The Once and Future King Mass Market Paperback – June 1, 1987

The popularity of the film and the play, Camelot, were due in some part its association with President John F. Kennedy’s brief 1,000 days in office which came to be called Camelot by many, a time in American history of lost hope and ideals. It was also a story the late president was very fond of. Of course it had much more to do with the enduring fascination with the legends of King Arthur which had found new form in the very popular retelling of the tale by T.H. White, The Once and Future King, which proved to be the immediate inspiration for the play and film, as well as a Walt Disney animated feature, The Sword in the Stone (1963). White was born in British India, died in Greece and spent his most creative period in self-imposed exile from his native Britain in Ireland to somehow get away from a world on the verge of war which he so despised. His condemnation of war took form in his interpretation of tales found in the work he most admired Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1485), and of course Mallory himself appears at the end of White’s work as well as the play and film as young Tom of Warwick who Arthur orders to avoid the coming battle and go back to England and live to tell the tales of Camelot and the Round Table. White’s work initially took the form of several books: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, The Candle in the Wind, and later The Book of Merlyn, the first four of which were incorporated into The Once and Future King in 1939 and 1940. He clearly intended for the entire work to be reedited and include The Book of Merlyn as a final chapter but it never quite happened and the latter work remained unpublished until 1977. It is this last work that was most pointed in its denials and incriminations of war and the limits of humanity, man is joined in the practice of organized warfare against its own kind only by the lowly ant. Regardless of his intent, the work is one of the great pieces of modern English prose putting him in the rare company of T.E. Lawrence, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. The language is so rich much of it found its way into the play and the film as did a good deal of his wit and humor. There is a certain irony in the fact that perhaps the three most influential authors of modern fantasy lived about the same time an in the same area. Indeed, two of them were colleagues and friends, T.H. White died in 1964, and C.S. Lewis passed in 1963 to be followed by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1973. And all called England home. The impact of the tales of Arthur and Merlyn, Narnia, and Middle Earth are undeniable, all are well cherished by their followers and all resulted in significant film adaptations. Indeed, thanks to Peter Jackson in far off New Zealand no less than six epic films have been created to relate the tales of Middle Earth. Lewis and Tolkien lectured at Oxford University and regularly met in local pubs with pipes in hand. White was more of a solitary and quite troubled individual whose personal grappling with the immorality of war caused him to find some kind of refuge in neutral Ireland. All three were products of their time the turbulent first half of the twentieth century and the two World Wars. And all three proved masters of their craft. Aside from the common thread of fantasy in general, all three were singularly affected by the legends of Arthur and Camelot, principally from Mallory who is not only referred to constantly in White but actually takes the stage as a very important character to end The Once and Future King, young Tom of Warwick.

I got this because recent publicity for H is for Hawk kept referring to T H White's book on hawking. So I realized I had never read his classic The Once and Future King though I have read most of the classics and have run into the title many times. It turns out to be very strange book. I wonder how many people have actually read it lately. Strange should mean original, and it is, which is good, but it's strange in other not good ways. It begins as a kind of boys's book, with adventures, knights, animals, and a kind of bildungsroman about King Arthur's boyhood and education. No present day boy would be interested in it though. Too strange and unfocussed. King was written well into the 20th century though, the age of psychological realism, so it soon becomes a psychological novel about the Arthurian characters. (Tolkien showed that this could be easily avoided.) White is an uneven psychologist at best though, and while the idea of psychoanalysing mythological characters is interesting, this turns out to be beyond his talents. Not that anyone else could manage it either, except Homer. There are along the way tongue in cheek or comedic takes on Arthurian legends, some successful..Then it becomes a kind of philosophical treatise on ethics, the development of laws and constitutions, and politics, including even Nazism. Even those few readers who are interested in these topics would find nothing new, interesting or carefully thought out about White's ideas on these subjects, or even logical consistency. His strengths are that the book is very well written, contains a number of remarkably wonderful sentences, though perhaps not enough for 500 pp; and White has amassed an enormous trove about medieval life, legends, lore, falconry, armor, art, architecture and vocabulary. based but not limited to Malory's Morte d'Arthur, a true masterpiece. (Read it first.) The weakness besides the above is sadism. White according to what I read was a confessed sadist, and he shows himself sadistic to his characters and to his reader. for example, when a story has a tragic or bad ending, a reader will accept this if it seems inevitable, if the character has tragic flaws which lead to it. or even if the sad ending is seen somehow as an example of life's unpredictable cruelty. In this case, the downfall is encompassed by characters acting out of character. Arthur and Guinevere, who have been astute politicians throughout, canny psychologists, active and strong willed, and who hold all the political and armed power, allow themselves to be implausibly overcome by the villain, even though they and everyone else, including the tormented reader, see multiple possible ways to avoid this fate. To reader who is not masochistic will find this infuriating, in fact distasteful.. Oddly enough the villain IS defeated and the ending does not have to be seen as tragic at all. And yet White rubs out nose in a manufactured sad conclusion. It's a big book requiring a big review. A curdled classic.

