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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Believed to be not a perfectly historically accurate tale of Arthur and histories, but it is a beautiful and integral part of Arthurian literature.
*3.5*
to be fair, any book about king arthur and merlin comes with a head-start with me in terms of rating. i just know that, despite the type of book, a part of me is going to like it. and, even though this is no [b:The Once and Future King|43545|The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King #1-4)|T.H. White|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338741283s/43545.jpg|1140206], i can't really complain much about what it presents. i could talk about its literary value, of course, but (being perfectly honest) most of the fun came from comparing the details about the story to the bbc series' version of the myth. also, there were dragon eggs and that's always a plus in my books. how about we pretend i was paying attention to other details as much as we could also pretend i read this in celebration to the show's tenth aniversary since it premiered.
this book is a strange project. as if the author couldn't really make up his mind towards the actual purpose behind his work.
most of the time, it does come across as a "serious" compendium of british "history," trying to present a more grounded version of the typical legends getting romanticised anywhere else. like [b:Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table|672875|Le Morte d'Arthur King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table|Thomas Malory|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1309288301s/672875.jpg|1361856]'s gritty reboot, if you will. the listing of names is dry enough to convince you of that idea on its own.
yet, at other times, it was almost as if it couldn't help himself from adding some small dashes of magical and supernatural elements. merlin could have perfectly been some wise old man counselling uther from time to time, no need to present him as a half-incubus, visionary-mad-man. also, like i said, literal dragon eggs beign unearthed like it was no big deal.
i wish i could say this book achieves a perfect balance between both elements, but then i would be lying. however, this doesn't mean this was a bad book. or a boring one. sure, the ending felt a bit too long in my taste but, to be fair, my attention span did begin to wander once arthur was out of the picture. i would say everything up until the moment arthur's out of the story was just solid entertainment. i suppose 80% of the credit goes to the translator; if it weren't for the funny names and slightly off syntax, you wouldn't notice you're reading a twelfth-century book. disregarding the ending (which was slightly disappointing), the story's pacing and easy-to-follow-narrative was quite the pleasant surprise. better than [b:The Canterbury Tales|2696|The Canterbury Tales|Geoffrey Chaucer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1261208589s/2696.jpg|986234] if you asked me, anyway.
also, much more queer kings that i was expecting.
to be fair, any book about king arthur and merlin comes with a head-start with me in terms of rating. i just know that, despite the type of book, a part of me is going to like it. and, even though this is no [b:The Once and Future King|43545|The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King #1-4)|T.H. White|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338741283s/43545.jpg|1140206], i can't really complain much about what it presents. i could talk about its literary value, of course, but (being perfectly honest) most of the fun came from comparing the details about the story to the bbc series' version of the myth. also, there were dragon eggs and that's always a plus in my books. how about we pretend i was paying attention to other details as much as we could also pretend i read this in celebration to the show's tenth aniversary since it premiered.
this book is a strange project. as if the author couldn't really make up his mind towards the actual purpose behind his work.
most of the time, it does come across as a "serious" compendium of british "history," trying to present a more grounded version of the typical legends getting romanticised anywhere else. like [b:Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table|672875|Le Morte d'Arthur King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table|Thomas Malory|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1309288301s/672875.jpg|1361856]'s gritty reboot, if you will. the listing of names is dry enough to convince you of that idea on its own.
yet, at other times, it was almost as if it couldn't help himself from adding some small dashes of magical and supernatural elements. merlin could have perfectly been some wise old man counselling uther from time to time, no need to present him as a half-incubus, visionary-mad-man. also, like i said, literal dragon eggs beign unearthed like it was no big deal.
i wish i could say this book achieves a perfect balance between both elements, but then i would be lying. however, this doesn't mean this was a bad book. or a boring one. sure, the ending felt a bit too long in my taste but, to be fair, my attention span did begin to wander once arthur was out of the picture. i would say everything up until the moment arthur's out of the story was just solid entertainment. i suppose 80% of the credit goes to the translator; if it weren't for the funny names and slightly off syntax, you wouldn't notice you're reading a twelfth-century book. disregarding the ending (which was slightly disappointing), the story's pacing and easy-to-follow-narrative was quite the pleasant surprise. better than [b:The Canterbury Tales|2696|The Canterbury Tales|Geoffrey Chaucer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1261208589s/2696.jpg|986234] if you asked me, anyway.
also, much more queer kings that i was expecting.
