mouse). They’re all framed by live-action sequences involving Niamh Cusack as Beatrix Potter writing letters containing the stories to unspecified children – though annoyingly enough, they frequently reuse one opening in which she’s out painting, only to get caught in a rain shower. It makes it seems like she does the exact same thing every day.
The animated sequences are beautifully done, and boast an impressive voice cast: Richard Griffiths, Richard Wilson, Patricia Routledge, Ian Holm, Derek Jacobi, Hugh Laurie, Pam Ferris, Josie Lawrence, Felicity Kendal – even a young Rebecca Hall.
To be honest, Beatrix Potter was never a huge part of my childhood: I had The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and a Jemina Puddleduck soft toy, not to mention a VCR recording of Peter Rabbit performed as a skit on Playschool, a New Zealand preschool show from way back when, but that was it really. That said, I do remember watching The Roly-Poly Pudding episode as a child, which is absolutely horrifying. So many of these stories involve the animal characters facing the threat of being eaten, and for stories that are remembered as so sweet and charming, they’re not remotely sentimental about issues of life and death.
I’m going to have to track all these books down in the near future, especially the ones that weren’t adapted for television.
Camelot: Season 1 (2011)
The first of three shows I’ve been watching this month that are based on Arthurian legend (though I’m still in the middle of Cursed), all of which were cancelled after their first season. Why can’t television get this subject matter right? In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I’ve never seen a truly great film or television show about the Matter of Britain – not even stuff like Excalibur or The Sword in the Stone. Certainly nothing that comes even close to deserving the honour of being the definitive take on King Arthur.
And as much as I complain about cancelled shows, there’s something about them that I find fascinating. They’re like insects behind glass: potentially beautiful and fragile, but not going anywhere. Just consider all the money and talent and hard work that goes into a project like this one – and now, over ten years later, it’s a largely forgotten relic.
But Camelot is notable for two reasons: firstly that it aired concurrently with the fourth season of Merlin, perhaps the most successful Arthurian-based show out there, which led to no small levels of curiosity about a side-by-side comparison between each one as they aired. I can’t help but feel that the showrunners of this one must have had at least one eye on Merlin, for despite being aimed at vastly different demographics, there are choices made about what familiar characters are included, and which ones are omitted, that feel deliberate.
Secondly, that it aired the same year as Game of Thrones and The Borgias kicked off. Well, I don’t need to tell you what happened there. The Borgias managed a respectable three-season run (though was still cut short) and Game of Thrones became a worldwide phenomenon. In the wake of that runaway success, one almost feels embarrassed for Camelot failing so profoundly.
So, why did it fail? It would be easy to say it’s because Chris Chibnell was a showrunner, but he was joined by Michael Hirst, who would go on to make the popular Vikings – and you can spot the tells of each one in the context of Camelot. Chibnell’s interest in deconstructing tropes and Hirst’s interest in mysticism and unexplainable forces (which popped up a lot in Vikings as well) are prevalent throughout the show’s ten-episode run.
The crux of the story was one of sibling rivalry. Morgan Pendragon is the legitimate daughter of King Uther, who thinks that the throne should pass to her after his death (especially since she’s the one that assassinated him). Arthur is a village boy that’s been raised in anonymity by foster parents, and subsequently called to court by Merlin in order to reclaim his lost heritage. What follows is a prolonged fight for the throne, in which Arthur tries to build a kingdom based on laws and justice, while Morgan plots to usurp him with witchcraft and cunning.
This setup requires both Morgan and Arthur to be the offspring of Uther, whereas in the legends, they shared a mother instead – Igraine. Interestingly, Merlin used the exact same scenario, and largely for the same reason: to give Morgana a claim to the throne of Camelot, and a reason to resent her half-brother.
There’s an interesting premise there. What does a good ruler look like? How are they meant to lead? Why is the younger claimant more entitled to the throne than the older? (Sexism, obviously). As the episodes unfold, the writers explore the ways in which both Arthur and Morgan wield power, with each one drawing allies and gathering tools to advance their cause: Arthur has Merlin’s pageantry and stagecraft (for instance, he creates the Sword in the Stone and has Arthur retrieve it in front of a crowd full of people), while Morgan has magical powers that allow her to shapeshift, spy, and stir up trouble.
