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lgrunwald 's review for:
The Winter King
by Bernard Cornwell
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5/5
Bernard Cornwells "The Winter King" so far has to the the most unique take on the Arthurian mythos I've ever read. It's almost taking a Nennius or a Geoffrey of Monmouth approach and making Arthur and his take a historical story set in the background of the late 400s AD during the Saxon invasions of Britain. Rather than a Prince of Camelot with a magic sword and a wizard companion here we see a rugged young warlord who is the illegitimate child of the now deceased high king Uther Pendragon having to fight gory and bloody battles on the behalf of the new young child king Mordred. It takes the whole Arthur legend on turns it on its head giving it a realistic edge that's fascinating to watch. All the while I was reading I felt like I had found an old manuscript lost to time and was reading about the rise in power of a famous figure I had heard about a thousand times before without all the magical and religious propoganda fluffing it up through a unique perspective.
That unique perspective, of course, being our narrator Derfel Cadarn. Who is retrospectively telling us Arthurs story later in his elderly years as a monk living his life in a monastery. At first, I was a little confused and put off by the idea of having this absolutely random person be out perspective into the world of Arthur the Warlord but now I get it. Not only is Derfel a full fledged character with his own backstory and persona and is himself fascinating to follow but, because he is unknown, it makes it easier for the audience to feel as though we are also watching history happen and can relate to Derfels awe in it all. Through his eyes we understand the conflict, the world, the personalities of our famous figures we know and love and once again it gives us the sense that we are seeing the real Arthur, the real Galahad, the real Guinevere, etc. Without all the propoganda.
I will have to say though as much as I absolutely really enjoyed my time with this book (I'm giving it a 4.5 after all! I really loved it!) I can't help but miss the magical and fantastical elements of the more popular Arthurian stories like TH White's "Once and Future King" which is, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece of a story. I love Cornwells take but I think this is going to take some getting used to on my behalf. This is a me problem and not a fault on Cornwell at all. It's just not what I'm used to but I can't wait to dive into th next two novels to see if I can finally wrap my head around it a bit better. I honestly don't think it will be much of an issue the more time I spend with these characters. These are just my initial thoughts after only reading this first book. Im a massive historical fiction fan and I think taking Arthur (who has always had a place in the more fantasy side of my reading) and putting him in a realistic historical setting is just taking a while for my brain to adjust to.
One thing I will put a slight blame on Cornwell for though is the treatment of his female characters. I'm not going to get preachy about this because, let's face it, women were treated like s*** back in the day. There is no doubt about that. Sexual assault happened, abuse happened, being treated like property happened. I get it and I won't put any blame on any historical writer for putting these horrible things women had to endure in their novels. It's absolutely realistic and we need to see these things sometimes and witness what these women went through to understand the history of women in the world, how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go. Yet, I still was slightly annoyed with Cornwell of the amount of times women were sexually assaulted in this book. There were, I'm not joking, four female characters that were assaulted in the first few chapters. Later chapters the amount of times sexual assault was threatened or mentioned was kind of insane. These were not described, not extremely graphic, thank goodness but still I thought it was a bit of an overkill of this topic. I'm not new to the historical fiction genre in the slightest so sexual assault just comes with the territory but these just seemed a bit too much too many times. There are so many other ways to make your point about female oppression and suffering in these eras where not every single female character has to be assaulted. Sometimes it makes sense for example with Nimues character and her three wounds. That assault, while horrible, made complete sense to the story, was accurate to history and the story Cornwell was trying to make and helped further Nimues character development. One that didn't work was King Gundleus wife when taken captive by Owain upon her husbands defeat by Arthur. That could have been prevented and was insane and gross. As I said earlier, I don't want to get too preachy about all this as I don't want to come off as I'm doing some moral grandstanding on the behalf of all women who may not even share my opinion or have men think I'm bashing them when I'm absolutely not. I just think not taking away the subject of sexual assault but toning it down slightly would do books like this a world of good. Historical fiction authors need to come up with better darker outcomes for their female characters than assault. It's not creative and just comes off a bit...creepy sometimes deeping on how deeply the author focuses on it. Although, I will add to Cornwells credit, he really did make some fascinating and bada** female characters. The very ending with Nimue and Gundleus...was an absolute chefs kiss moment. I actually said "Ha! Finally!" out loud. No spoilers obviously. Haha.
Whew! Now that I can put my preachy stick in the mud rant away and exclaim how absolutely excited I am to get to the next two books. On the cover of my particular novel it has a quote from Cornwell stating that "Of all the books I have written these are my favourites." And it really does show. You can tell he had a great time with this story and put a lot of research and painstaking detail into it and it truely paid off. Next..."Enemy Of G-d" here I come!
