Customer Reviews

The Grail of Hearts

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even though this book is out of print, I cannot let the Kirkus review given here at Amazon.com stand unchallenged. I can only assume that reviewer never read the actual book but only the cover copy. Rather than some vapid retelling of an old story, Shwartz's version of the Grail King is a deeply felt and powerful feminist revision of this set of legends. What's more, by emphazing Kundry's Jewishness, she brings an outsider's perspective to the story that wipes away some centuries of vapid Christian sentimentality to revitalize the material.

Her prose is supple, and her knowledge of the medieval period in general and Holy Land in particular are faultless. In general, this is a highly literate and intelligent book that deserved much better treatment than it's received at the hands of reviewers who are neither.

to finish reading this book! I was totally psyched to read it, because I thought it was such an interesting perspective on the Arthurian legends, but it turned out to be vague and boring. the only current I could even remotely follow was the romance-novelish style of writing, which didn't appeal to me in the least.

I know that his book has not received rave reviews, even amongst Arthurian readers, however, I found it to provide a very good understanding of the Parsifal legend. After reading Richard Monaco's books and trying to understand the older texts, I had pretty much written off ever getting into Parsifal, Kundry and Klingsor, but Ms. Shwartz's book was a fresh re-telling and in my opinion it is one of the must reads of Arthurian literature