The problems are as follows. First of all, the world-building and infrastructure is virtually non-existent. There’s no indication of where anything is, why it’s important that things are situated where they are, and how things like food, armour, drinking water, livestock, and other supplies are finding their way to Camelot (which is a half-derelict ruin built by the Romans, a place that Merlin choses to be Arthur’s capital for reasons that remain unclear).
Now, if you’re going to have a story that’s largely about leadership and the rule of kings, it’s reasonable to expect an understanding of what’s at stake, how people are being governed, the geography of the land in which they all live and so on. Logistics can be pretty fascinating to watch, if you handle them correctly (see Andor, Black Sails, Game of Thrones). But it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker, especially since this is a show that’s clearly more interested in soapy interpersonal dramas.
The problem is, said relationships aren’t very compelling either. Let’s start with Arthur and Guinevere, who are seemingly meant to be the big romance of the show. Jamie Bower Campell’s portrayal of Arthur isn’t entirely his fault, but I have absolutely no idea why this show decided to characterize him as a petulant little creep, whose introductory scene involves him having sex with his brother’s girlfriend.
He's fairly diffident about his heritage and the fact he’s next in line for the throne, and on meeting his birth mother rather petulantly asks her: “did you think of me at all?” AFTER she’s just told him that Merlin ripped him from her arms. This was to ensure he got a decent upbringing with Sir Ector and his wife, though it’s unclear what exactly Arthur gained from that humble education – he’s still as much of a spoiled brat as if he’d been raised as a prince in a castle.
Then there’s Guinevere. It makes me angry all over again that Angel Coulby was given such a hard time during the Merlin years, as Tamsin Edgerton’s Guinevere is just wretched. From the anachronistic hairstyle (blonde, highlighted, straightened – it sticks out like a sore thumb), to her modern-girl sensibilities (she wonders out loud if her fiancé is “the one”), to her consistently idiotic behaviour (she keeps riding out by herself across countryside that’s crawling with bandits, usually to do things like “bring her husband’s prayerbook to him”), it’s impossible to get a fix on this character. I distinctly recall an interview with the actress in which she earnestly insisted that Guinevere’s love of sea bathing was her way of clearing her head, and – oh honey, no. It was to put you in a sheer white robe and get the money shots.
Besides which, she looks entirely too modern – which is a problem that pops up again in The Winter King. I’m not sure Instagram was around back in 2011, but as we’d say these days: “she had a face that knows what Instagram is.”
We see her for first time in Arthur’s dream, in which she strides naked across a beach to have sex with him in the sand. Yup, our introduction to Guinevere is... a wet dream. That’s really the best they could do for her? When they meet in real-life, they have an awkward meetcute which is clearly meant to be fraught with burning sexual attraction (it isn’t), right before Arthur is introduced to her betrothed, Sir Leontes, who goes on to save his life when he falls off a waterfall while retrieving the Sword in the Stone.
Will this stop him from sleeping with Guinevere on the morning of her wedding? Nope! Then he approaches her after the wedding night and demands to know who’s better in the sack: him or Leontes. The hell?
I mean, there is such a thing as character development, which requires characters to begin at a not-particularly sympathetic starting point, but all this is just beyond the pale. There was also a chance to thematically compare Arthur’s lust for Guinevere with Uther’s for Igraine, but I don’t think it ever occurs to the writers to do so. How on earth are we meant to root for two such thoroughly unlikeable protagonists?
This inverted love triangle, in which Arthur is the adulterer instead of the rightful husband, is very much the emotional centre of the show, and it falls completely flat. There is no reason whatsoever to sympathize with Arthur or Guinevere, or to root for their “love,” or to feel sorry for their selfish, stupid behaviour. They are awful people. (And if the show had continued, one can only assume they would have eventually hooked up – in which case, how would the show have handled Lancelot?)
In light of all this, it’s impossible not to root for Morgan. Not only is she played by Eva Green, but the only reason she’s passed over as Queen is on account of her sex. Unlike Arthur, she actually wants the responsibility of ruling a kingdom, and when it comes to her one-on-one interactions with the people living in her domains, she never demonstrates cruelty or negligence. We see her resolving disputes and distributing food, and doing a standup job each time.