I have just reread this, decades after first reading it as a child or adolescent, and it has lost none of its original power. In fact, I see a great deal more in it than I did on first reading, especially in White's use of humour, which relies on general knowledge I previously lacked, to spot the knowing anachronisms. I had also completely missed White's meditation on WWII, and the problems of war and power in general, the first time round.As an adult, it's impossible NOT to read it this way, but it nevertheless enthralled my younger self as a classic sword and sorcery yarn, without having to worry what it tells us about the present day (or about the time of writing, which is largely still true - one of the morals of the story is that human nature is essentially unchanging).The first book, "The Sword in the Stone" was originally published under separate cover, and differs from the rest, in that it is the only one specifically meant for children. Most readers will be familiar with it as the basis for the Disney film of the same name. It is by far the most lighthearted and comical of all the books, even including a farcical "pantomime horse" episode, in which two knights disguise themselves as the fabulous Questing Beast, in order to distract the lovelorn King Pellinore, only to find themselves subject to the amorous advances of the real thing, who has mistaken them for a potential mate!After the first book, things take a much darker - indeed, very dark - turn. I don't seem any the worse for having read it as a child, but "parental discretion is advised", as they say. It contains themes of violence, incest and adultery, which will certainly "not be suitable for all audiences". Having said that, there is NO explicit sex - the intrigues are delicately portrayed, although there is no ambiguity about whether they are purely platonic - with one exception - which I will come to.Although the title refers to King Arthur, it is in some ways a misnomer, because the towering figure of the book - White's most complex, developed and ultimately tragic creation - is Lancelot. He has an entire book devoted to him, and, besides him, all characters - even Arthur - seem somewhat insipid.White takes the unusual step of making Lancelot grotesquely ugly - so much so that he is compared to an ape or gargoyle. He also harbours some dark shame, which is never expressly revealed - indeed, White declines to do so, saying that we do not have to dabble in a place which he preferred to keep secret. The implication is that something happened to Lancelot in childhood. These days, of course, we would immediately jump to suspicions of child abuse. Could it be that? Yet we know the young Lancelot is NOT physically corrupted. He believes his ritual purity to be the source of his strength, which is why he feels all is lost, when he realises Elaine has deceived him of it. So it does not seem to have been childhood sexual abuse. It is a moot point whether Lancelot himself understands exactly what it is. In his notes, White apparently suggested Lancelot might be gay, as he himself has been assumed to be, lending a possibly autobiographical dimension to the character. This would explain a great deal, but we do not know for sure. White makes the point that it is fatally easy to make a child believe he is horrible, so it might be no great trauma, but simply something unthinking that was said to him, that left the young Lancelot feeling perpetually ashamed and unworthy, in spite of his great devoutness, and exceptional talents.We are also told that Lancelot is not, at heart, a very nice person; that it is a kind of over-compensation for cruelty and cowardice that drives him to the very pinnacle of chivalry. Yet this paradox does not repel us, but rather endears him to us. Effortless virtue is rather insufferable, as we see in the case of Galahad, Sir Lancelot's son. Lancelot's virtue is nobler, somehow, because we know it does NOT come naturally, but from making it his life's work to subjugate his baser instincts, and to do instead what is right. Lancelot is his own harshest critic: judge, jury, and - on at least one occasion - potential executioner. Because he is so harsh on himself, we, the reader, cannot be harsh on him, but instead, share his suffering. Lancelot's struggles are relatable; Galahad's ethereal holiness is not.Lancelot's greatest tragedy is to fall in love with the Queen - probably the only woman who is, or should be, out-of-bounds to him. Their long-running affair is a betrayal of his King and best friend, his highest ideals, and his God - all that he holds dear - and will indirectly be the ruin of all the protagonists, and of Camelot itself.The love triangle is what may lend weight to the theory that Lancelot is gay. It is a genuine triangle, not only with two men loving the same woman, and she them - albeit in different ways - but the two men also loving each each other. Is it the brotherly love of comrades-at-arms, or something different? White is silent