New Novel Offers Original Take on Gawain and Lancelot’s Friendship

Paul McLerran’s new novel Gawain: A Novel of Arthurian Legend is a retelling of Sir Gawain’s life in one volume that sheds new light on the character, and especially his friendship with Sir Lancelot. McLerran obviously has done his homework in researching the character of Sir Gawain, and in his end notes, he discusses his sources for various parts of the novel. While largely following traditional Arthurian sources, he also makes some surprising and enjoyable changes.

Paul McLerran’s Gawain is a faithful and fun retelling about one of King Arthur’s greatest knights

The novel opens with Gawain in his youth. His father Lot was killed by King Arthur when he rebelled against him, leaving Gawain and his brothers in the care of his mother Morgause. McLerran wisely has Gaheris dead in childhood since he’s always been a rather pointless character. The other brothers, Gareth, Agravain, and Mordred, however, are all here. Morgause decides to send Gawain, Gareth, and Agravain to Camelot to a tournament early in the novel. Her purpose is to have her sons infiltrate Camelot and eventually avenge their father, but Gawain shows such skill and promise that Arthur quickly notices him and convinces him to stay at Camelot and become a Knight of the Round Table.

From there, Gawain’s story follows the traditional pattern. He quickly befriends Lancelot, and we are treated to several familiar stories, including Guinevere’s abduction by Meliagaunt and Lancelot’s rescuing of her, which Gawain doesn’t partake in, but it makes him observant of Lancelot and the queen’s relationship going forward. Other more typically Gawain-focused stories include twists on the story of Dame Ragnell, here named Raquel, and Gawain’s encounter with the Green Knight.

Ultimately, the fall of Camelot begins, and Gawain ends up waging war with King Arthur against Lancelot, due to his anger over Gareth’s death at Lancelot’s hand.

None of these stories are really surprising to fans of Arthurian legend, but they are enjoyable to read for the twists McLerran gives them. I won’t give them away and spoil the fun of reading them for yourself.

However, one departure from tradition that surprised me but also gave some new life to the legend was how Lancelot is treated as rather coarse and as a ladies’ man. In more traditional sources, Lancelot is virtuous and only just fails to achieve the Holy Grail because of his love for Guinevere, which he is usually depicted as being tormented over. Here, however, he is a bit of a man whore. Gawain also is far more virtuous, or at least virginal, than in some more medieval versions where he tends to be the one more likely to be a ladies’ man. Regardless, they become friends and nicely balance each other out in the novel.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Holy Grail stories within the legend, but I was surprised that McLerran leaves them out for the most part. The Holy Grail figures in the novel, but McLerran does not have the knights go questing for it. It has always been rather an interruption to the main tales in my opinion, but it also allows for Lancelot to be more virtuous and sympathetic, which is perhaps a reason to shy away from it in this novel. Still, I felt like a bit of the story was missing here, though it may have been too much of a distraction.

One additional clever change I liked is that McLerran makes Mordred a bit more conniving than in other versions. While Mordred has always taken advantage of the situation of Arthur’s departure, here it is clear he purposely allows Lancelot to escape from being caught with Guinevere. He does this so Arthur will go to wage war against Lancelot, thus leaving Albion and making his throne more vulnerable.

While Camelot does fall, the end of the novel is rather a surprising departure I did not see coming that added a bit of a happier ending to the story that I think readers will find satisfying.

Finally, I have to mention that I liked that McLerran stated that his depiction of Gawain as a general waiting to battle Lancelot, which starts each section of the novel, is a tribute to the frame of the play/film of Camelot that begins with Arthur as a general on the eve of battle. Anyone who wants to pay tribute to Camelot is all right in my book since it’s my all-time favorite movie.

All in all, Gawain: A Novel of Arthurian Legend is both a revealing and entertaining new interpretation of the legend and particularly the character of Gawain.

