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A review by thaurisil
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
4.0
I first read the Sword and the Stone when my mother gave me the book as a birthday present for my ninth birthday, and fell in love with it. It's the ultimate children's book: Wart, a good kind-hearted boy Wart with no parents and bossed around by Kay, his cousin, meets a wise but scatter-brained old magician, Merlyn, whose lessons involve turning him into various animals like a fish, a bird, a goose and a badger. The good adults, like Merlyn, Wart's guardian Sir Ector, and the knight King Pellinore, are endearing and bumbling (to different extents), and there aren't any bad people except for Kay, who is just bossy. At the end, Wart, the underdog, pulls a sword out of a stone, and accidentally gets himself crowned King of England. Humorous, peppered with idiosyncrasies and filled with innocence, White turns this classic tale into a charming one. It's no wonder that this is the most popular book in the quartet.
In contrast, the other three parts of the book are increasingly darker in tone. The second book, The Queen of Air and Darkness, still has frequent moments of hilarity, but these decrease in the third book, The Ill-Made Knight, and completely disappear in the last book, The Candle in the Wind.
The synopsis of each of these is this. In the second book, Arthur, still young and innocent, sets up his kingdom with Merlyn's help. Believing in Merlyn's idea that Might is not Right, Arthur dreams up the Round Table, a table of knights where there is no head and everyone is equal, and where the knights use their Might to do Right. The four Orkney brothers are introduced, kids who grow up neglected and not knowing that violence is evil, and whose mother, Morgause, twice Arthur's edge, uses magic to seduce Arthur and bears a child, Mordred. The third book features Lancelot, a young child growing up in France determined to be the best knight in the world to join Arthur's court, but with a certain amount of self-loathing due to his ugliness. He joins Arthur's round table and becomes Arthur's best friend, while having an affair with Arthur's wife Guenever. Lancelot struggles with this – he knows the affair is wrong and he frequently goes on quests to escape the affair, yet his mind is irrevocably fixed on Guenever and every effort to stop the romance is thwarted. Arthur, on his part, blocks the knowledge of the affair from his consciousness despite its obviousness, which increases Lancelot's and Guenever's freedom and self-guilt. In battle, Lancelot is famous for being the best knight, yet never killing a man who is down. He gets tricked twice by a girl, Elaine, that he saves, bearing her a child Galahad. Lancelot's struggles with the desire to be good and his inherent immoral desires ties in with the quest for the Holy Grail, which Arthur devises for his knights to stop their fighting and use their Might for good, religious means. Three knights find the grail, but Lancelot, despite seeing the room with the grail, is unable to enter. The Candle in the Wind takes place in Arthur's old age. Agravaine, one of the Orkney brothers, and Mordred, Arthur's son, deliberately expose Lancelot and Guenever to Arthur. Events escalate and Arthur and Lancelot are ultimately forced into a war with each other that neither wants to fight, and with the knights of the round table fighting each other. While Arthur is in France fighting Lancelot, Mordred attempts to seize the throne in England. Arthur rushes back, and the book ends with Arthur ruminating about his many failed attempts throughout his life to stop violence, and wondering why war exists.
I read a comment that the reader felt that many important battle scenes occurred "between chapters" and were left out of the book. What readers have to realise when reading this book is that the books were written around World War II – The Sword in the Stone in 1938, The Queen of Air and Darkness in 1939, The Ill-Made Knight in 1940, and The Candle in the Wind in 1958. White was a pacifist, and what started off as an innocent children's story took on anti-war themes as the war started, and ended with a sorrowful discourse on war after the war ended. Battle scenes were left out of the books because they were becoming too common in the real world, and because White did not want to glorify war heroics. Hence Lancelot, one of the heroes in the books, despite being the best fighter, is merciful and does not kill a man who is down. The only person Lancelot looks up to is Arthur, who is a pacifist himself, trying to reign in his battle-hungry knights and to use their powers to achieve peace.