She also pulls together a court of women, and has an interesting relationship with both Chipo Chung as Vivien, and Siobhan Cusack as Sybil, a mysterious nun that arrives from a convent that’s recently burned down. There’s obviously history between the two of them, and Sybil ends up being Morgan’s Merlin equivalent, guiding her through her magical abilities and pulling strings behind the scenes. The show often hints at a dark backstory between the two of them, involving the goings-on at the nunnery and the strange occurrences that led to the fire that destroyed it, but the show gets cancelled before we find out precisely what it all meant (or perhaps we never would have learned, since Sybil dies in the final episode).
Joseph Fiennes is also present as Merlin (in fact, he gets top billing) and... he’s fine, I guess. It amuses me that a Fiennes brother takes this role, as over a decade later in Cursed, Merlin is played by a member of another famous acting brotherhood: a Skarsgård, but he ends up shouldering most of the material that deals with the deconstruction of these particular legends.
I’ve already mentioned how he stage-manages the removal of the Sword in the Stone (needlessly renamed the Sword of Mars) so that Arthur is seen as a “chosen one” among the people, but later on he goes in search of a better sword for his king (Arthur, naturally, stays at home). He visits a master swordsmith in the forest, who tells him he’s not prepared to forge a sword without the king present, then does it anyway, and then decides not to hand it over. Merlin ends up killing him, only for the man’s daughter to grab the sword and try to escape by paddling a boat across a lake. In attempting to pursue her, Merlin causes the lake’s surface to freeze over, which tips over the boat and drowns the girl. Her last act is to try and break through the ice with the sword, thus giving us a rather grim rendition of the Lady of the Lake.
Merlin spins all this into a more uplifting story when he returns to Camelot, and Arthur remains cheerfully oblivious that his cool new toy is stained with innocent blood. The real groaner is that the girl’s name was Excalibur.
This is par for the course for the whole show when you think about it: the “heroes” are deeply flawed to the point of being rather terrible people, though in all honesty, a deconstruction of source material that’s so earnest about the ideals that it extols –virtue, chivalry, brotherhood, equality – means that watching a retelling that purports to reveal the “real story” behind the legends, which ends up being people acting recklessly, selfishly, or some combination of the two, is just not all that fun.
And then there’s stuff that’s just plain stupid. At one point Merlin orders the knights to “protect Arthur,” at which point we cut to the man himself, who is wandering around in the countryside on his own, completely unguarded. Later he tells Arthur that he fostered him to Ector because: “placing you here made you so much more,” even though he’s just a layabout who sleeps with other people’s girlfriends. Why exactly is Arthur so special? Merlin left him completely unprepared; apparently just for dramatic effect.
Also, why would Uther agree to giving up a legitimate male heir? Why does Igraine say: “I’m the only one of Uther’s blood,” when she’s his wife, and therefore not part of his bloodline? How did Morgan know that Uther was going to eat the soup in the communal cauldron that she poisons? Towards the end of the season, Morgan holds Igraine captive, and when this ruse is discovered, Merlin and Igraine head all the way back to her castle to confront her without any guards.
Arthur and Guinevere are out on one of their unchaperoned fieldtrips, only to wake up to find their belongings are being rifled through. Arthur leaps up and kills the thieves without question – but what if they were just looking for food? They had the opportunity to slit the couple’s throats while they were sleeping, so the fact they went straight for the carry-on luggage suggests they weren’t any sort of real threat.
Sir Ector and his wife are inevitably killed off: the latter when she’s held hostage and executed in front of her sons, and the former when he avenges her and dies in the act of stabbing her killer. In other words, the woman dies as a helpless victim, and the man dies as a proactive hero. Later on, despite knowing that King Lot’s forces are planning an attack, Arthur throws a party for everyone instead of fortifying the castle, and sure enough – the bad guys use it as cover to infiltrate the place.
Because it’s Starz, there’s plenty of nudity and sex scenes, but unlike shows such as Black Sails and Spartacus, it’s gratuitously focused solely on the female characters. There’s also the downright embarrassing inclusion of a single Black knight among the core group of Arthur’s followers: he gets minimal lines and is killed off in the penultimate episode, never to be mentioned again.
There’s also some weird stuff concerning a wolf. Early on, Morgan is approached by a wolf while performing some rite in the forest, and much later, it appears to her in a mirror while she’s having sex with Merlin in the guise of someone else (long story). And weirdly enough, this wolf also appears to Leontes while he’s out hunting with the rest of the men – it doesn’t attack him, and instead seems to be trying to communicate something to him. What does it all mean? Never gets explained.