For more information about Paul McLerran and Gawain: A Novel of Arthurian Legend, visit https://paulmclerran.com/. When there, be sure to check out his blog posts where McLerran discusses more about why he wrote the novel and how he fell in love with Arthurian legend.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Children of Arthur series, which includes the novels Arthur’s Legacy, Melusine’s Gift, Ogier’s Prayer, Lilith’s Love, and Arthur’s Bosom. He has also written the nonfiction scholarly works King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition and The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, plus numerous other books. You can learn more about Tyler at www.ChildrenofArthur.com and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

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The Void Place: A New Fictional Look at King Arthur’s Conception

Scott Telek’s The Void Place is the third book in his new Swithen series, following Our Man on Earth and The Sons of Constance, which have previously been reviewed here at Children of Arthur. The purpose of these novels is to explain the psychological motivations behind the characters’ sometimes-inscrutable actions, while remaining completely faithful to the Arthurian legend, and so far, I think Telek is successful in creating insightful reasons for many of his characters’ behaviors.

The Void Place, book 3 in the Swithen series, delves into how King Arthur was conceived by magical means.

This novel once again has Merlin at its center, though he is off stage for much of it. Merlin has told Uther that the greatest king is yet to come, which makes Uther feel like he is just a placeholder king, and as a result, he’s rather depressed and feeling inferior. Merlin has also set up the Round Table and even created the Siege Perilous and warned Uther not to let anyone sit there until the one destined to do so arrives. Uther, however, doesn’t like Merlin telling him what to do, and he also finds himself being pestered by Sir Riger, a knight who didn’t make the cut to sit at the Round Table. When a rumor spreads that Merlin has died, Riger convinces Uther that they need no longer listen to Merlin so he should get to sit in the Siege Perilous. I’ll let readers read for themselves what happens when Riger tries to sit there. I’ll just say I thoroughly enjoyed the situation surrounding wondering whether the Siege Perilous was truly perilous.

Eventually, Uther shakes off his doldrums when Duke Gorlois brings his wife Igraine to court. I was struck by Telek’s depiction of Gorlois as handsome, strong, and sensuous—not the old man he is often depicted as. Gorlois and Igraine are very much in love, and she has no interest in Uther when he begins expressing interest in her.

I don’t think I’m giving anything away by describing what happens next—Uther convinces Merlin to help him sleep with Igraine, which Merlin does by enchanting Uther to look like Gorlois. What is more subtle is how Merlin manipulates Uther into doing exactly what he wants—it’s like trick child psychology where he tells Uther he mustn’t pursue Igraine, only to get Uther to pursue her, so that Arthur can be conceived. Ultimately, this leads to questions of whether Merlin is justified in his actions—is his manipulation wicked, or is he doing God’s work by setting in motion events to culminate in Arthur’s reign? Interestingly, his mother Meylinde, as in previous novels, steps in to serve as his moral conscience when he, in her eyes, misbehaves. Meylinde’s moral compass provides a lot of depth to the novel and restrains Merlin from doing whatever he chooses, thus providing some excellent internal conflict for him as well.

Besides the main storyline, several characters make minor appearances in the novel that will be developed more fully in future novels. These include Igraine’s daughters, Morgause and Morgan. Early in the novel we get a glimpse of Morgan’s future. She is only a child, but she has already poisoned a playmate, a situation that is quite funny, even if sinister. When the novel ends, she is engaged at age ten to marry King Uriens, and she is being sent to a nunnery until she is fourteen when the marriage can take place. I already think she will be a great villain and hope to see more of her soon.

I enjoyed the moments of humor in this novel, especially in the first half when Uther feels so frustrated by Merlin’s control over him. I admit I felt the pacing a bit slow in the middle as we waited for Uther to seduce Igraine, perhaps simply because I knew what was coming and was impatient for more twists on the traditional story. I especially enjoyed that in this version, Igraine never even learns that it was Uther who was disguised as Gorlois, although she does realize it was not Gorlois who conceived Arthur upon her that night. However, I was pleased by the shenanigans surrounding keeping Igraine’s reputation in place for having a child with a man who wasn’t her husband, including the arrangements for Sir Ector and his wife to raise the child and how they were depicted.

The novel ends with Merlin setting things in motion for Arthur’s reign, including the sword being planted in the stone. The land must now wait fourteen years without a king until Arthur is ready to claim his kingdom. The next novel in the series is intended to depict Arthur’s childhood.

