Arthur the King: A Romance

by Allan Massie

Overview

A thrilling and highly original retelling of the Arthurian legend with a twist!

It is the aftermath of the Roman occupation of Britain. Kings are now jockeying for position, for title, for land and for power. A young boy confounds the most famous knights of the realm when he pulls a jewelled sword from a cleft in a stone and claims the throne left vacant by the death of Uther Pendragon.

In this new vision of the Arthurian story, Camelot is set on the River Tweed and Merlin who disapproves of his knights' yearning for battle and their quest for the Holy Grail. With great humour and energy, Massie has created a bold and original new tale from the stuff of legend.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780222707
Publisher:	Orion Publishing Group, Limited
Publication date:	12/08/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	241,015
File size:	512 KB

About the Author

Allan Massie is the author of seventeen highly praised novels, as well as non-fiction works on Muriel Spark, a study of twelve emperors of ancient Rome, a history of crime in 19th-century Edinburgh and the acclaimed Glasgow: Portraits of a City. Born in Singapore in 1938, he was brought up in Aberdeenshire and educated at Glenalmond School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read history. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a judge of the Booker Prize. He is also a journalist contributing to the Scottish and English press. He is married, has three children and lives in the Scottish Borders.

Editorial Reviews

In this second volume of his historical trilogy (after The Evening of the World, set in the dying days of the Roman Empire), Massie presents a cheerily erudite deconstruction and retelling of the Arthurian legend. The linear events of the narrative are familiar: as a young boy, Arthur is schooled by Merlin, then claims the throne of England by pulling the sword Excalibur from its stone. Massie's version, however, fashions alternate histories for familiar characters (chronicling, for example, Merlin's wretched childhood and describing the twisted use he makes of his powers) and takes a playful, humorous tone ("Nor was Arthur enamored of mathematics, even though Merlin took great joy in that subject and excelled (as he supposed) in expounding it"). Once crowned king, Arthur is portrayed as a strategist and statesman whose marriage to the Saxon maiden Guinevere is one of convenience; his true love is his half-sister, Morgan le Fay, and he has a fondness for pretty youths (as does Merlin). Similarly, the machinations of the Knights of the Round Table are seen as a series of political maneuvers, particularly when the knights jockey for position as the quest for the Grail begins. Readers looking for the standard heroic take may be disappointed, but those of "a speculative and skeptical turn of mind, which takes nothing on trust or unexamined" will appreciate this bracing chronicle. Agent, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. (Dec.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Historical novelist Massie unrolls the familiar knightly yarns with some fresh, unusual twists. Offering a vaguely postmodern take not merely on Arthur himself but on the whole of British history, the author picks up his narrative thread where he left it dangling in The Evening of the World (2003). Noble legionary Marcus, having subdued the warring tribes of Britain into a peaceful outpost of the Empire, returns to Rome on a quixotic mission to save the Empire itself, which is collapsing before the barbarian hordes. Upon finding that the Empire has been usurped by a cabal of upstart bishops (i.e., the popes), he dies a broken man, and Britain reverts to civil war. Marcus's son Uther Pendragon keeps a precarious hold over his father's erstwhile subjects, but he is beset by squabbling Picts, Saxons, and Caledonians who unceasingly challenge his rule. When Pendragon dies, his will stipulates that the next king shall be whoever draws his sword Excalibur from its rocky sheath-and that, of course, turns out to be the lad Arthur. But who is Arthur, and where did he come from? The answer lies with Merlin, Marcus's shadowy adviser, who sees to the boy's education and presents him to the Court, as it were. Most readers know the story already, so suffice it to say that all the familiar faces-Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawaine, Mordred, and Morgan le Fay-are here, although the relations between some of them are not quite what you would expect. And, naturally, there are more than a few unanswered questions at the end. Some will quibble at the Da Vinci Code-like deconstruction of papacy and Church, but most will applaud a brisk, elegant narrative free of the New Age gibberish that infects most modernArthurian sagas. Agency: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Kirkus Reviews