on this, but Arthur's wilful blindness to the couple's adultery, and refusal to confront them, suggests that he loves his friend at least as much as his wife. At one very moving point where Arthur is trying to warn them, he holds the hand of each, establishing them as equals in his eyes. At another point he affectionately squeezes his friend's knee. Beyond these barest hints, there is no suggestion of physical intimacy between the two men, but is Lancelot's love of Guenever a vicarious way of getting even closer to his hero? Can two men come any closer than to share the same woman, by mutual, if tacit, consent? Arthur is seemingly devoid of jealousy, and perhaps even touched that his friend and his wife share an intensity he accepts is missing from their kind but unimpassioned marriage.Only once does resentment apparently boil to the surface, when Arthur uncharacteristically fights his dear friend, but is even this about true jealousy, or the untenable position in which their treasonable love has placed him? White suggests that Arthur briefly hopes his friend might kill him in a fair fight, as that would be an honourable solution, for all of them, to a seemingly insoluble dilemma. Lancelot would be free to marry Guenever, without any disgrace to any of them.Just as when I was a girl, I am half in love with Lancelot. Despite White's insistence that he is physically repulsive, his exquisite nobility, born of a deep sense of unworthiness, makes it impossible to see him as such, after a while. Someone who suffers so deeply, in an attempt always to be the best person he can possibly be, must surely have at least an interesting and moving face. He is neither physically nor morally repulsive, except in his own tortured mind - he is the most sympathetic and beloved of all the characters. His worst crime is that he cannot give up his true love. Every other wrong for which he stands condemned (by himself, as much as others) has the defence of necessity, duress or accident.A major weakness of the book which almost lost it a star for me, was that I never warmed to Guenever (on first reading, or now, decades later) or thought her a heroine worthy of Arthur or Lancelot, let alone both of them. As the plot spirals towards inevitable doom, I find myself asking: "Is she remarkable enough to be worth it?", and unfortunately, the answer, in this telling, is "no". She comes across as rather dull, petulant, annoying and spiteful. Notwithstanding her legendary love for Lancelot, she appears to have negligible understanding of him. She is untroubled by guilt concerning their affair, and does not seem to appreciate the intense anguish it causes him. Neither does she trust the depth and integrity of his love, refusing to believe he was tricked into infidelity with Elaine, and cruelly punishing him for it, when he was, in reality, the blameless victim, not the instigator. This seems doubly hypocritical, when he has to put up with her being permanently married to someone else. With a particularly callous and unnecessary barb, she not only banishes him without just cause, but denounces his face as ugly and evil - the face she has loved and kissed. This is not the behaviour of a great queen, or fabled lover. The acutely sensitive Lancelot, who is only too aware of his own ugliness and shortcomings, is literally driven mad by her rejection of his unfailing love. He deserves better - a heroine whose dignity and steadfastness match his own, not one who would destroy him in a fit of royal pique. Lancelot comes close to the truth when he accuses her of treating him "like a possession" and elsewhere of wanting two husbands. Guenever does not appear to feel fortunate to have TWO such gracious and devoted lovers, but simply that it is her Queenly due. This makes her hard to like, and even harder to reconcile with the legendary and almost sainted muse we have come to expect.It is something of a convention of "Courtly Love" that the beloved shows, or at least feigns, disdain for her lover, as over-enthusiasm would be unseemly, so he must win her by feats of chivalry. So is Guenever's sometimes cruel treatment of Lancelot simply adhering to that formula? We get few insights into her thoughts or feelings. Even when she faces death at the stake, we do not really know whether she is afraid, or confident her lover will arrive and triumph, or a little of each. She is just the prize to be literally scooped up. There is also the problem - acknowledged by White - that there were few pursuits deemed suitable for a noblewoman of her time, so we do not see a fully rounded personality, with her own interests and preoccupations. When we do see her engaged in some activity, she either hates it (needlepoint), or is not terribly good at it (trying to assist Lancelot with falconry). She is not religious - beyond going through the motions proper to her time - and not conspicuously virtuous or talented. White tells us she is "difficult" to write about. This might be because her character