This novel is also the first to provide the overall plan for the Swithen series. Telek plans twenty-five novels total, leading all the way to Arthur’s death. Previously the longest Arthurian series to my knowledge has been Patricia Kennealy-Morrison’s The Keltiad, often referred to as “Celts in Space.” She planned eighteen novels in her series, although to date only eight have been published and one collection of short stories, and only three of those novels really centered on the Arthurian legends while the rest were other retellings of Celtic legends. (Jack Whyte has actually written nine novels in or connected to his Camulod Chronicles series, although he never aspired, to my knowledge, to double-digits for his books.) We’ll see if Telek will someday hold the record. As long as he keeps writing them, I’ll be eager to read them.

More information about Telek’s Swithen series can be found at https://theswithen.wordpress.com/.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Children of Arthur series, which includes the novels Arthur’s Legacy, Melusine’s Gift, Ogier’s Prayer, Lilith’s Love, and Arthur’s Bosom. He has also written the nonfiction scholarly works King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition and The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, plus numerous other books. You can learn more about Tyler at www.ChildrenofArthur.com.

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What’s Wrong with Starz “Camelot”

Since I don’t have Starz, I’ve been anxiously awaiting a chance to watch Camelot and finally found it online at http://www.watchseriesonlinehere.com/camelot-s01e01-episode-1/ thanks to a member of the Facebook King Arthur group. It’s an annoying website full of pop-ups, so if you’d rather wait to watch the show on TV, it will be airing on CBC this fall.

There is a lot to say about Camelot, so I’ll only discuss the first three episodes here. Of course, I’m eager to watch any program about the Arthurian legend, but I think this program has more marks against it than positive points, and I’m not surprised that it was announced recently that it would be cancelled, based not just on the cost to make a historical production piece but also for the flaws in the story and characters and that the episodes drag a bit. I’m not saying I dislike the show. I don’t think there’s much on TV worth watching anymore so it’s one of the better shows out there, but for lovers of the Arthurian legend, there’s much to complain about it. It’s too bad because nothing would make my TV viewing more pleasurable than a long-running Arthurian series.

Here are my issues with Camelot:

