Once and Future Arthurs - Arthurian Literature for Children

Anna Caughey gives a lecture at the Bodleian Library looking at the varying spectrum of literature about King Arthur written for children.

March 2012: T H White's "Sword in the Stone" and our April book

This month we've been reading The Sword in the Stone by Terence Hanbury (T H) White, published in 1938.  This whimsical children's story by the former Stowe schoolmaster - based on Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1485) - was an instant success when it first came out, with Walt Disney acquiring the film rights in 1939. White amended it to become the first volume in his more serious - and much less readable - Arthurian quartet, The Once and Future King (1958).  Lerner and Lowe purchased the latter three books to make the successful musical Camelot in 1960. This finally motivated Disney to make the cartoon version of The Sword in the Stone: it came out in 1964, one year before White died suddenly aged 57 in Piraeus, on board the ship on which he was returning from a lecture tour of the United States. He was buried in Athens.

One of us had read and loathed The Once and Future King leading to some reluctance to tackle The Sword in the Stone.  Luckily, these fears proved unfounded!

Our wide-ranging discussion touched on aspects of White's somewhat eccentric and melancholy life as well as the book's extensive sources and intertextual references.  Having persevered through the first chapter with its obscure falconry language - evidence of his own passionate enthusiasms - we all agreed that (rather like King Pellinore's Quest) it had been worth the struggle!  In fact, the shape of the book seemed to echo White's melancholia with its highs and its lows, personified by Pellinore and the Beast eventually coming to terms with their inter-dependency.

There were so many "highs" to talk about, despite some of the dated language.  The description of the interior of Merlyn's cottage, so like Remps' 1690 painting of a Dutch cabinet of curiosities that we felt White must have been describing it; the perfectly-behaved English weather when the white snow never turns to slush; the night in the mews; Wart's transfigurations into animals, birds or fish; the scenes with Robin and Maid Marian; the modern references (such as Merlyn appearing like Lord Baden-Powell in running shorts, or the cigarette cards of wildfowl paintings by Peter Scott); the trees' discussion about their various utilities; the Wind in the Willows-like scenes with Athene and the hedgehog and badger ... It was interesting too with White's interest in Catholicism to recognise the religious references - including salvation for the wicked bankers! 

The American Book-of-the-Month Club magazine wrote in 1939: "Mr. White is evidently a scholar. His knowledge of the codes, the customs, the courtesies of medieval England, is extraordinary ... This book is unique. You may not like it if you cannot take a mixed drink of phantasy and realism, edged with satire, and beautifully blended by a humorous imagination. But if you like it, you will not like it moderately."

We didn't all like The Sword in the Stone, but those of us who did, definitely did "not like it moderately". 

Our next book is Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin but we won't be meeting until Wednesday 2 May because of the Easter holidays.  It's going to be hard to wait that long!

So what's a corkindrill?

Are you reading The Sword in the Stone? So what is a corkindrill? There's one hanging up in Merlyn's study.

Find out the answer to this and many other obscure words used in The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn by clicking on the link to the T H White Glossary of Terms, part of the Camelot Project website by the University of Rochester. Thanks to Hannah for finding it!

PS: it's a crocodile.

February 2012: David Almond's "Skellig" and "My Name is Mina" and our February book

January gave us a double dose of David Almond.  Not only did we get to grips with My Name is Mina, published in 2011, but we also read Skellig - the 1998 Whitbread and Carnegie prize-winning book to which Mina is the prequel.  Both books led to some intense and wide-ranging discussions. 

On the whole, the vote was in favour of Skellig as a more satisfying read for both boys and girls: it has substance, strong and sympathetic male and female characters, and plot momentum.  The stylised girl's diary approach and typefaces used in My Name is Mina were less well received and we commented on the missed opportunity to introduce some drawings into the text.  We had different opinions about whether Mina's character was realistic and whether her home schooling experience - an apparently well-tempered and idealistic partnership between mother and daughter - was credible.  We appreciated Almond's description of Mina's day in the Pupil Referral Unit - but we were drawn into a discussion about whether some pages in Mina felt more like a writer going through some technical exercises to demonstrate his craft than moving the plot forward. 

We discussed the poetry and art of William Blake; the tightly woven metaphors relating to birds and flight; the references to the classical Underworld with Persephone's journey acting as a simile for birth; the island of Skellig Michael and the archaeopteryx.  We talked about reading age labelling for books.  We enjoyed many of the thought-provoking ideas that Almond's books must inspire in children: particularly the dust particles of skin and people's breath lingering in the atmosphere. (11 year old son to Mum, after going to bed: "Mum, am I getting dusty when I lie in bed at night?")

Our next book takes us into the mediaeval Arthurian fantasy world of T H White's The Sword in the Stone (1938).