Merlin's Harp [Hardcover]

Anne Eliot Crompton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995

A stylish retelling of the Arturian legend from a female perspective follows the adventures of young Niviene, daughter of the Lady of the Lake, who ventures out of the fairy land of Fey into the mortal world of Camelot.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Niviene, daughter of the Lady of the Lake, sister to the faerie knight who would come to be known as Lancelot, and student of Merlin, finds her destiny in the court of the legendary Arthur. The author of A Woman's Place (1980) undertakes a lyrical retelling of the Arthurian cycle from the point of view of the faerie folk. Crompton's flowing prose creates an atmosphere in which the familiar tale becomes fresh again. An excellent addition to most fantasy and general fiction collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Take heed: the feminist possibilities of the Arthurian legendary cycle were not exhausted by Marion Zimmer Bradley's best-selling Mists of Avalon. In that book's manner, Crompton retells the Matter of Britain from the point of view of the Lady of the Lake, here called Niviene. From her perspective, the well-known legends become a real fairy story, for the main characters are all fairies or, in the book's term, Fey (Niviene, her mother, Merlin, even Sir Mell), and human changelings raised in a fairy Avalon (Lancelot, the Lady of Shallot). Although the resulting novel satisfies all the primal needs for narrative intensity and firm characterization, its strengths really lie in its poetic language and its finely wrought spiritual sense. The Fey philosophy is offered as an antidote to human failings as Crompton's pagan rather than Christian, womanist rather than patriarchal fairies live in unsentimental harmony with nature and with the elemental forces. A riveting good read. Patricia Monaghan

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1ST edition (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155611463X
• ISBN-13: 978-1556114632
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,103,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hypnotic, June 9, 2010

By 

Kelly (Fantasy Literature) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Merlin's Harp (Paperback)

Reading Merlin's Harp, I realized something about novels that portray the interaction between the human world and Faerie. They usually don't tell the stories of fae folk in their own homeland. There are exceptions, of course, but authors tend to focus on faeries stuck in the human world, or humans encountering Faerie. I think I may know why that is. When writing about faeries living in Faerie, it's all too easy to have nothing happen.

Anne Eliot Crompton uses beautiful, if occasionally stilted, language to draw us into her take on Arthurian legend:

"When I was yet a young woman I threw my heart away.

I fashioned a wee coracle of leaf and willow twig and reed, a coracle that sat in the hollow of my two palms. In this I placed my wounded, wretched heart, and I set it adrift on the rain-misted wavelets of the Fey river, and I watched it bob and whirl, sail and sink. Ever since I have lived heartless, or almost heartless, cold as spring rain, the way Humans think all Fey live. Humans I have known would be astounded to learn that I ever had a heart that leapt, brightened, fainted, quickened, warmed, embraced, froze or rejected, like their own."

The narrator is Niviene, daughter of the Lady of the Lake. In the ensuing chapters, Niviene endeavors to tell us how she came to the point of throwing her heart away. This ornate, image-rich prose continues, and Niviene meanders and digresses in her tale. She'll mention an old family friend, then backtrack and tell us all about how she came to meet him before going back to the main thread of her narrative.

By combining the flowery style with a narrative that is ever looping back on itself, Crompton conveys a sense of what Faerie is said to be like. It's beautiful and hypnotic, and time doesn't flow in Faerie the way it does in the human realm. The trouble is, it's *too* hypnotic. Lulling. Dreamlike. Reading Merlin's Harp made me sleepy. While falling into an enchanted slumber and waking on the cold hillside is very much in keeping with Faerie tradition, it doesn't help propel one through a novel.

It also doesn't help that not much happens in the first hundred pages or so, which is as far as I got before giving up. Roughly the first ninety pages are taken up with an interpretation of the Lady of Shalott tale, and a rather uninteresting one. The main problem is Gwenevere, who spends this entire sequence drugged and being toddled around like a doll. Sure, she's gorgeous, but can physical beauty alone account for the trouble she unwittingly causes here? I've seen sympathetic Gweneveres and unsympathetic ones, but all the best portrayals afford her some charisma that helps explain why she is so loved.

This is followed by a four-page sequence (I counted) in which Niviene gets pregnant and gives birth to a son, the son grows to the age of five, and then the son goes missing. All in four pages. That was when I decided to give up. If it takes ninety pages for a young boy to break a young girl's heart in favor of a pretty woman in a stupor, and four pages for a fetus to become a five-year-old, the pacing is just a little too strange for me, Faerie or no.

Merlin's Harp contains some lovely language and an interesting perspective on the Matter of Britain, but finally the pacing and the hypnotic effect were too much for me. I recommend it to fans of lush prose who have plenty of coffee on hand.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The writing is lyrical; the plot twists are original. Great!, December 20, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Merlin's Harp (Paperback)

Merlin's Harp is an exquisite addition to Arthurian literature. Anne Crompton's writing is lyrical and beautiful. It leads you into the story and keeps you there. Her very original presentation of well known characters, well known story lines, and even objects such as the Grail is so very intriguing that you do not want to put the book down until you have finished it. Her central character Niviene is delightfully "odd" and fantastical. This is a Niviene no one has seen before. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is one of the few books that really does take you into another world. When you put it down, when you have read every page, you are left with a feeling of amazement and sheer delight in the experience.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What Merlin Was Really Doing At Camelot, April 23, 2004

By 

Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Merlin's Harp (Hardcover)

This is a rather unique look at the legend of King Arthur. This is the tale of Niviene, daughter of the Lady of the Lake.

We see Niviene grow up from a young Fey still learning about her surroundings and follow her through becoming a mother and a companion to Merlin at the Court of King Arthur. Arthur starts as just a tale Niviene hears from Merlin during his visits to Avalon. Then there is their chance encounter and finally Niviene encounters him at Camelot.

But While this is an Arthurian tale there is very little about Arthur actually in it. Instead we learn about the Fey, how they feel about this human king and the plots and reasons of Merlin. We find out the truth behind Sir Lancelot and where he came from. We learn about Mordred's shadowed history. We even learn the truth behind the Holy Grail and why someone as wise as Merlin sent the knights of the Round Table looking for it.

All in all a very entertaining book that is both well-written and freshly plotted. I recommend this one to anyone interested in Arthurian legend.