Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This... is gonna take a little time.
[Much later]
There are two things I want to lay out upfront.
The first is nostalgia. My dad came across this book when I was 13, saw that it was described as telling King Arthur’s story from the women’s point of view, and bought it for me. We had read Arthurian legends together (as we had so many things), and it seemed perfect. I think it was summer, or almost summer, and I dove right in.
I adored it. I was fascinated by pre-Christian cultures, by legends, by magic and fantasy. I was shocked by it sometimes, too (I was a very young 13), but I was all in. In a minute I’m going to tell you all the ways this book hasn’t held up for me, but at 13, this was a Big Deal book. I never re-read it all the way through until now, but I dipped into it from time to time throughout my teens, dragged it with me to college, and generally considered it one of my favorite books.
But the shine started to wear off over time. And then of course it took a big hit when I read about the aspects of Bradley’s personal life that have come to light - child abuse and covering up for her husband’s pedophilia. Problematic fave does not begin to cover it.
I had been thinking for years that it would be interesting to re-read this in full, and that revelation gave it another dimension. If, in fact, this book was so influential for me, what poison might it have dripped in my ear that I wasn’t aware of as a teenager? What might I have left unexamined that really should be picked apart?
So that’s Thing One.
Thing Two is religion. I spent ages 9-18 in a conservative small town in the southern U.S. - the kind of place where everyone assumes that everyone else is Christian. I also grew up in a thoroughly secular household and acquired a massive chip on my shoulder about Christianity. To me, Bible stories didn’t seem any different from Greek myths, or any other legends or folklore from around the world (and they weren’t even the fun kind with talking animals or dysfunctional family pantheons). Yet enough people around me professed to take them seriously - even literally - that my knee-jerk response became to discount any and all forms of Christianity as utter nonsense.
I have a more nuanced view these days, but it took a long time, and it’s something I still actively try to work on.
So in the struggle between Avalon and Christ, my teenage self had a huge bias and exactly no patience with characters who chose to convert. Even less for Gwen’s crusade to make Arthur a Christian ruler of a Christian kingdom.
I suspect one reason I latched on to the book as solidly as I did is that, especially at the very beginning, it felt like the book agreed with me. Igraine has no use for the priest at Tintagel - and throughout the book, many of the the priests seem one-dimensional and either stupid or sinister. Easy to write off. And in contrast, Viviane is regal, clever and powerful. Zero contest.
So that’s the baggage I bring to this book.
Reading it now, twenty years later, I find the whole thing largely depressing. The grand plan for a golden age begins to fall apart even before it’s been fully set in motion. And though most characters have bright spots from time to time, no one ever gets what they most desire. Igraine and Uther are possibly the exception, but not for long - and anyway as soon as it happens, we immediately switch away from Igraine’s point of view to Morgaine, who is miserable.
And on a second read, I knew what I didn’t have to look forward to. You don’t see much of how one trains to be a priestess (I’m a sucker for school stories, remember). Romances fizzle and falter. You never get much sense of the grandeur of Camelot. Morgaine takes a Really. Long. Frikking. Time to get back to Avalon.
The second thing that bothered me a lot this time - and which I don’t remember noticing at all as a teenager - is how few real female friendships we see. Most of the relationships we see between women are catty and manipulative. Gwen, Morgaine, Morgause, Igraine - no matter whose head we’re in, we constantly hear her nastiest thoughts about the others, even as she professes to love them or worry over them. And while most of them women are surrounded by other women most of the time - ladies in waiting, fellow priestess - they’re never treated as anything more than background color. Often the point-of-view character will be openly dismissive of them - no one else is as clever or as competent. (Can we say “internalized misogyny,” class? And let me tell you, judgemental teenage me was a pro at that, too.)
I think the chief example of a supportive friendship between two women is Morgaine and Raven… that’s right, Raven who has taken a vow of silence. Especially right now, in this moment of #MeToo and Women’s Marches, this feels like a big, gaping hole. Nobody in this book seems to have a real confidante, a friend who truly has her back, a posse who will circle the wagons in times of trouble. Perhaps it’s no wonder there’s so much unhappiness and so many bad decisions. Those in power use even their nearest and dearest as pawns in their political schemes.
So what’s the result when the women get to tell the story? Everyone’s unhappy and fails at what they value most. Great.
There are too many better fantasy books by and about powerful women to recommend this one anymore. I suspect this one will always live somewhere on my shelves (see above re: nostalgia), but I wouldn’t choose to hand it on.
[Much later]
There are two things I want to lay out upfront.
The first is nostalgia. My dad came across this book when I was 13, saw that it was described as telling King Arthur’s story from the women’s point of view, and bought it for me. We had read Arthurian legends together (as we had so many things), and it seemed perfect. I think it was summer, or almost summer, and I dove right in.
I adored it. I was fascinated by pre-Christian cultures, by legends, by magic and fantasy. I was shocked by it sometimes, too (I was a very young 13), but I was all in. In a minute I’m going to tell you all the ways this book hasn’t held up for me, but at 13, this was a Big Deal book. I never re-read it all the way through until now, but I dipped into it from time to time throughout my teens, dragged it with me to college, and generally considered it one of my favorite books.