• The actor playing King Arthur, Jamie Campbell Bower, just doesn’t do it for me, and that’s a big problem since he has the lead role. He may be a good actor, and yes, Arthur was young and naive when he became king, but Bower’s Arthur looks more like a rock star wannabe bad boy than a young man capable of becoming king. Nor is he in any way an imposing or kingly figure–his bio on IMDB says he’s six feet tall, but Guinevere looks taller. And seriously, how can we believe Guinevere would pick this Arthur over Leontes, a trained warrior, better looking, better built. I don’t mean to be offensive to Bower, but King Arthur he just is not. As I watch the show, I keep wishing Peter Mooney, who is playing Kay, were playing Arthur; he much more looks the part.
• Arthur’s sword – why is the Sword of Mars or Sword of the Gods, or whatever they are calling it being called anything but Excalibur? I suspect because in legend, there are two sword stories–the sword pulled out of the stone which Arthur loses, and then the sword the Lady of the Lake gives him. In the second episode of Camelot, Arthur manages to release the sword, but since it’s sticking out of the middle of a waterfall, when he pulls it out he loses his balance, and consequently loses the sword when he falls and goes underwater. The whole waterfall scene is rather stupid in my opinion, but I do like that the show makes a point that Merlin planted the sword there and planned out the entire thing, much like in Malory. But a smarter Merlin wouldn’t have put the sword where Arthur was likely to lose it.
• King Lot – he dies in episode 2. That’s a big difference from the legends since he gives Morgan le Fay (or more commonly Morgause her sister; they are often confused and one or two people depending on the version) four children, namely Gawain, Gareth, Agrivaine, and Gaheris. Not to mention being a pseudo-father for Mordred once Morgause/Morgan gets pregnant by Arthur.
• Gawaine – obviously, he’s not Lot and Morgan’s son in this version.
• Vivian – why is she black? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not prejudiced, and in the Merlin series, while I was surprised that Guinevere was black, at least that series is far more like fantasy. Vivian is traditionally the Lady of the Lake; instead, here she’s acting like a servant to Morgan. What’s the reason? Perhaps there will later be a Nimue as Lady of the Lake since Nimue was the original Lady of the Lake while Tennyson renamed her Viviane.
• Merlin – I know Joseph Fiennes is a fine actor, but I like my Merlin’s to have at least a little bit of beard–just a little gray to make me believe he’s old and wise–pretty please? Never mind, obviously this Merlin isn’t very smart. As if putting the sword where Arthur will lose it isn’t enough, he makes a totally idiotic decision when he and Arthur go to visit Morgan at her castle without bringing along any guards, or even that they go at all. And of course, Morgan uses her spells on them–they couldn’t see that coming? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Did what happened at the castle make good television viewing–sure, but not at the expense of logic and characters with common sense. If this Merlin were in a slasher film, he’d play the dumb blonde girl who goes back into the house with the ax murderer.
• The Nudity – right off we have a nude scene in the first episode – Arthur fooling around with a girl whom Kay is apparently interested in. And what’s the point? Gratuitous nudity from the start. Merlin shows up to say Arthur is the true king of Britain, and Arthur rides off, taking Kay along–poor girl got naked for no reason. She’s not spoken of again. Taking your clothes off just isn’t enough for a long-term role in Camelot apparently. Later we get a wild sex scene between Morgan and Lot, and of course, sex between Arthur and Guinevere. I’m not going to complain though when Eva Green as Morgan drops her clothes to have sex with a wolf. She’s stunning–but seriously, a wolf–I know a metaphor for some dark spirit, but still–bestiality?
• Leontes – the number one thing people have been Googling to lead them to my blog is Leontes. Everyone wants to know who he is–is he from the legend. NO. He’s completely fictional. Why is he in the story? I don’t know. He seems to be some sort of juxtaposed Lancelot figure. Traditionally in the legend, Arthur and Guinevere are married but Guinevere is in love with Lancelot. Camelot‘s creators apparently decided to twist the storyline and have Guinevere engaged to the made-up Leontes, and then have her in love with Arthur. By episode three, Guinevere and Leontes are married, after Guinevere had sex with Arthur. I can’t wait to see how this triangle is going to work out. I’ll bet Leontes ends up dead–or worse, it won’t be resolved because the program’s already been cancelled and it was planned to be on for five seasons. I will say that Philip Winchester, who plays Leontes, is a great actor and I used to enjoy watching him in the cancelled TV series Robinson Crusoe (2008-2009) on NBC. I hope a series picks him up that will make him a success.

Okay. That’s enough of ripping on the show. There are a few things I like about it. Here they are:

• Camelot itself – the set of the castle is stunning. I love that it’s an old ruin that Arthur will revitalize. It’s beautiful. In fact, all the scenery and sets are very well done. It’s filmed on the Guinness estate outside Dublin according to an interview with Joseph Fiennes.
• Eva Green as Morgan – as far as I’m concerned Eva Green is the reason to watch this show. Ever since I saw her in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), one of my all time favorite movies, I’ve thought she was one of the most distinctively beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She’s incredibly sensual–who doesn’t want to watch her suck food off her fingers like Orlando Bloom enjoys doing in the film? She’s equally beautiful, if not quite as exotic, in Camelot. She’s a wonderful actress but I feel like the script may be holding her back. Her character is a bit cliched, but still it’s an interesting role, and Morgan le Fay is perhaps my favorite Arthurian character anyway.
• It’s a TV series about King Arthur – yes, there are some bad King Arthur films, but for the most part, Camelot is a good show. It’s entertaining. The episodes may drag a little. It’s not perfect, but similarly, I now really like the Merlin series, but it took half-a-dozen episodes to win me over and go from disgust actually to appreciate the talking dragon. Will Camelot have the power to win me over as I watch the rest of the episodes? I’m a bit more skeptical if it’s been cancelled already, but I’ll keep watching. I’m sure I’ll watch it several times over.

As I watch the rest of the episodes, I’ll be posting more of my impressions and where Camelot coincides or strays from the various versions of Arthurian legend. I don’t suppose I’ll be lucky enough to see the program create a child for Arthur, so I can add another chapter to King Arthur’s Children.