Okay, so what are some of the good aspects of the show? Well, I enjoyed Peter Mooney as Kay, particularly since he’s a fairly integral character to the mythos that never appeared in that other Arthurian show of the time: Merlin. Ironically, this take on Kay paints him as a gallant and honourable man – one that far more resembles traditional depictions of Arthur than Arthur himself. He’s the one that comes up with the idea on how to reach the Sword in the Stone (even though Arthur gets all the credit) and later on wants to stop and give some slaughtered peasants a decent burial, though Arthur opts to leave them and move on. Seriously, why wasn’t he cast as Arthur?
I also quite liked Clive Standen as Gawaine, though this guy certainly had a lot of trouble in the early years of his career. He was cast as the replacement to Robin Hood, only for that show to be cancelled almost immediately after his introduction. He shows up here as one of the most famous knights of the Round Table, only for this too to get cancelled. I know he had small roles in Atlantis and Doctor Who, but luckily for him, I suspect Michael Hirst tapped him on the shoulder when it came to casting Rollo in Vikings.
The show is also notable for having Igraine (Claire Forlani) as a regular character, which feels like another deliberate change from Merlin. Their Uther sticks around for three-and-a-bit seasons, while Igraine is a posthumous character; here Uther is killed off straight away, and Igraine only dies at the end of the first season (yeah, they still kill her off. And she gets raped for good measure, not that she really cares afterwards).
It’s ironic in a way, as despite making her a regular character, they never actually do much with her. The depiction of her as a traditional little doormat with no agency or will whatsoever could have been interesting as a contrast to the proactive and assertive Morgan, but she spends most of her time meandering about, disempowering other women, and dishing out vague platitudes. And even though this show is one of the first (if not only) to actually give Arthur the opportunity to get to know his birth mother, they share only three (count ‘em: THREE) scenes together before her death.
Most of her screentime is spent with Merlin, with whom she strikes up a mild romance – I’ve certainly never seen that before, and despite knowing that he cast a spell over Uther to make him look like her first husband Gorlois (as per the legends) she never holds this against him, or calls it out for what it is: rape by deception. By the end of the first season, it’s unclear why she holds back on sharing a vital piece of information (that she saved Morgan’s life by having her sent to the convent, instead of allowing Uther to kill her) or why the writers even bothered with this character in the first place.
Chipo Chung as Vivien was another character fill of squandered potential, but I quite liked Lara Jean Chorostecki as Bridget as well, a charming minor character who serves as Guinevere’s cousin/best friend/lady-in-waiting. A couple of the mini-quests are fun (the knights go in search of hidden books to build a library for example) and I have no complaints regarding the cinematography or the costumes (unsurprisingly, Eva Green looks fantastic in a glorious wardrobe). That said, the limited budget is never more obvious when it comes to the fight scenes. The Battle of Badon is fought between a handful of men, over land that consists of one derelict farmhouse and a couple of sheep.
There are also a number of familiar B-listers who always do the rounds in these sorts of things: Sean Pertwee, James Purefoy, Lucy Cohu, Vincent Regan and Liam Cunningham, who is notable for having appeared in this and Merlin – the only actor to appear in both Arthurian adaptations airing at the same time.
Fourteen years on, and what is the show’s legacy? Well, I’d be surprised if anyone out there even remembers it existing in the first place. Jamie Bower Campell is enjoying something of a revival, having been cast as the Big Bad on Stranger Things, but considering his first project after this one was the big-screen adaptation of Mortal Instruments, it’s a wonder he has a career at all. Joseph Fiennes and Eva Green obviously went back to far more successful projects elsewhere, and as far as I know, the rest of the cast has just been steadily working in low-key fare – there’s certainly no Retroactive Recognition for any big-name stars in this.
For my money, Hirst’s interest in mysticism and underhanded plots didn’t mesh well with Chibnall’s desire to deconstruct the more fantastical parts of the legend while demonstrating the characters’ feet of clay. I’m currently rewatching Black Sails, and it’s striking how nebulous the goals and motivations of everyone here is in comparison to what featured in that show. We get some vague assertions about freedom and “the good of the people” and that’s about it. At no point does the writing even articulate why Morgan wants the throne so badly, or why Arthur just shrugs his shoulders and goes along with Merlin’s plans.