Arthur's efforts are many. First, he sets up a Round Table, influencing his knights to use their Might to go on quests and do Right. When his knights end up fighting each other anyway, he sends them on a quest for the holy grail, but this backfires when the most virtuous knights find the holy grail and are lost to society, while the rest return to Arthur's court wounded, tired, and still sinful. Ultimately he does manage to achieve some years of peace and prosperity, but one of his old sins comes back to haunt him as Mordred, whom he had tried to drown at sea as an infant when Arthur himself was scared and betrayed, destroys Arthur's kingdom, breaking Arthur's table and sending his knights to war against each other.
The same question appears multiple times, in different forms, in the third and fourth books: Why do men fight? Several reasons are proposed. Perhaps men are easily jealous of each others, and fight for what they do not have. Perhaps men just have a violent streak and need to expend it some way. Perhaps the wrongs that are done to men in their childhood by their parents are perpetrated in their adulthood. Or perhaps men are innately evil, so that evil societies elect evil men as their leaders. In the fourth book especially, war is portrayed as a force that gains momentum and turns massive, so that the original reasons for the fight are forgotten, the societies that are fighting each other do not know why they are fighting each other and only know that they have to win, and the original perpetrators of the war are unable to stop the war. The reasons for starting a war are trivial. Two men have a personal feud against each other. One race dislikes another. Jews are made scapegoats. The war starts because someone uses words powerfully to influence people to seek justice against other people. Does that sound familiar? Power is not what it seems to be – Arthur is the king, but he is forced into a war against his best friend that he tries but fails to avoid.
On a different note, the book explores, to a lesser extent, romance and the different forms and corruptions of it. Lancelot and Guenever love each other truly, but their romance is legally and morally wrong, so they struggle with guilt for decades, never finding peace even in their old age. Arthur loves both Lancelot and Guenever, and so never allows his knowledge of their affair to reach a level in his consciousness where he would be forced to act on it. Both Lancelot and Guenever love Arthur, and do not want yet cannot avoid hurting him. All of this stems from the societal belief that a man and a woman can only love each other as a pair. White demonstrates how a threesome would work, and that Guenever can love Arthur as a husband and also love Lancelot as a lover. There are other, more tragic, forms of unrequited love. Elaine has a schoolgirl's crush on Lancelot that turns into the sole motivation of her adult life, and she commits suicide when he eventually denies her once again. Arthur loves Mordred, who revolts against him. And there is the evil of a lack of love, which is how Morgause turns her sons into twisted individuals.
The books are tragic because Arthur and Lancelot are genuinely good-hearted individuals. I rooted for them, yet they always lose. The book ends with a tinge of hope. It is a symbol of White's hope that the world would learn from its past, and wars and hatred would end.
In contrast, the other three parts of the book are increasingly darker in tone. The second book, The Queen of Air and Darkness, still has frequent moments of hilarity, but these decrease in the third book, The Ill-Made Knight, and completely disappear in the last book, The Candle in the Wind.
The synopsis of each of these is this. In the second book, Arthur, still young and innocent, sets up his kingdom with Merlyn's help. Believing in Merlyn's idea that Might is not Right, Arthur dreams up the Round Table, a table of knights where there is no head and everyone is equal, and where the knights use their Might to do Right. The four Orkney brothers are introduced, kids who grow up neglected and not knowing that violence is evil, and whose mother, Morgause, twice Arthur's edge, uses magic to seduce Arthur and bears a child, Mordred. The third book features Lancelot, a young child growing up in France determined to be the best knight in the world to join Arthur's court, but with a certain amount of self-loathing due to his ugliness. He joins Arthur's round table and becomes Arthur's best friend, while having an affair with Arthur's wife Guenever. Lancelot struggles with this – he knows the affair is wrong and he frequently goes on quests to escape the affair, yet his mind is irrevocably fixed on Guenever and every effort to stop the romance is thwarted. Arthur, on his part, blocks the knowledge of the affair from his consciousness despite its obviousness, which increases Lancelot's and Guenever's freedom and self-guilt. In battle, Lancelot is famous for being the best knight, yet never killing a man who is down. He gets tricked twice by a girl, Elaine, that he saves, bearing her a child Galahad. Lancelot's struggles with the desire to be good and his inherent immoral desires ties in with the quest for the Holy Grail, which Arthur devises for his knights to stop their fighting and use their Might for good, religious means. Three knights find the grail, but Lancelot, despite seeing the room with the grail, is unable to enter. The Candle in the Wind takes place in Arthur's old age. Agravaine, one of the Orkney brothers, and Mordred, Arthur's son, deliberately expose Lancelot and Guenever to Arthur. Events escalate and Arthur and Lancelot are ultimately forced into a war with each other that neither wants to fight, and with the knights of the round table fighting each other. While Arthur is in France fighting Lancelot, Mordred attempts to seize the throne in England. Arthur rushes back, and the book ends with Arthur ruminating about his many failed attempts throughout his life to stop violence, and wondering why war exists.
