If you've read Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur you probably remember two things: its length and the archaic language. Also, interminable descriptions of knights clobbering each other with every imaginable Medieval weapon that would be cool and exciting if they weren't so tediously similar. Those introduced to Arthur through Howard Pyle or Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset probably have better memories of the King of the Britons, but archaic elements and long boring stretches are still present.
Enter: Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle, a chronicle of Arthurian Britain as hostile, wild and alarmingly beautiful as Albion itself. Whereas older Arthurian legends focus on imported elements of chivalry and courtly love, Lawhead moves Arthur back to his historical 5th and 6th century context, post-Roman but pre-Europeanized Britain, a land of warring chieftains, Christian missionaries, and Druids. Drawing primarily on the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth and a few ancient British poets, he endows the whole crazy epic with a Celtic ferocity that shocks and delights.
While these are semi-historical novels, Lawhead doesn't avoid magic-realism, allowing the Celtic worldview and the primitive Christianity of ancient Britain to emerge without modern influence or coloring. The familiar stories are all here—Arthur and Guinevere, the prophecies of Merlin, the Sword in the Stone, the Grail quest—but though there is a mystical quality to each, they aren't presented as pure fantasy. Instead, each one is couched in its historical context, made believable without stripping it of the mystery that infuses the Arthurian myths.
And, like Arthur himself, these stories range from the sublime to the gut-wrenchingly violent. These aren't kiddie versions. Each book (except Taliesin) is narrated by members of Arthur's court, and they are given the voices of knights at once bloodthirsty and looking for love, committed to their new Christian faith and caught in the shadow of Druidic magic and paganism. Lawhead's Arthur is not tame, but he's not wholly savage, either; unlike the gods of most myths, he's utterly and gloriously Human.
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Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews
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