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Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, available at www.ChildrenofArthur.com

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Debra Kemp Creates Daughter for King Arthur

Debra Kemp, author of The House of Pendragon series is one of the many modern novelists creating children for King Arthur. Here is my discussion of her work from my book King Arthur’s Children:

Debra Kemp took the idea of King Arthur’s daughter to new lengths by beginning her The House of Pendragon series. So far, two of the three novels of the series have been published, The Firebrand (2003) and The Recruit (2007).

            While Vera Chapman’s King Arthur’s Daughter first covered this territory, Kemp is far more detailed in her imagining of a daughter for Arthur. Some of the first novel’s suspense is lost because we know from the back cover, and the frame of the novel, that Lin is King Arthur’s daughter, although she does not know this herself. Lin was kidnapped at an early age by Arthur’s sister, Morgause, and it was believed the boat she was on, enroute to the Orkney Isles, had sunk and she had died. Actually, Morgause had taken her to Orkney and made her a slave. Lin grows up believing she is the daughter of a slave woman, and except for the kindness of her foster-brother David and a few of the other slaves, she knows a life of relentless hardship. When Prince Modred decides specifically to torture her and make her his plaything, her life becomes nearly unbearable, yet Lin is of iron nature, so she refuses to give up until finally she learns the truth of her heritage.

            Debra Kemp continues the story of Princess Lin in The Recruit. Here Lin comes to Camelot to find she is expected by her mother, Guinevere, to act like the perfect lady, learning to sew, and to prepare herself for a dynastic marriage that will provide stability to the kingdom. Lin will have none of it. After some initial struggles with her mother, Lin convinces her father, King Arthur, to let her join the army. She becomes “the recruit” and proves herself capable of serving as well as any man in the army. From barroom brawls to guard duty, Lin continually proves herself as worthy of her sire.

            What I actually find most interesting about these two novels is the frame that surrounds them. Kemp begins the first novel with Lin speaking just after the Battle of Camlann and the death of Arthur and Modred. There is no prophecy here that Arthur will come again, but rather Lin pretends Arthur will return to keep up the hope of the people. Then the book shifts forward a number of years; Lin is married to Gaheris and has been raising her family, not revealing to her own children that they are the Pendragon’s grandchildren. She has journeyed back to Camelot now and is considering taking back reign over the kingdom. It is then that she tells her story to her oldest son, technically named Arthur, but called Bear by the family. She tells her son of her days as a slave in Orkney and how she found out she is King Arthur’s daughter. The frame also makes it clear that Lin will become a great warrior.

            Kemp is currently working on the third and final volume of the series. I am curious whether, besides depicting the events that lead up to the fall of Camelot and the Battle of Camlann, Kemp will show Lin’s life in more detail after the Battle of Camlann—will Lin establish a united kingdom again? Will the story of Camelot have a new ending?

For more about Debra Kemp and The House of Pendragon series, visit her on Facebook and her website at: http://www.telltalepress.com/debrakemp.html

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Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, available at www.ChildrenofArthur.com

 

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Review of Helen Hollick’s The Kingmaking: Book One of The Pendragon Banner’s Trilogy

The Kingmaking: Book One of The Pendragon Banner’s Trilogy by Helen Hollick (published by Sourcebooks Landmark 2011; ISBN 978-1402218880). Available at Amazon.

Somehow in writing King Arthur’s Children, I overlooked Helen Hollick’s The Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy. I would like to remedy that by discussing each of the books in the trilogy in separate blogs, beginning here with the first book The Kingmaking.

Modern Arthurian novels can be divided up between those that seek to be truly historical and those that are vaguely historical with fantasy elements. Hollick’s retelling is purely historical. There is no Merlin and no magic in this book, and the same is true of the succeeding two books.

The Kingmaking begins with Vortigern ruling Britain and Uthr Pendragon seeking to overthrow him. When Uthr is killed, Arthur eventually takes his place and the rest of the story will ultimately lead to the event of the book’s title. Anyone who reads an Arthurian novel basically knows what’s going to happen since there is a general structure to the legend that influences all modern fiction writers of Arthurian lore, but the legend has room to stretch and Hollick does her fair share of stretching within the legend’s boundaries while retaining her historical focus on what may have been likely to happen, much of it based in historical research and theories by Arthurian scholars.

