Into the Archive: The Bright Sword

 

The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur (Hardcover)

by Lev Grossman (Author)

A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.

They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.

The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is steeped in tradition, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It also sheds a fresh light on Arthur’s Britain, a diverse, complex nation struggling to come to terms with its bloody history. The Bright Sword is a story about imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves. - Amazon.

Well, this is the first book I've gotten in September (yes, it came on the last day of August, but rather late and bought with September funds). I knew it was coming and went out and started waiting on the porch at 4:30 PM. I went in at 6 PM to go to the restroom, then checked Amazon and saw it was three deliveries away. I got out just in time to accept the package from the hand of the deliveryman himself. I took it in, opened it up, and found a beautiful book of surprising heft; 673 pages to be exact. I hadn't realized it would be so big, but it's fine with me. I certainly enjoyed Lev Grossman's The Magician's Trilogy (I was surprised to learn he had written four other novels, two before The Magicians and two for chilren after the Magicians books). Please don't judge the Magicians books by the adaptations done on the SciFi channel. What I like about Grossman is that he likes to write Fantasy and he is an obvious fan of Fantasy on any level, and isn't afraid to show it. The very epithet of the first section of The Bright Sword is this quote: "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government." But that is the author's comment. He combines legend, historical detail, and a modern sense skewed through applicability to these lenses. Grossman does this (so far; I haven't read a lot) with a light touch that is never intrusive; the only retelling (major or otherwise) that has taken this particular approach in so far as I can tell. The closest comparison might be T. H. White (with less sheer anachronism), a statement I believe that Grossman would find a compliment. 

Every generation of modern readers gets its own retelling of Arthur; it is a tribute to the applicability and even malleability of the legends. From Malory's Le Mort D'Arthur to Tennyson's The Idylls of the King to T. H. White's The Once and Future King to John Boorman's Excalibur, we find a different king and court  that the times interpret for themselves. I think we might have the next major one here.

I have been following 'the Matter of Britain' since at least the fourth grade (with the Blanche Winder Stories of King Arthur book), perhaps even earlier (check out Arthur! and His Square Knights of the Round Table). Here are but a few of the iterations I have filed in my skull.

(slightly edited)

Items from the Wish List: To Help Me Remember. Not Because My Birthday is Coming, or Nothing. I Assure You

 

The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur (Magicians Trilogy) Hardcover – July 16, 2024

by Lev Grossman (Author)

A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.

They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.

The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is steeped in tradition, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It also sheds a fresh light on Arthur’s Britain, a diverse, complex nation struggling to come to terms with its bloody history. The Bright Sword is a story about imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves.

 

The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien Box Set: Three-Volume Box Set Hardcover – September 17, 2024

by J. R. R. Tolkien (Author)

J.R.R. Tolkien aspired to be a poet in the first instance, and poetry was part of his creative life no less than his prose, his languages, and his art. Although Tolkien’s readers are aware that he wrote poetry, if only from verses in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, its extent is not well known, and its qualities are underappreciated. Within his larger works of fiction, poems help to establish character and place as well as further the story; as individual works, they delight with words and rhyme. They express his love of nature and the seasons, of landscape and music, and of words. They convey his humor and his sense of wonder.

The earliest work in this collection, written for his beloved, is dated to 1910, when Tolkien was eighteen. More poems would follow during his years at Oxford, some of them very elaborate and eccentric. Those he composed during the First World War, in which he served in France, tend to be concerned not with trenches and battle, but with life, loss, faith, and friendship, his longing for England and the wife he left behind. Beginning in 1914, elements of his legendarium, “The Silmarillion,” began to appear, and the “Matter of Middle-earth” would inspire much of Tolkien’s verse for the rest of his life.

Within The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien almost 200 works are presented across three volumes, including more than 60 that have never before been seen. The poems are deftly woven together with commentary and notes by world-renowned Tolkien scholars Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, placing them in the context of Tolkien’s life and literary accomplishments and creating a poetical biography that is a unique and revealing celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien.

THORN: The Complete Proto-BONE College Strips 1982-1986, and Other Early Drawings Paperback – Illustrated, July 30, 2024

by Jeff Smith (Author, Illustrator)

Cartoon Books announces THORN: The Complete Proto- BONE College Strips from 1982 to 1986, and Other Early Drawings, reprinting the entire run of his earliest rendering of the world-famous BONE characters for the first time.

