Customer Reviews

Sir Thomas Malory's Tales of King Arthur

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

 

 

In the introduction to this book, Mr. Senior states (rather proudly I might add) that he has so very professionally hacked away 2 thirds( aw, just a few sentences..) of the entire story. He claims that much of it was needless details (such as descriptions of battles, ect.) but rambles on to announce that he has cleanly ripped away a few other side plots not necessary to to the well-being of the whole (as he sees it); any of the adventures of Sir Gareth, you won't find here. Other knights seem to drop into the story, and while all of the characters in the tale will appear to know who they are, you are left in the dark, because they happened to be on the editor's 'bad list' and their earlier excursions were deleted.
But then Mr. Senior finishes with this; that we must "not bewail these losses" (after all, he knows what he's doing). I suppose 2 thirds of Sir Thomas Malory's work was in vain.

I was looking for a quick-to-read compilation of the key Arthurian tales, and I found it here, so I wasn't as bothered by the previous reviewer by the cutting away of so much of Malory's original text (the cover does warn that the book is abridged). The author struck a compromise between rewriting the original archaic English (the Steinbeck solution, unfinished, alas) and leaving it alone by cleaning it up a bit while including some of the original terms, with translations in the margins ("skift": rid). As the intro mentions, the book isn't a scholarly excursion, it's a retelling of the old great tales.

At first I was going to rate this book a 4 because many of the illustrations are too small to see in any detail. The color plates work well--they are reproductions of medieval images that really give color to the stories around them--but the black-and-whites in the margins are so tiny that even the captions don't help you see what's going on in them. They should have been redone or omitted altogether. And then I opened the book to the very first page, and when I saw a tiny color plate of Arthur's crowning looking so blurred and even misaligned, I thought: this crappy cut and paste just won't do. So I gave it a 3 instead.

I'd like to see the book reissued with better artwork. The reading is easy and enjoyable.