Good evening!
Under no illusion that this will get lost among the one million Black Friday emails invading your inbox, but I did say that I would treat this like I was speaking into the void. Probably for the best, as I am most likely going to talk about knights in a worrying capacity (again).
What I’ve been reading and what I think about it
I finished Imogen’s debut Deep Down, which is out next year. I really, really loved this novel and I’m very proud of her for writing it. Imo’s journalism (like her piece on all-inclusive holidays and her trip on the Gone Girl cruise) has that insightful cleverness that makes you laugh but also makes you think a little deeper about why you are laughing, and her novel uses a lot of that skill. It deals with difficult-to-talk about familial relationships, and it impressive how she has written such a well-formed novel out of things that are hard to put into words. It’s about two siblings, Billie and Tom, who come together after the loss of their father. Tom has been living in Paris for nine months and Billie is beginning a corporate career in London. They have never really spent an extended amount of time together, but their loss shocks them into a union that eventually becomes cathartic.
Deep Down is primarily about grief, but it is also about anger. The narrative is interspersed with chapters set in the past, which drip feed Billie and Tom’s background, and go some way in explaining their complicated relationship with the death of their dad. It’s very moving, and there is a scene at the end that I think will cause a lot of talk and debate, and is the kind of thing I love for a novel to have.
I also began Rosemary Sutcliff’s King Arthur trilogy, and finished the first book, The Sword and the Circle (1981). This has been one of the most upsetting reading experiences I’ve ever had, and am bamboozled that it is meant for children. The Arthur stories are inherently romantic, but she really brings the yearning and the loss to the forefront, especially with Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseult and Geraint and Enid.
What I particularly like is her treatment of aesthetics. Her prose is simplistic, probably because of its intended audience, and because she is adapting from Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) — she talks about this in the preface, and you can tell that the actual telling of the story is really finely influenced by the older text. Because of this simplicity, she doesn’t’ often go into great description, but when she wants to convey beauty and ugliness, she goes all in.
Lancelot continues to be the character that modern and contemporary writers grapple with; as in T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (1958), he is described as ugly but enigmatic. It’s a strange characterisation given that he is loved by Guinevere, Arthur’s wife, has multiple other women fall in love with him, and is highly regarded among knights of the round table. It would be easier for him to be classically handsome to justify these kinds of responses to him, and yet Sutcliff and White have him as this internally tortured, odd-looking man. It could be read as that weird thing of good looks = a good person in moral narratives, but overall, he is presented as a person who tries his best to be good. Sutcliff especially writes his yearning for Guinevere as a natural, unavoidable thing that impacts him almost on a physical level. Perhaps this is a commentary on how real life and a black and white view on morality don’t mix, and is not a healthy way to look at the world. I don’t really know, but it’s fascinating that this world-famous perhaps-mythical figure is described in these terms by two big twentieth-century novelists. (I know Marion Zimmer Bradley characterises him completely differently, namely queer, but she also blends him and Galahad together, so it’s not quite relevant here. Also MZB was a terrible, awful person so I would rather concentrate on White and Sutcliff).
Another example of ugliness is Lady Ragnell, who helps Arthur to solve a riddle set for him by a bewitched knight. Even though it is inevitable that she is actually beautiful and has also been bewitched, I thought the handling of her looks is really well done. She is described as old with facial scarring and some physical disabilities, and there is a sense that those who judge her for these features, including Arthur himself, are not acting correctly. Sir Gawain is the one who discovers that she has been bewitched to look like this, and yet he is happy to marry her to get Arthur out of a sticky situation. Even though he does this out of love for his king, he keeps out a pretence that his union is joyful, and speaks to Ragnell with respect. His ‘reward’ is of course the revelation that she is one of the most beautiful women you could ever imagine, but the kindness shown to non-beauty was nice while it lasted.
Books on my radar
You will be thrilled to know that I have finally got a copy of The Wind in the Willows and I will be reading that v soon.