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juliahersum 's review for:
The Mists of Avalon
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
I started this book and soon read about MZB's horrible treatment of her children. This changed the light and meaning of a lot of this book for me, and I questioned if I should even read it with how sickening her daughter's accounts are. I still think about this and am uncertain, but I am glad that this book was able to pioneer the way for more feminist lit, and tried to appreciate it as a story.
This book was completely unique to anything I have read before, it spanned several decades and generations, focusing on the women behind the legend of King Arthur. Literally, the women at the start of the story have died of old age my halfway through. I don't think the book needed to be quite as long as it is, a lot of the ideas and internal struggles of the characters were repeated over and over again, though that probably is more realistic. This book did not follow a classic plot line, it simply told the story of how events unfolded through the eyes of several women. The history and religion was incredibly well researched and I felt like I was there and had a much greater understanding of the time period and how Paganism and Christianity were seen and practiced at the time. The moral questions this book discusses were excellent and interesting to read and think about, though there was no satisfying resolution and the reader is left wondering, like Morgaine, if the decisions they made were truly influenced by God/The Goddess or if their beliefs were simply an excuse to justify their selfish means for ends that didn't seem to work out for anyone in the end. That too is also probably more realistic than a traditional story.
I probably would have rated four stars if not for the knowledge of MZB's life.
This book was completely unique to anything I have read before, it spanned several decades and generations, focusing on the women behind the legend of King Arthur. Literally, the women at the start of the story have died of old age my halfway through. I don't think the book needed to be quite as long as it is, a lot of the ideas and internal struggles of the characters were repeated over and over again, though that probably is more realistic. This book did not follow a classic plot line, it simply told the story of how events unfolded through the eyes of several women. The history and religion was incredibly well researched and I felt like I was there and had a much greater understanding of the time period and how Paganism and Christianity were seen and practiced at the time. The moral questions this book discusses were excellent and interesting to read and think about, though there was no satisfying resolution and the reader is left wondering, like Morgaine, if the decisions they made were truly influenced by God/The Goddess or if their beliefs were simply an excuse to justify their selfish means for ends that didn't seem to work out for anyone in the end. That too is also probably more realistic than a traditional story.
I probably would have rated four stars if not for the knowledge of MZB's life.