is so fascinating and complex it's difficult to capture (though White has no such problems with the extraordinary and deeply conflicted Dulac), but the impression is rather that there's nothing much to say. It's easy to understand what she sees in Lancelot - but what does he see in her? In her afterword, Sylvia Townsend Warner suggests that Malory's portrayal of Guenever was not overly sympathetic, so it may be that White - having little firsthand experience of women - was simply staying faithful to his primary source.Guenever does mellow in old age, and become almost likable, but still hardly Britain's answer to Helen. We see her dressed up like an old jade, in gaudy clothes and badly-done makeup, pathetically trying to preserve her fading beauty. This is meant to be touching, but again, hardly befitting a queen, and why does she so underestimate Lancelot - never shallow in the slightest - to feel the need to do this? The men, somewhat unfairly, are portrayed as growing more dignified with age - not sad caricatures of their former selves.Elaine fares little better, portrayed as conniving, yet paradoxically quite dim. Her single most decisive and effective dramatic act is to do away with herself, when their son is dead, and she finally realises her love for Lancelot is futile. Poor Elaine - she could have been given a less sappy role. Being miraculously rescued, naked, from a boiling bath, by arguably the greatest knight there has ever been, is bound to turn a girl's head, as even White admits. It really isn't her fault.Of all the women, Arthur's scheming, coldhearted and sexually-predatory half sister, Morgause, is probably the most interesting. Her portrait is hardly flattering either, but she is a compelling villainess. She is a corrupting influence on all five of her sons (one of whom is Arthur's illegitimate son and nemesis, Mordred). They love her without question, as all children love their mothers, whilst she is emotionally barren, and barely cognisant of their existence. She caters to neither their physical nor emotional needs. Mordred, much younger than the rest, grows up shunned and cast-off (rather literally, as it turns out) by his true father, Arthur, as the shameful product of incest, and in the sole care of his emotionally abusive mother, making him her purest creation, and the instrument of her revenge for an age-old feud, though it will not come to fruition 'til long after her death.The hot-blooded and bickering Orkney Clan, as the brothers are collectively known, are finely drawn, especially Gawaine, whose heartfelt deathbed olive branch to his distraught and most reluctant enemy, Lancelot, is one of the most moving passages of the book.I would heartily recommend this book for the excellent writing, the humour, the erudition, the probing into the darkest recesses of the human psyche, and above all, the characters. Still, at second reading, after an interval of more than thirty years, I am sad to have finished it, as it's like saying goodbye to dear friends. It is rare, in my experience, that finishing a book leaves you with such a palpable sense of loss. I want there to be more, but there isn't.If you haven't read it, do so. If you have, but in childhood, do so again; there's more to be discovered.Just a note on this edition: It contains an additional book, "The Book of Merlyn", that was not included on original publication, or in the version I read as a child, but was discovered posthumously amongst the author's papers. I was initially very excited to have some additional material to devour, but it detracts from the integrity of the whole, in my opinion. Although it is nominally about a vision Arthur has on the night before the final battle, and a magical regression to the days of his youth, to complete his cycle of learning under Merlyn, it is the weakest and most self-indulgent of all the books, being little more than a vehicle for White's own jaundiced rantings about Man's inhumanity to Man, and to his fellow creatures. This bleak theme has been present to some extent throughout (understandably, given the global backdrop at the time of writing), but is at its most overt and least allegorical here. Although it does tell us, albeit in rather desultory fashion, what became of the protagonists (I doubt it's a major spoiler to say they didn't live happily ever after), these slim pickings don't really justify having to wade through the rest - the best parts of which were reworked and included in The Sword in the Stone anyway. It may be of interest to those seeking to know more of White, but doesn't satisfy the yearning for more of our heroes, and could have been omitted without detriment. If you want to savour the full force of what has just happened, without the incongruous authorial rant at the end (and the preposterous notion that Arthur might have been better-off marrying a goose!), I recommend you leave off at the conclusion to "The Candle in the Wind", or at least save "The Book of Merlyn" for another time.