One interesting change Hollick makes centers around Morgause’s role in the novel. Uthr is married to Morgause’s sister Igraine, but Morgause is Uthr’s mistress on the side. Morgause has had many daughters by Uthr but she has always exposed them to die. Morgause despises Arthur, not realizing until Uthr has died that he is Uthr’s son, but thinking he is only Uthr’s bastard-born nephew. Morgause’s hatred for Arthur causes her later to attack him sexually. The result is not quite what readers might expect, but it deeply shapes Arthur’s future character.

Arthur later admits that his disgust over what Morgause did to him has resulted in how he mistreats women. He is not a gentle man, but rather one who takes women whenever he chooses, determined not to let them exert any feminine power over him. He impregnates a slave girl (p. 160), and he later says he knows he has many bastard daughters (p. 220). Arthur ends up marrying Vortigern’s daughter, Winifred, as a political alliance, and by her he has a sickly daughter who dies soon after birth (p.313). Arthur, however, hates Winifred and is in love with Gwenhwyfar throughout the book.

Eventually, Vortigern dies and his son Vortimer assumes the kingship, but Arthur is on the road to gaining it for himself. During this time, he abandons Winifred and marries Gwenhwyfar. Both women then have sons by him. Gwenhwyfar’s son Llacheu is born first (but in what we would call a bigamist marriage today) while Winifred’s son Cerdic is born a few weeks later. Both women want to see their own sons acknowledged as Arthur’s heir. Winifred threatens to complain to the Pope to make sure Cerdic is acknowledged, but Winifred is half-Saex (Vortigern’s wife Rowena had been the daughter of the Saex leader Hengest) while Llacheu is fully British born. Arthur is disgusted at the thought of having a partially Saex child and lets Winifred know the British people will rally around Llacheu when the time comes.

That Arthur should have sons is unusual but not a new idea as I’ve shown throughout King Arthur’s Children. Llacheu is a traditional son of Arthur in the early Welsh legends and is usually attributed to being Gwenhwyfar’s son as well. More surprising is that Cerdic is credited as Arthur’s son. Hollick, in her “Author’s Note,” states that she is not the first to suggest Cerdic (who is a historical King of the Saxons) was Arthur’s son, but I believe she is the first novelist to do so. The idea was originally suggested by Arthurian scholar Geoffrey Ashe in The Discovery of King Arthur (1985). [see the family tree for Ashe’s theory at http://www.childrenofarthur.com/. Finally, years after Morgause sexually forced herself upon Arthur, she is revealed to have had a daughter named Morgaine. Hollick does not reveal whether the daughter is Uthr or Arthur’s, but it’s a good bet it is Arthur’s daughter considering she exposed her other daughters. While Morgaine is a girl and not likely to inherit the throne, no doubt Morgause has kept her alive to serve as a way to hurt Arthur down the road. (Having not yet read the second book in the series, at this point I am pondering whether Morgaine is really a he and the future Mordred while Morgause is hiding the child’s sex while biding her time. My discussion of the next two books will reveal the details.)

While I was a bit put off by Hollick’s writing style, primarily the way she uses verbs in her sentences, I did find The Kingmaking to be entertaining reading, both for its depictions of Arthur’s children as well as the rather brutal and rough Arthur. I did not find Arthur likeable, but I did like Gwenhwyfar, and I am curious to see how the story will turn out. In her “Author’s Note,” Hollick states that because Lancelot and Merlin were the creations of later twelfth century Norman romancers, readers will not find them in her books since she wants to provide a historical portrait of what could have actually happened. While Merlin was actually established in Welsh tradition so I don’t understand this reasoning (other than perhaps Hollick saw no use for Merlin in a historical rather than fantasy novel), if there is to be no Lancelot, then I am curious to see how Camelot’s fall will be brought about. Will Gwenhwyfar find herself another lover, or will Morgause’s plotting be sufficient to bring about Arthur’s downfall? It’s on to reading Book II: Pendragon’s Banner to find out.

For more information about Helen Hollick and her Arthurian novels, visit www.HelenHollick.net

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Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, available at www.ChildrenofArthur.com

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