But the shine started to wear off over time. And then of course it took a big hit when I read about the aspects of Bradley’s personal life that have come to light - child abuse and covering up for her husband’s pedophilia. Problematic fave does not begin to cover it.
I had been thinking for years that it would be interesting to re-read this in full, and that revelation gave it another dimension. If, in fact, this book was so influential for me, what poison might it have dripped in my ear that I wasn’t aware of as a teenager? What might I have left unexamined that really should be picked apart?
So that’s Thing One.
Thing Two is religion. I spent ages 9-18 in a conservative small town in the southern U.S. - the kind of place where everyone assumes that everyone else is Christian. I also grew up in a thoroughly secular household and acquired a massive chip on my shoulder about Christianity. To me, Bible stories didn’t seem any different from Greek myths, or any other legends or folklore from around the world (and they weren’t even the fun kind with talking animals or dysfunctional family pantheons). Yet enough people around me professed to take them seriously - even literally - that my knee-jerk response became to discount any and all forms of Christianity as utter nonsense.
I have a more nuanced view these days, but it took a long time, and it’s something I still actively try to work on.
So in the struggle between Avalon and Christ, my teenage self had a huge bias and exactly no patience with characters who chose to convert. Even less for Gwen’s crusade to make Arthur a Christian ruler of a Christian kingdom.
I suspect one reason I latched on to the book as solidly as I did is that, especially at the very beginning, it felt like the book agreed with me. Igraine has no use for the priest at Tintagel - and throughout the book, many of the the priests seem one-dimensional and either stupid or sinister. Easy to write off. And in contrast, Viviane is regal, clever and powerful. Zero contest.
So that’s the baggage I bring to this book.
Reading it now, twenty years later, I find the whole thing largely depressing. The grand plan for a golden age begins to fall apart even before it’s been fully set in motion. And though most characters have bright spots from time to time, no one ever gets what they most desire. Igraine and Uther are possibly the exception, but not for long - and anyway as soon as it happens, we immediately switch away from Igraine’s point of view to Morgaine, who is miserable.
And on a second read, I knew what I didn’t have to look forward to. You don’t see much of how one trains to be a priestess (I’m a sucker for school stories, remember). Romances fizzle and falter. You never get much sense of the grandeur of Camelot. Morgaine takes a Really. Long. Frikking. Time to get back to Avalon.
The second thing that bothered me a lot this time - and which I don’t remember noticing at all as a teenager - is how few real female friendships we see. Most of the relationships we see between women are catty and manipulative. Gwen, Morgaine, Morgause, Igraine - no matter whose head we’re in, we constantly hear her nastiest thoughts about the others, even as she professes to love them or worry over them. And while most of them women are surrounded by other women most of the time - ladies in waiting, fellow priestess - they’re never treated as anything more than background color. Often the point-of-view character will be openly dismissive of them - no one else is as clever or as competent. (Can we say “internalized misogyny,” class? And let me tell you, judgemental teenage me was a pro at that, too.)
I think the chief example of a supportive friendship between two women is Morgaine and Raven… that’s right, Raven who has taken a vow of silence. Especially right now, in this moment of #MeToo and Women’s Marches, this feels like a big, gaping hole. Nobody in this book seems to have a real confidante, a friend who truly has her back, a posse who will circle the wagons in times of trouble. Perhaps it’s no wonder there’s so much unhappiness and so many bad decisions. Those in power use even their nearest and dearest as pawns in their political schemes.
So what’s the result when the women get to tell the story? Everyone’s unhappy and fails at what they value most. Great.
There are too many better fantasy books by and about powerful women to recommend this one anymore. I suspect this one will always live somewhere on my shelves (see above re: nostalgia), but I wouldn’t choose to hand it on.
It's very hard for me to think of this book, knowing what we now know of her daughter Moira Greyland's charge that Bradley and her husband, Walter Breen, sexually abused boys and girls for years. (Breen died in prison after being convicted of child molestation.) The book is a powerful, imaginative, feminist re-telling of the Arthurian legends, this time focused on Morgaine le Fey. Bradley's story opened a portal into comprehending how the lens through which we view a work can utterly change our view of it. But it has become impossible to reconcile her fine fiction with her personal crimes.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I didn't know at all what the story was about, just that this saga is a classic and multiple people recommended it to me. I was really suprised about the main focus of the whole story - different religions and beliefs- and having some wizardry to the mix just captivated me more. Following generation after generation was really interesting and the whole war between religions it's a timeless topic. The only downfall for me is that the characters' ideals are always being brought up the same way, becoming a bit repetitive throughout the story (if it wasn't for that I would have given 5 stars to it!)
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Dark, fantastical, and deeply female. The novel itself remains a longtime favorite that is dear to my heart, but unfortunately, its powerful themes have been forever undercut by Bradley's legacy of abuse.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, War
Moderate: Incest, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry
Though not without problems, Bradley has successfully reworked the Arthurian legend.