It all ends on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved: Morgan visits Arthur in his bedchamber in the guise of Guinevere, and despite the fact that her husband was cremated just that afternoon, Arthur goes ahead and has sex with her (or who he thinks is her). Usually I feel annoyed that any story not get a proper conclusion, but in this case, Camelot really had to end. There was simply no reason to care about, or even like, it’s rather loathsome main character, who clearly learned nothing across the course of absolutely everything being handed to him on a silver platter.
Death in Paradise: Season 2 (2013)
The second season of Death in Paradise is also Ben Miller’s last, which is a shame since he was a lot of fun in the role. Apparently he was missing his family too much while filming out on location, though it ends on a rather strange note in which the final episode sets up his permanent return to London, only for him to reappear on Saint Marie, all primed and ready for more detective work. I can only suppose Miller came to his decision after filming wrapped.
Watching this over ten years later, the show has since performed a complete Ship of Theseus: as far as I can tell, there are no original cast members left, having been replaced one-by-one across the years as they move onto other projects. But for now at least, I tried to enjoy the Will They, Won’t They Belligerent Teeth Clenched Teamwork of Richard Poole and Camille Bordey while it lasted.
There’s something so soothing about mystery procedurals, knowing that everything’s going to be wrapped up in a tidy little package by the end of each forty-five minutes. In the case of Death in Paradise, I’m also treated to beautiful sun-drenched vistas as the days shorten down here in New Zealand, and the always-fun game of “spot the C-lister.” There’s Dawn from The Office! And Booker from Star Trek Discovery! Jean from The Bletchley Circle! At least five guest-stars from Robin Hood!
James Cosmo, Pip Torrens, James Fleet, Gemma Jones, Tom Ward, Cherie Lunghi, Georgina Campbell, John Pertwee (for the second time this month!)... and they’re just the ones I’m recalling off the top of my head. And to my shame, it’s taken me this long to realize that Dwayne Myers has been the Cat from Red Dwarf this whole time!
And wait a second... GEMMA CHAN?! She’s got to be the most famous celebrity (so far) who cut her teeth on this show, and amusingly enough, she doesn’t feature much in the episode in which she appears. I just love that I am absolutely guaranteed to see at least one familiar face each time.
Hilariously, some of the most familiar guest stars are the murder victims who get killed off within the first two minutes of the whole thing, and I have to believe they’re just taking the job for the opportunity to have a paid holiday to Guadeloupe. Who could blame them?
The Winter King: Season 1 (2024)
Given that the adaptation of Bernard Cornwall’s The Last Kingdom series made it to a whopping five seasons and a movie (absolutely unheard of by today’s standards) the minds behind this Spiritual Successor must have thought it was a sure thing. Alas, another one bit the dust, and The Winter King didn’t make it past its first season.
Which is a shame, as I found myself enjoying this, and definitely would have come back for more. The world it creates is immersive, the actors take the material seriously, and the story is fairly compelling. If you liked Game of Thrones predominately for its politicking and moral ambiguity, then this will appeal for the same reasons.
Of the three shows based on Arthurian legends I’ve been watching this month, this is the one that strives for a degree of historical accuracy. Set in Britain during the fifth century, it’s very grim and gritty and covered in mud, and puts a spin on the source material by having the familiar cast of characters (Arthur, Merlin, Morgan, Nimue) attempting to bring an end to civil skirmishes across the country in a bid to unite everyone against the encroaching Saxons.
(As an aside, it always amuses me when Saxons are cast as the bad guys in Arthurian stories, because a few centuries later, they’ll be oppressed class when the Normans show up. And what hero is predominately used to oppose them? Robin Hood, that other great English hero).
This show actually has two protagonists: Arthur and an original character called Derfel, a young Saxon boy whose life Arthur saves when he finds him in a death pit. At the time, Arthur is going into exile, having failed to save his younger brother’s life in battle, and the two don’t cross paths again until many years later. Here Arthur is characterized as King Uther’s recognized bastard, who goes on to have another son called Mordred. Yes, Mordred is Arthur’s half-brother rather than illegitimate son this time around.