The once and Future King, published in 1958, is a rework of four previously published books by White, The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Witch in the Wood (1939), The Ill-Made Knight (1940) and The Candle in the Wind (1958). He uses these titles for the four sections of The Once and Future King. After White’s death a final book called The Book of Merlyn, written 1941, was published. Some parts of this had been incorporated into previous books by White, mainly The Sword in the Stone. This final book has since been added to end of this volume.The first part, The Sword in the Stone, is probably the most famous due to it being made into a movie by Disney studios. Also it isn’t too far removed from that movie. It covers Arthur’s early years, in which he is known as The Wart and is under the tutelage of Merlyn. Just like the movie Wart is turned into a fish and a bird amongst other creatures by Merlyn and just like the movie there is a lot of slapstick comedy. White even manages to squeeze Robin Hood and his Merry men into his version of the Arthurian legend! On the whole this first part is a delightful if somewhat juvenile read. I enjoyed it despite the liberties taken with the legend I knew and grew up with. I liked the way White portrays the world that Wart grows up in as idyllic, beautiful summers of sun and blue skies and winters of deep crisp even snow. It’s a stark contrast to what will come later. Wart even asks Merlyn ‘Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?’At the start of the second part, The Witch in the Wood, the change is apparent as we see Wart now as a young inexperienced King Arthur trying to grapple with the realities of the grown up world, including wars. There are some interesting points made here on that subject, especially when you consider when the book was published, 1939, the outbreak of World War II. The humour however is still there as it descends into pantomime farce at times, but the story has darker periods. Episodes involving cats and unicorns are particularly gruesome.It is here and in particular the introduction of Lancelot that the stories from Le Morte D’Arthur also become clearer, although White still tweaks them and he quotes Malory a few times during his retelling. I also loved the way he compares situations in Arthur’s world with contemporary times, or as it was in his case, 1930’s and 40’s. It does give the book a bit of a dated feel but in a charming way.By the third part of the book the humour as all but disappeared. This part deals with Lancelot, and White portrays him in an understanding and sympathetic way, especially concerning his relationship with Guenever. I think the complex character of Lancelot is T.H. White’s greatest achievement in The Once and Future King. This version of him is totally different from the Malory Lancelot. The Ill Made Knight is my favourite part in this book and Lancelot my favourite character.The Candle in the Wind is the final part of The Once and Future King. This last part deals with the final days of Arthur. It’s the saddest part of the story. In it White contemplates Arthur’s New England and his achievements. As he does all through the book he again compares it with the contemporary world (i.e. the world of the 1930,s and 40’s). By the time this final book was published in 1958, White had lived through a World War, this is apparent in Arthur’s final assessment of his achievements and his dream of Camelot.Endings are always a bone of contention. They never please everyone and it’s probably the area where people are most critical. It all depends whether the story ended the way you wanted it to. The ending of The Once and Future King is no different. It also has the added burden of living up to Malory’s Arthur as well as the version of Arthur we all have in our heads. The ending of White’s book is different to Malory but still holds some of its principles. I liked it. There is a passage with a page boy at the end, which I will not reveal as it would be a major spoiler, that I particularly loved, it was a nice touch.This edition of The Once and Future King doesn’t end there though. Included here is The Book of Merlyn, a book as I have mentioned, that was published after White’s death and includes passages already included in The Once and Future King.White's intentions were to find an antidote for war, something he felt was a major theme in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. He had wrestled with this idea all through the Second World War. In fact he had retreated to Ireland to avoid it, not wanting to be a coward or a hero. ‘It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat. The loveless and faithless ones are compelled by their pessimism to attack.’ The book was rejected when he sent it for publication in 1941 because it was anti war, it was later published in 1977.The Book of Merlin, although interesting, adds little to The Once and Future King. It is really more of an essay than a story. It is also heavy going. The condensed version of this book which was incorporated into The Sword and the Stone for me was enough on the subject. It made its point without losing the story (and the reader). The only real point of interest as far as Arthur’s story goes comes at the end when White offers an explanation of the fates of Arthur, Guenever and Lancelot. It might have been better to tack this last bit at the end of The Candle in the Wind (although without it I think the book is fine).Despite The Book of Merlin I loved The Once and Future King. I found White’s retelling of the Arthurian legend masterful, it’s an enduring classic. His use of comedy offsets the later personal doom of Arthur and I loved his portrayal of all the major characters, especially Lancelot. In The Once and Future King T.H. White has produced a work of grandeur and charm worthy of its subject.

Honestly, truly, one of the best books I have ever read - and I read rather a lot. In fact, I keep having to buy new copies because I lend them to people who don't want to give them back. My first time was when I was but a young boy on the cusp of manhood, eagerly and foolishly seeking the company of the fairer sex. As I have grown older I have re-read The Once and Future King every couple of years and always find something new. It starts off as recognisably the story that Disney's Sword in the Stone is based on: a comical coming-of-age tale full of innocence and whimsy that makes you wish you were back in the Middle Ages - filth and all! Then suddenly you realise you're reading a different book altogether, one that perfectly encapsulates love and jealousy (for what is one without the other?) as the characters mature. The depiction of the love triangle between Genevere, Arthur and Lancelot is as achingly perfect as they themselves are not. This work breathes life into the often stuffy and dated Morte D'arthur like no other. You will cry as the aging lovers sing together, laugh at the foolishness of old court linguistics and above all you will see yourself in these characters. Above all else this work has an amazing ability to make you say "huh, that's exactly how I felt when I fell in love" or "dear god, that is just so like people". Buy this, and treasure it until Arthur himself returns.

Can't think why this book has earned such accolades down the years, it's a minor stinker. Doesn't seem to know what period vernacular to use, tries to be amusing and humourous but clearly the author has no skillset in this area, is a work of total fiction set around a few vague historical facts. Only got hold of a copy because it was a 99p Kindle offer . Wouldn't recommend it if you like deep, intelligent, incisive reads. Maybe for kids only, and the sort of kids you got 70 years ago, not the modern kind.

T H White's epic stands like a great fortress in the middle of the canon of English 20th Century fantasy writing. It is a literary classic, although its intentionally simple, sometimes almost faux naïf, prose may be why it has never received the recognition it merits. The story of Arthur's life from a magical boyhood to elderly tragedy is a journey we all make in our own way. Here, all the wizardry, the dragons, the talking animals, the knights who speak like the denizens of a 1930s gentlemen's club, slowly exit the novel until nothing magical remains - only mortal human life with its fatal and irreconcilable differences and its unavoidable constraints. The book, as it were, ages. In the process there is a lifetime of wit and wisdom, hilarity and poignancy. I purchased this solid hardback edition because my old paperbacks (replaced from time to time) have lost the battle against time. I dislike the front cover typeface immensely, but the five stars are for the work itself rather than the volume.