Arthur the King [Paperback]

Allan Massie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

It is the aftermath of the Roman occupation of Britain. Kings are now jockeying for position, for title, for land and for power. A young boy confounds the most famous knights of the realm when he pulls a jewelled sword from a cleft in a stone and claims the throne left vacant by the death of Uther Pendragon. In this new vision of the Arthurian story, Camelot is set on the River Tweed and Merlin who disapproves of his knights' yearning for battle and their quest for the Holy Grail. With great humour and energy, Massie has created a bold and original new tale from the stuff of legend.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this second volume of his historical trilogy (after The Evening of the World, set in the dying days of the Roman Empire), Massie presents a cheerily erudite deconstruction and retelling of the Arthurian legend. The linear events of the narrative are familiar: as a young boy, Arthur is schooled by Merlin, then claims the throne of England by pulling the sword Excalibur from its stone. Massie's version, however, fashions alternate histories for familiar characters (chronicling, for example, Merlin's wretched childhood and describing the twisted use he makes of his powers) and takes a playful, humorous tone ("Nor was Arthur enamored of mathematics, even though Merlin took great joy in that subject and excelled (as he supposed) in expounding it"). Once crowned king, Arthur is portrayed as a strategist and statesman whose marriage to the Saxon maiden Guinevere is one of convenience; his true love is his half-sister, Morgan le Fay, and he has a fondness for pretty youths (as does Merlin). Similarly, the machinations of the Knights of the Round Table are seen as a series of political maneuvers, particularly when the knights jockey for position as the quest for the Grail begins. Readers looking for the standard heroic take may be disappointed, but those of "a speculative and skeptical turn of mind, which takes nothing on trust or unexamined" will appreciate this bracing chronicle.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"a course between myth and realism" SUNDAY TIMES "a thoroughly modern telling of a familiar story." SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Paperbacks (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753817810
• ISBN-13: 978-0753817810
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,529,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the Standard Interpretation, February 10, 2011

By 

R. S. Wilkerson (near Stone Mountain, GA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Arthur the King (Hardcover)

Allan Massie's Arthur the King (2003 293 pages) leaves much to be desired. I enjoy the Arthurian cycle and have read quite a number of books telling the story. Massie's interpretation is quite a bit different than any of the other tales of Arthur I've read, and while it's not the best retelling, it has merit and would probably interest anyone who finds the Arthur legend and the many possibilities for interpretation intriquing. Massie's strength is not the story, but the dialogue and some of the philosphical ramblings of an intrusive narrator/chronicler whose work is styled on Machiavelli's The Prince and who is using the story of Arthur as a model for governance with numerous asides and interpolations.

The narrative incorporates observations and paraphrasing from other classical authors, especially Ovid, and one little quotation from Ezra Pound, 750 years in the future. Despite being overly intrusive at times, the narrator, Scott (Massie introduces the narrator in a prefatory note: "This version purports to be a translation of a narrative written by the medieval scholar and astrologer Michael Scott for his pupil, the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, 1194-1250), is more interesting than most of the characters in the tale.

Massie has invented backstories for the main characters, which are quite different from the standard interpretations, and at times the dissonance is a bit jarring. Because he did invent many of the stories, I don't think the novel is as satisfying as it should have been, especially for anyone familiar with the "standard" versions. If anything, it shows poor editing and/or a lack of concentration in keeping the overall story focused. His version simply doesn't hold together well.

The story is mythic enough to retain reader interest, although I found his resolution of the tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance, silly and inconsistent with the rest of the tale. The Grail Quest as a whole is not well integrated into the whole, athough it is a satisfactory explanation for Arthur's small army in the conflict with Mordred, which was the best part of the book; it was intriquing and held my attention. Massie even manages to include some of the Lohengrin legend into his telling of the Grail Quest. Arthur is a legendary British king who lived c. 465 to c 537; the Grail Quest is a medieval addition to the tale, in the late 12th century by Robert de Boron and Chretien de Troyes.

Massie makes Arthur a "Roman" striving to restore the Empire. Rome had been sacked by the Huns in 410, at which time the legions were withdrawn from Britannia, throwing it into chaos, and the last western emperor died in 476. Throwing the medieval concept of a quest,a very religious theme, into a tale about Romans battling Saxons is jarring, especially since Massie didn't work hard enough at integrating it into the story line. In most tales, Merlin is figured as a druid; Massie makes him a worshipper of Mithras, the god of the roman soldiers, although he really doesn't develop that concept.

I think he confuses his main themes at times. For about half the novel, it seems like his theme is the destructive power of Eros, which in the standard interpretation leads to the downfall of Arthur's kingdom; the theme in the latter portion of the novel is the transitoriness of life and glory. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the Arthurian legend, but beware that it is definitely out of the ordinary. I would not recommend it to anyone for whom it would be the first reading of the Arthurian legend; it's too out of the ordinary. T.H. White's Once and Future King is the standard interpretation and served as the basis for the play Camelot. Mary Stewart's Merlin Series is excellent: The Crystal Cave (1970), The Hollow Hills (1973), The Last Enchantment(1979),The Wicked Day (1983). Jack Whyte's Camulod Series is an interesting and worthwhile interpretation, at least through the first three or four books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No End to Retelling the Tale, March 22, 2009

By 

David McEldery "TV Junkie" (Plains, MT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arthur the King (Hardcover)

There seems to be no end to re-telling the Arthurian legend, and in another hundred years, a single individual will be hard-pressed to read all the fiction that abounds. That being said, this book deals not so much with a "historically" accurate Arthur, who is generally thought to be a composite of as many as three Romano-Britons, but a medieval version told by one Michael Scott, an astrologer, to his pupil, the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. That's why it isn't a real stretch to have men in armor riding on the cover. The story as told by Massie is a sort of blend of the purist's Romano-British Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Massie injects the Roman Arthur into the story by trashing Geoffrey of Monmouth, and introduces Celtic elements in side stories about Arthur's knights, such as the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Massie creates a cynical, down-to-earth Merlin, who was bullied as a youth, but rises through study and knowledge to create fearful respect in the general population. Massie's Merlin has no power to overcome capture and imprisonment, and meets a dismal end. Mordred is suitably twisted by his physical deformities and upbringing. Many of the other main characters are also painted as flawed personalities. Guinivere is a Saxon dumpling with short, chunky legs, who doesn't have a lofty thought in her brain, and no remorse for fooling around with Lancelot. Lancelot is petty, self-absorbed, and spends most of his post-Guiniverian life moping in his castle in Britanny. I bought the book a couple of years ago, and finally got around to reading it, enjoyed it quite a bit as a different slant on the Arthurian myth, so give the book 4 stars for being better than the cover led me to believe. I'm not sure I want to spend money on the 1st installment in this trilogy, The Evening of the World. The two Amazon reader reviews for that one aren't particularly sterling. I hope number three is as good or better than Arthur the King.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a Well Told Tale, August 1, 2006

By 

J. Chippindale (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arthur the King (Hardcover)

The Arthurian legends have taken on many guises and formats over the years and Allan Massie's attempt is as good as most. It does stray in many ways from the original tale but as the whole Arthurian saga is more myth than actual proven fact this does not really matter.

I think that in this particular book Allan Massie writes to shock the reader and for those of a delicate or sheltered upbringing the book will certainly achieve that.

I found the book an interesting read, not the best telling of the Arthurian legend, but certainly not the worst. What does bug me though with many of the books about Arthur is that the book cover illustrators find it necessary to depict the men in suits of armour, a form of protection that is medieval. If Arthur existed at all, he lived many centuries before then and would not know a suit of armour if one dropped on his foot.