The comic strips reveal an early version of BONE called THORN that was written for a college audience in the 1980s. THORN appeared  in the pages of The Ohio State University's student newspaper The Lantern. A few were reprinted in a self-published 1983 book called THORN: Tales from The Lantern. Another small selection was published in 2008's limited edition fundraiser for OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum called Before BONE. Both books are long out of print and sell at collector's prices. There has never been an official, complete run published until now.

This beautiful edition includes plenty of bonus material such as recently discovered early drawings of the BONE characters, essays and interviews.

All text and pictures from Amazon. The Bright Sword would be the first non-Magicians book from him that I would ever read. Thorn seems to be that sweepings and laundry-list publication that happens when authors (and artists) grow near the end of their useful productive life, but Jeff Smith is good enough that I'm willing to be surprised and prepared to be fascinated. But of course the gem is not out until September, the traditional Tolkien publication month. At last, all Tolkien's poetry (Middle-earth and non-Middle-earth) gathered in one place, chronological and with variations! I swoon.

The Magician's Niblings

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.

This novel, a masterpiece of modern fantasy, was around for quite a while before I brought myself to give it a try, and then I couldn’t get my own Hardback copy fast enough. “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason … It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. The narrative draws on various Romantic literary traditions, such as the comedy of manners, the Gothic tale, and the Byronic hero. The novel's language is a pastiche of 19th-century writing styles, such as those of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Clarke describes the supernatural with careful detail. She supplements the text with almost 200 footnotes, outlining the backstory and an entire fictional corpus of magical scholarship.” – Wikipedia. What they don’t mention is that it is like a cross between “Lud-in-the-Mist” and “Little, Big”, and worthy to stand beside them. Illustrations by Portia Rosenberg.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardback.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other Stories, by Susanna Clarke. Illustrated by Charles Vess.

A collection of short stories in the magical milieu of “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”. That fact that it is illustrated by Charles Vess reminds me of the connection Clarke has to Neil Gaiman, her longtime friend and supporter. The stories also remind me of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s “Kingdoms of Elfin”. A pleasant read.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Anthology. Fantasy. Hardback.

The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician’s Land, by Lev Grossman.

I don’t know why I decided to give Grossman a try. I can only surmise that having heard good things about it, I decided I would give it a try … at the right price. I specifically went into Goodwill looking for it, on the very remote chance it would be there, and THERE IT WAS, a hardback copy for $1. The only other time I can remember that happening is when I went grimly through the staggering piles of kids books at Half’s, in specific hopes  of finding “The Pedant and the Shuffly” (an obscure book which had been published at least twenty years before, and THERE IT WAS! To explain the series, a guy (Quentin) discovers 1) there is a secret school of magic and 2) that the fantasy land of Fillory that was his favorite childhood reading is real, the books being based on the actual visits of five English children as told to their adult ‘friend’. He and his friends at magical school (‘Brakebills’) find a way to go to Fillory, kill ‘the Beast’ that threatens it, and become kings and queens (shades of Narnia!) The second book covers their attempts to rule, and the third is a “Voyage of the Dawn Treader”-like tour of the outer islands. The books are full of fantasy allusions from T. H. White to Adventure Time. Has been adapted into an increasing disappointing TV series that I ceased to watch after the first season. But these books are really good and, well, magically delicious.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardbacks.

 Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

“The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.” I already knew Terry Pratchett was a good, funny writer, so I decided to give this collaboration a shot. The opening was very promising – a dedication to G. K. Chesterton, “a man who knew what was going on.” When a misplaced Anti-Christ grows up without proper demonic influence, his powers may still bring about the end of the world. It’s up to Crowley, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Aziraphale, the angel who had the flaming sword, to protect their cushy assignments on Earth and avert the Apocalypse with the help of a band of concerned humans and the detailed (but hard to understand) prophecies of a 16^th century witch. When it came out it was compared to Douglas Adams or if “The Omen” had been written by Monty Python. Death (one of the Four Horsemen) is almost exactly like Discworld’s Death, CAPITALS AND ALL. Got this copy in the early 90’s. There’s a TV series on Amazon, which I haven’t seen, but it was adapted by Gaiman (Pratchett being dead now), so you never know.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Softcover.

Nibling: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-nibling#:~:text=Nibling%20is%20a%20gender%2Dneutral,niece%22%20or%20%22nephew%22.&text=That's%20right%3A%20nibling.,comes%20from%20niece%20and%20nephew.