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
A charming book, full of stories, many of them entertaining. Geoffrey’s used sources, some written, some oral, but this is obviously fiction. Difficult to categorise, but I suppose it’s a kind of historical prose romance. Why on earth would anybody think this was true? Well, some people will believe anything, but I think there’s something else going on. I noticed that he uses a narrative technique common in the Old Testament where you have a continuous high-level narrative which periodically zooms in to tell certain stories in more detail. He wrote it in Latin, as was their Bible. There’s a prophetic section that uses apocalyptic imagery. I think that Geoffrey, the clever boy, has done a mock-up using the same format in which people were accustomed to receive truth.
That might not work today, but I did find myself wanting certain stories to actually be true.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Genocide, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
Well this book was a real trip. Geoffrey really needs to brush up on his history - because literally everything was wrong. Besides the fact that yes the Romans ruled over Britain for a very long time and Penda was a person who existed and died by the River Wuneud. It was an interesting read though, the major player was Arthur and it's fascinating to me how the legend of Arthur persists so fiercely throughout British history. There is barely any proof that he existed except in the annals of history. Anyway, I'm glad I read it as I enjoy Arthurian lit in all its forms and you can see some of the classic Arthurian tropes: betrayal of Mordred, Kay his Seneschal, peace to his kingdoms. It did take me a while to read it, as it drags. Geoffrey does add his flourishes and even his own narrative voice at times which was unexpected but enjoyed.
I'm shelving this one under 'nonfiction' and 'history' since that was the intent of the writer at the time of its writing. And it was considered as such by his contemporaries. Of course, it's more fiction than fact.
I admit to getting very excited when I finally got to the Arthur section. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to read about some of the characters that inspired Shakespeare and to recognize Geoffrey's heavy borrowing from Nennius's founding myth of Britain. I still want to read Gildas and Bede, but I'll leave them for some other time while I read more Arthuriana.
I admit to getting very excited when I finally got to the Arthur section. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to read about some of the characters that inspired Shakespeare and to recognize Geoffrey's heavy borrowing from Nennius's founding myth of Britain. I still want to read Gildas and Bede, but I'll leave them for some other time while I read more Arthuriana.
informative
slow-paced
Do you ever get the urge to travel back in time and hit an author over the head with their own book? That's what this one makes me feel.
Now, I know the writing style and general outlook on everything was different 900 years ago, but damn did I find this dull a lot of the time. Every once in a while, Geoffrey writes a sentence that is quite poetic and nice and fills me with wonder, and then he turns around and writes paragraphs upon paragraphs of meticulous description of battles and which person was king of what area and how they were killed and who there successors were etc. which makes me want to pull out my hair from sheer boredom. Despite what he claims, Geoffrey CAN write, it just seems that this skill seems to elude him a lot of the time.
An interesting read if you find the pseudo-historical writing of medieval monks to be thrilling, not so much if you want actual character interaction or really anything other than battles upon battles with the occasional political event, a bit of arthurian legend and a very small amount of societal critique hidden beneath *gestures vaguely* everything else.
I can see where others might find this interesting, but it was just not for me.
Now, I know the writing style and general outlook on everything was different 900 years ago, but damn did I find this dull a lot of the time. Every once in a while, Geoffrey writes a sentence that is quite poetic and nice and fills me with wonder, and then he turns around and writes paragraphs upon paragraphs of meticulous description of battles and which person was king of what area and how they were killed and who there successors were etc. which makes me want to pull out my hair from sheer boredom. Despite what he claims, Geoffrey CAN write, it just seems that this skill seems to elude him a lot of the time.
An interesting read if you find the pseudo-historical writing of medieval monks to be thrilling, not so much if you want actual character interaction or really anything other than battles upon battles with the occasional political event, a bit of arthurian legend and a very small amount of societal critique hidden beneath *gestures vaguely* everything else.
I can see where others might find this interesting, but it was just not for me.
The translation I read, by Sebastian Evans, was downright hellishly abstruse. I have grown accustomed to reading Middle English works, but this was different. Word order, word choice, and ambiguities make this a very unpleasant read even for somebody who takes pleasure in archaisms and prolixity.