Derfel grows up in Avalon under the tutelage of Merlin and forms a close bond with Nimue, a young acolyte, as they grow into adulthood. Christianity is beginning to spread across the land, along with reports of the Saxons amassing on the shores, and when Uther dies while Mordred is still just a baby, Merlin goes to fetch Arthur as a suitable regent to the throne. Once back in Dumnonia, Arthur tries to forge alliances with other kingdoms such as Powylls and Siluria, only to come up against the ambitions and agendas of other rulers across the land (as well as his own foibles).
It takes a while for all the pieces to move into place and the plot to properly kick off, but I found myself enjoying the fact that the show took its time, allowing us to get to know the characters and understand the world they inhabit. I also loved the sets for Caer Cadarn, a massive, cavernous, impenetrable citadel of rock, and for Avalon, a singular turret surrounded by roundhouses and forest.
Iain de Caestecker is perhaps best known for his time on Agents of SHIELD (of which I haven’t seen a single episode) and he does well here in conveying the weight of responsibility and sense of innate decency that I’ve always associated with Arthur – even if he does make an astoundingly stupid and shortsighted mistake about halfway through the season that lost him a lot of points in my book (and Derfel’s as well). Valerie Kane (Jyn Erso’s mother in Rogue One) also does well as a variation on Morgan who is older, more grounded and entirely without her antagonistic edge. All incestuous overtones and animosity with Arthur is completely done away with, and it makes for a refreshing change to see the siblings as allies instead of enemies.
Andrew Gower also turns up as he’s wont to do, as a zealous young Christian priest that’s intent on spreading the good news. I’m always intrigued by characters like this, and disappointed when they invariably turn out to be fundamentalist nutters – in this case, it’s a slightly more nuanced take on the archetype, in which he genuinely believes in the religion he’s spreading, and uses a light touch just as often as a heavy hand. There’s an interesting development between him and Morgan in the final episode that I’m disappointed we’ll never see expanded on.
Most of all I loved Ellie James as Nimue. This is a character that appears throughout the legends, and is possibly the most mutable in terms of just how varied her characterization can be. I’ve seen her as a standard YA protagonist (Kathryn Lansky in Cursed), a demure Christian noblewoman (Isabella Rosselini in Merlin) and a vengeful sorceress (Michelle Ryan in the other Merlin). She was also a self-deprecating apprentice in Grossman’s The Bright Sword, and that’s not even touching her associations with the Lady of the Lake.
Here she’s a passionate young priestess who staunchly defends her religion and way of life, even against her own allies and friends. She can be overly stubborn at times, and she’s put through an ordeal that was a little too brutal for my taste, but she’s always the most compelling part of any scene she’s in. There’s just something about this actress: her voice, her face, her manner, that just felt like quintessential Nimue to me. I don’t know what it was exactly, but she’s my definitive take on this character.
Unfortunately, Jordan Alexandra is the second Guinevere in a row who comes across as far too modern to take seriously, though it’s interesting to note that this show coincidentally features another take on the famous Arthurian love triangle in which Arthur and Guinevere are depicted as the cheaters, with an innocent third party who is NOT Lancelot as the one who gets cheated on. In this case, Arthur offers himself up as a husband to a potential ally’s daughter, only to meet Guinevere and run away with her in the night, throwing away the hard-won peace. The actors simply have no time to establish why exactly they’re willing to risk so much to be together, and so come across as appalling selfish and stupid instead.
Finally, it’s easy to see the drastic difference in budget between this and Camelot. What a change a decade makes in how television shows are filmed and financed, as any comparison between any two screenshots taken from these projects would be eye-opening. In just over ten years, the amount of money poured into streaming services has ballooned out – which ironically, is one of the many reasons shows like this keep getting cancelled.
Ah well, at least there are books to see how it all would have panned out.
My childhood introduction to Arthurian legend was J. H. Brennan's GrailQuest books, which are sadly now long out of print and can be difficult to find (there were plans to re-release them digitally a few years ago but sadly they fell through), but are more than worth reading if you get the chance.
ReplyDeleteBen Miller left DiP in large part because his wife gave birth to their first child during production of the first series and I think they had another child not long after (as well as finding having to wear wool suits in Guadeloupe extremely uncomfortable -- Poole is almost always shot from the waist up because Miller was wearing shorts and sandals to try and cope with the heat). There's more to his departure than that, but it's impossible to talk about without getting into *how* the character leaves and I don't know if you're already aware of that...