Going Into the Mists of Avalon.

I’ve been a big fan of the Arthurian story – both the Romantic tradition and the quest for an historical basis – most of my life. It seems odd that I should have got this far without even having been aware of The Mists of Avalon, let alone having read it. But now, on the recommendation of somebody I greatly respect, I’m putting that omission to rights.

 

I’m only a little way into it at the moment, but so far it’s proving quite a revelation. Setting the story in Dark Age Britain is nothing new, of course. It’s always been known that Mallory set his 15^th century collection in contemporary times, and that any attempt to marry the Romantic canon with historical speculation would mean taking the story back a thousand years. Several films and TV adaptations have done that. What I find so interesting about this book are two things.

 

Firstly, it’s told from the women’s point of view. The classic Arthurian tradition is strictly male-dominated, in which the female characters are either minor, fatally flawed, evil, or isolated. The women in this book are central; they command respect; they are in control. I suppose a point to note here is that the spiritual context of the classic version is axiomatically Christian, and so it would seem natural to echo the treatment of women that predominates in the Bible. And that brings me to what I find most interesting of all.

 

This version of the story has as one of its central themes, so far at least, the clash between the pagan Old Ways and the ‘new’ Christianity. Although not spitefully anti-Christian, it certainly nods in the direction of a wider view of spirituality. For this reason, I’m glad in a way that I didn’t find the book earlier in my life. A lot of the conflicts between the two traditions are central to my own thinking now, and I wonder whether I would have understood them so readily when I was younger.

 

And I have to make mention of one deviation from the norm that impressed me most of all. In the classic version, Uther is an essentially unsavoury character who beds the unwitting Lady Igraine through trickery, and thus impregnates her with the future Arthur. In this version it transpires that the two of them have been constant lovers through many lifetimes, soul mates almost, and so their union has an ethical validity that transcends moralistic judgement. This is surely a much better genesis for the ‘once and future king.’ Little short of genius, I would say.