I read a comment that the reader felt that many important battle scenes occurred "between chapters" and were left out of the book. What readers have to realise when reading this book is that the books were written around World War II – The Sword in the Stone in 1938, The Queen of Air and Darkness in 1939, The Ill-Made Knight in 1940, and The Candle in the Wind in 1958. White was a pacifist, and what started off as an innocent children's story took on anti-war themes as the war started, and ended with a sorrowful discourse on war after the war ended. Battle scenes were left out of the books because they were becoming too common in the real world, and because White did not want to glorify war heroics. Hence Lancelot, one of the heroes in the books, despite being the best fighter, is merciful and does not kill a man who is down. The only person Lancelot looks up to is Arthur, who is a pacifist himself, trying to reign in his battle-hungry knights and to use their powers to achieve peace.
Arthur's efforts are many. First, he sets up a Round Table, influencing his knights to use their Might to go on quests and do Right. When his knights end up fighting each other anyway, he sends them on a quest for the holy grail, but this backfires when the most virtuous knights find the holy grail and are lost to society, while the rest return to Arthur's court wounded, tired, and still sinful. Ultimately he does manage to achieve some years of peace and prosperity, but one of his old sins comes back to haunt him as Mordred, whom he had tried to drown at sea as an infant when Arthur himself was scared and betrayed, destroys Arthur's kingdom, breaking Arthur's table and sending his knights to war against each other.
The same question appears multiple times, in different forms, in the third and fourth books: Why do men fight? Several reasons are proposed. Perhaps men are easily jealous of each others, and fight for what they do not have. Perhaps men just have a violent streak and need to expend it some way. Perhaps the wrongs that are done to men in their childhood by their parents are perpetrated in their adulthood. Or perhaps men are innately evil, so that evil societies elect evil men as their leaders. In the fourth book especially, war is portrayed as a force that gains momentum and turns massive, so that the original reasons for the fight are forgotten, the societies that are fighting each other do not know why they are fighting each other and only know that they have to win, and the original perpetrators of the war are unable to stop the war. The reasons for starting a war are trivial. Two men have a personal feud against each other. One race dislikes another. Jews are made scapegoats. The war starts because someone uses words powerfully to influence people to seek justice against other people. Does that sound familiar? Power is not what it seems to be – Arthur is the king, but he is forced into a war against his best friend that he tries but fails to avoid.
On a different note, the book explores, to a lesser extent, romance and the different forms and corruptions of it. Lancelot and Guenever love each other truly, but their romance is legally and morally wrong, so they struggle with guilt for decades, never finding peace even in their old age. Arthur loves both Lancelot and Guenever, and so never allows his knowledge of their affair to reach a level in his consciousness where he would be forced to act on it. Both Lancelot and Guenever love Arthur, and do not want yet cannot avoid hurting him. All of this stems from the societal belief that a man and a woman can only love each other as a pair. White demonstrates how a threesome would work, and that Guenever can love Arthur as a husband and also love Lancelot as a lover. There are other, more tragic, forms of unrequited love. Elaine has a schoolgirl's crush on Lancelot that turns into the sole motivation of her adult life, and she commits suicide when he eventually denies her once again. Arthur loves Mordred, who revolts against him. And there is the evil of a lack of love, which is how Morgause turns her sons into twisted individuals.
The books are tragic because Arthur and Lancelot are genuinely good-hearted individuals. I rooted for them, yet they always lose. The book ends with a tinge of hope. It is a symbol of White's hope that the world would learn from its past, and wars and hatred would end.