The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge [Hardcover]

Diana Durham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 2004

An elegant, sweeping, modern-day Jungian interpretation of the two strands of Arthurian myth: the Round Table, Camelot, and King Arthur on one side and the Grail quest on the other.

The quest for the Holy Grail is, in a larger sense, the story of the individual's path to wholeness, while the King Arthur legends represent a collective narrative of humanity.

In The Return of King Arthur, Diana Durham analyzes the key symbols from the intertwined Arthurian myths. Woven through the narrative are discoveries from her personal search for wholeness while she was living in association with a spiritual community and fully embracing a shared lifestyle. Her exploration of the individual path-the Grail quest, and the collective process-the court of King Arthur, eventually resolves itself as one story, offering the reader insights into how they can have a more satisfying existence.

Durham has deciphered the deepest meaning of the Arthurian myths as they relate to our modern lives, and, in the process, uncovered the reasons why they have held our fascination for so long.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Durham meticulously anatomizes the King Arthur legend and the quest for the Holy Grail in the light of Jungian analysis and her own personal life journey and reflections. She mystically elucidates how Merlin dwells within us, "residing" in the unconscious (where Durham believes our deepest psychic wounds are hidden). King Arthur is likened to Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha, as a "hero who brings about a renewal of the world" and is identified with a form of mentorship capable of inspiring and challenging the individual to new personal heights. Conversely, the "Wounded Fisher King" represents a spiritually barren leadership, devoid of connection to God. Durham connects this ubiquitous kind of leader with the spiritual "wasteland" in which she believes most of us live. Her book intersperses analyses of other characters in the legends with a series of diagrams that unfold the symbolic aspects of the sword and the chalice, while pointing to potential for harmonizing polarized parts of the self. As she summarizes Arthurian mythology, Durham boldly relates it to modern experience and to her own passage from a Canadian commune to a life founded in marriage and motherhood. Unfortunately, her discussions of recent global politics and environmental issues, poetry and life trends are, at most, educated, rather than penetrating or original, while her interpretative style is exhaustive rather than suggestive, reducing all to Jungian terminology in ways that largely fail to challenge or excite the imagination, although to some readersâ€"probably her target audience-it may feel comfortingly familiar.
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About the Author

Diana Durham is a writer and a poet who has been involved with spiritual communities for the past twenty-five years.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher; First Edition edition (March 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585422975
• ISBN-13: 978-1585422975
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,601,289 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:

5.0 out of 5 stars Symbols, Analogies, Metaphors and Close Spiritual Analysis, July 17, 2004

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge (Hardcover)

Ms. Durham is a poet and brings that sort of special sensitivity to her consideration of the tales about King Arthur and the Grail Quest. In addition, she has obviously spent a lot of time considering the elements of a whole spiritual life from many different perspectives. She is also fascinated by stories that continue to attract and fascinate over the centuries. What are we looking for in these stories?

In The Return of King Arthur, she combines these perspectives into her reading of the two tales and what they mean for her . . . and what she feels they mean for all of us now.

It's difficult to make close contact with another person's mind. Without a lot of time spent together, one cannot hope to know another's thoughts. Through this book, my mind was opened to many other ways to see and consider the Arthurian stories. From this process, I felt that I came to know Ms. Durham better than I know many people with whom I have spent a lot of time. It was a refreshing experience for she has many interesting things to say about how to lead our lives as individuals and as a community.

The biggest surprise for me was to learn a lot about myself. Having been familiar with these tales from childhood, I had internalized my own sense of what the stories, symbols, metaphors and analogies meant. My own views are quite different from Ms. Durham's and I found myself comparing the two views. My purpose in doing so was much like the way that one might hold up two objects next to the light and compare them . . . as a way of comprehending each one better. I came away with many new insights into my own perspectives. That was a rewarding experience.

In addition, I came away informed about a number of other ways to consider tales like these which will undoubtedly influence my future reading and thinking.

Ms. Durham places her views and direct experiences deep in the background of her interpretations of the tales, yet I found her own testimony to be far more interesting than her interpretations. I would love to learn more about her experiences with the spiritual communities with which she has interacted and lived in over the years. I hope she will consider writing a memoir that focuses in this area.

I was also intrigued to see ways that stories filled with sinners could provide spiritual guidance. I'm sure that we can all find God in more places . . . if we only take the time to look. Thanks to Ms. Durham, my vision has been expanded.

Nice job!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Quest for Wholeness, September 29, 2004

By 

D. S. (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge (Hardcover)

Human beings are all on a quest, consciously or unconsciously. History, mythology, literature, psychology, and numerous other books have been devoted to this relentless pursuit of fulfillment. Diana Durham has written an in-depth account of this search, interweaving careful research with personal and collective experience. The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge dares to challenge the former accounts with the word "finishing," which she attests allows detachment and release from that which is wounded from archetypal and collective memory and allows fulfillment in one's truest divine nature.

Beginning with the renowned story of King Arthur and other characters who manifest and seek the Holy Grail, Ms. Durham explains and interprets the legend in a fascinating manner, providing diagrams, pictures, and symbolic geometric figures to support her exposition. A large portion of the book is devoted to the characteristics of the Wounded Fisher King and the Grail King, the former wreaking death and the latter creating a union between heaven and earth. The analogy is succinctly but potently connected to the history of global and spiritual leaders who usually become one or the other type of King and generate men and women with like form and behavior. The effect of such focus glares through history, the environment, and the evolution of what a true "man" and "woman" are designed to become.

Convincing and inspiring, this book is sure to awaken any alert or not so reflective reader. While the negatively bleak facets are catalogued as well as described, this is anything but a hopeless text. For the author claims to know a different design for humanity and attests to the validity of this plan within her own life as well as those who live the visionary truth taught by a man known as Uranda for over half a century.

The combination of ageless myth and the yearning of men and women for a central identity, one that yields a purposeful and realistically whole life, lies within these pages.

Read the book and begin the completion of your quest!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A permanent place on my bookshelf, January 6, 2007

By 

T. Mikaels - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge (Hardcover)

This book has earned a permanent spot on my bookshelf. (And not just for the cover art--which is worth buying the book for alone.) In my opinion, Ms Durham does a spectacular job decoding the crazy symbolism of those darn convoluted King Arthur myths. But don't read it only if you are a fan of Arthurian legend. Heck, I'm not. Sure, I like a good round table story now and then myself, but after about three chapters of Morte d'Arthur, I was done. This book is nothing like that. You don't need to be an Arthurian legend afficionado to read this or have a degree in English literature. Think of the grail legend as just a symbolic vehicle for a larger truth--one that affects all of us both individually and collectively.
Note: You may or may not like the way Ms. Durham weaves in her own experiences. I found her anecdotes interesting and genuine.
I highly recommend the book to those who enjoy the study of symbolism, to spiritual seekers, to those who feel empty or who have lost heart, and to those who want to create a better life for themselves individually, and a better world collectively.