Bernard Cornwells "The Winter King" so far has to the the most unique take on the Arthurian mythos I've ever read. It's almost taking a Nennius or a Geoffrey of Monmouth approach and making Arthur and his take a historical story set in the background of the late 400s AD during the Saxon invasions of Britain. Rather than a Prince of Camelot with a magic sword and a wizard companion here we see a rugged young warlord who is the illegitimate child of the now deceased high king Uther Pendragon having to fight gory and bloody battles on the behalf of the new young child king Mordred. It takes the whole Arthur legend on turns it on its head giving it a realistic edge that's fascinating to watch. All the while I was reading I felt like I had found an old manuscript lost to time and was reading about the rise in power of a famous figure I had heard about a thousand times before without all the magical and religious propoganda fluffing it up through a unique perspective.
That unique perspective, of course, being our narrator Derfel Cadarn. Who is retrospectively telling us Arthurs story later in his elderly years as a monk living his life in a monastery. At first, I was a little confused and put off by the idea of having this absolutely random person be out perspective into the world of Arthur the Warlord but now I get it. Not only is Derfel a full fledged character with his own backstory and persona and is himself fascinating to follow but, because he is unknown, it makes it easier for the audience to feel as though we are also watching history happen and can relate to Derfels awe in it all. Through his eyes we understand the conflict, the world, the personalities of our famous figures we know and love and once again it gives us the sense that we are seeing the real Arthur, the real Galahad, the real Guinevere, etc. Without all the propoganda.
I will have to say though as much as I absolutely really enjoyed my time with this book (I'm giving it a 4.5 after all! I really loved it!) I can't help but miss the magical and fantastical elements of the more popular Arthurian stories like TH White's "Once and Future King" which is, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece of a story. I love Cornwells take but I think this is going to take some getting used to on my behalf. This is a me problem and not a fault on Cornwell at all. It's just not what I'm used to but I can't wait to dive into th next two novels to see if I can finally wrap my head around it a bit better. I honestly don't think it will be much of an issue the more time I spend with these characters. These are just my initial thoughts after only reading this first book. Im a massive historical fiction fan and I think taking Arthur (who has always had a place in the more fantasy side of my reading) and putting him in a realistic historical setting is just taking a while for my brain to adjust to.
One thing I will put a slight blame on Cornwell for though is the treatment of his female characters. I'm not going to get preachy about this because, let's face it, women were treated like s*** back in the day. There is no doubt about that. Sexual assault happened, abuse happened, being treated like property happened. I get it and I won't put any blame on any historical writer for putting these horrible things women had to endure in their novels. It's absolutely realistic and we need to see these things sometimes and witness what these women went through to understand the history of women in the world, how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go. Yet, I still was slightly annoyed with Cornwell of the amount of times women were sexually assaulted in this book. There were, I'm not joking, four female characters that were assaulted in the first few chapters. Later chapters the amount of times sexual assault was threatened or mentioned was kind of insane. These were not described, not extremely graphic, thank goodness but still I thought it was a bit of an overkill of this topic. I'm not new to the historical fiction genre in the slightest so sexual assault just comes with the territory but these just seemed a bit too much too many times. There are so many other ways to make your point about female oppression and suffering in these eras where not every single female character has to be assaulted. Sometimes it makes sense for example with Nimues character and her three wounds. That assault, while horrible, made complete sense to the story, was accurate to history and the story Cornwell was trying to make and helped further Nimues character development. One that didn't work was King Gundleus wife when taken captive by Owain upon her husbands defeat by Arthur. That could have been prevented and was insane and gross. As I said earlier, I don't want to get too preachy about all this as I don't want to come off as I'm doing some moral grandstanding on the behalf of all women who may not even share my opinion or have men think I'm bashing them when I'm absolutely not. I just think not taking away the subject of sexual assault but toning it down slightly would do books like this a world of good. Historical fiction authors need to come up with better darker outcomes for their female characters than assault. It's not creative and just comes off a bit...creepy sometimes deeping on how deeply the author focuses on it. Although, I will add to Cornwells credit, he really did make some fascinating and bada** female characters. The very ending with Nimue and Gundleus...was an absolute chefs kiss moment. I actually said "Ha! Finally!" out loud. No spoilers obviously. Haha.
Whew! Now that I can put my preachy stick in the mud rant away and exclaim how absolutely excited I am to get to the next two books. On the cover of my particular novel it has a quote from Cornwell stating that "Of all the books I have written these are my favourites." And it really does show. You can tell he had a great time with this story and put a lot of research and painstaking detail into it and it truely paid off. Next..."Enemy Of G-d" here I come!