Katisha-which parts and what issues?
I liked The Mists of Avalon (the book–the movie was so-so)… I know it was not the same as the other stories, but the way it was told, it almost seemed like “this is the way it really happened, and I can see how the legends built off of this”
Monty Python’s take was also wonderful.
The Lady of Shalot. Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Despite the fact that it contains the worst line in English poetry.
(A cookie to the Doper who can quote it)
Is it from this stanza?
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His cola-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flshed into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra Lirra” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
But the next stanza has “the mirror crack’d” line, so it’s all good anyway.
There was a thread a while back (can’t find it–lost in the mists of the dark times, perhaps) that did a bunch of excellent puns on someone’s mispelling of “Shallot.” (To be fair, many versions have different spellings.) It was all about leeks and onions and chives and parsley and sage and stuff. It was quite pungent.
I love Once and Future King. I especially like the stories where Wart (Arthur) is educated in the ways of humans by being turned into animals by Merlin. I remember the one about the old Hawk who has the compulsion to attack (I always thought it worked on a sexual predator level too) as being spot on and very spooky. I’m a sucker for coming of age stories.
What appeals to me most is that we get great, interesting, characters we can admire, but with imperfections: yes, we need heroes and leaders, but if they’re not flawed, they’re not human–this is a big pet peeve for me–heroes who are too perfect to be believable. (Even Merlin, hardly human at all, gets warts, and serious ones.) When I was younger, I could only focus on how Lancelot and Gunevere betrayed Arthur–now it seems like a very realistic understanding of how things sometimes happen.
T.H. White’s Once and Future King, The Sword in the Stone (the book differs from the first section of TOAFK significantly), and The Book of Merlin
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best of the origional Arthur stories I like. Don’t read Tolkien’s translation of it, though. He uncharacteristically sucks the life out. Get the Penguin edition.
Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court stands much of this on its head. Most people don’t seem to realize that Twain is poking as much fun at the Yankee as at the court of King Arthur.
I’ve recommended John Steinbeck’s book on several SDMB threads. Glad to see someone else is, too.
I find Mallory pretty rough going. Wace and Layamon and Chretien de Troyes. But Geoffrey of Monmouth is a pretty good read.
Thomas Berger’s Arthur Rex is a hoot.
Humble servant: That ain’t it.
If we are mentioning more than one (which I loathe when asked WHICH is your favoriie) I must include the movide Excalibur. All that with Wagner and Carl Orff.
IMHO, Whyte’s Camulod Chronicles is the best take on Arthur. As Capese said, it presents the story as it may have happened in real life. It starts three generations back from Arthur’s birth, with his great-grandfathers and the imminent withdrawal of the Legions from Britain.
It takes out the magic, while explaining all of the important points (Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, The Sword in the Stone, Sir (H)Ector and Kay) in perfectly mundane and believable ways.
Excellent batle scenes, as well.
The only down side is that it ruined Merlyn for me. I can’t accept his wizardry as much as I used to.
Still, it’s one hell of a read; Whyte is one of the best descriptive writers I’ve read, and I recommend the series wholeheartedly. But I agree about the series seeming to “bog down” a bit; though I think it was only in the last book.
The Skystone
The Singing Sword
The Eagle’s Brood
The Saxon Shore
The Fort at River’s Bend
The Sorcerer (Metamorphosis)
Uther
*
If you can get over the evangelical aspect to them, the Pendragon Cycle by Stephen Lawhead was also done really well. What I especially liked about the series was the Celtic look and feel. I also loved Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur but I have often been annoyed at the Norman feel to that book, given that Arthur was Celtic, or somesuch and fought against the Angles and Saxons.
My favourite character in D’Arthur has to be Sir Tristram. He kicks ass.
Not really Arthurian, but yoinking Merlin and many of the themes are Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence. It’s a pretty good children’s series.
But I, unlike others here, actually like the Chretien de Troyes’ versions. I was introduced to them through Bulfinch’s Mythology.
[minor hijack] The story of Tristan and Isolde (Ysuelt, Ysold, Isuelt, you know, * her*) is still my favorite medeval romance. [/minor hijack]
The Lady of Shalot is my all time favorite poem-I once memorized the entire thing for my public speaking course back at community college.
(Psst-I spelled it Shallot)
Tristan and Isolde is technically part of the Arthurian series-even though it’s older than the legends of Arthur.
I had to guess at the number of lls.
I just realized that my Idylls of the King was in the fire, dammit.
So, what’s the “universally agreed worse line in English poetry” as Fr. Deboiser taught us in high school?
Howard Pyle’s Arthurian tales are my favorite .http://camelot.celtic-twilight.com/pyle_ka/ka_index.htm
The very best is this: Chapter Third. How King Arthur Overcame the Knight-Enchanter, and How Sir Gawaine Manifested the High Nobility of His Knighthood
Perceival and the Magic Codpiece
I’ve managed to avoid all the typical Arthurian bits and have instead read the previously mentioned Mists of Avalon (my strangestrange introduction to Arthur et al.), Persia Wooley’s trilogy and Bernard Cornwell’s trilogy.
I have to say, having no attachment to the original stories, Mists is still my favorite, with the final Cornwell book, Excalibur coming in second. Eventually, I’d like to get around to the Crystal Cave books (I believe that’s Mary Stewart’s series?) and some others.
Bernard Cornwell?
As in Sharpe?
Deepak Chopra’s * Return of Merlin* was pretty good.
Yeah, yeah, and I enjoyed playing on the “Merlin” hand-held electronic game 20 years ago. That doesn’t make it Arthurian.
Guy Gavriel Kay neatly wove a modern take on the Arthurian legends into his trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry.
Catherine Christian’s The Pendragon was a good historical fiction treatment (rather than a myth/legend/fantasy) of the Arthurian story from Bedivere’s perspective.
I, too, am partial to the character of the Lady of Shalott [sic].
carnivorousplant:
Too oft we talk of Arthur’s glory
How long ought we retell his story?
His candle guttered, his end was gory
For this ennui I am not sorry
I care not for Camelot
You raised a challenge to poetic sense
Yet offer us no recompense.
Please don’t leave us in suspense:
Tell which verse dismiss you thence
“The Lady of Shalott”?
Disclaimer: I’d forgotten how good Tennyson is:
From Ulysses:“To rust unburnished, not to shine in use.”
“…drunk delight of battle with my peers, far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.”
No, it’s not “Tirra Lirra,” by the river sang Sir Lancelot, it is:
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the River winding clearly, down to tower’d Camelot.
Yep. It’s a trilogy, written from the perspective of Derfel, a soldier in Arthur’s army. It has a could have happened feel to it. I liked it a lot 