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Continuing with my late medieval theme, I started Le Morte d'Arthur on my big walk. It's fairly hefty at ~38 hours, even at 2.8x playback speed. I thought all that walking time would eat it up, but I was only maybe a bit over halfway 5 days later. The trouble is, for all the swashbuckling and magic and fantasy, it's really kind of... boring.
It was neat hearing some of the older forms of the Arthurian mythos, certainly. And there is some wild stuff in there. Fairly early on Arthur goes to war with the Roman Empire, and easily wins, then that just isn't ever mentioned again. He also wins a British version of the Battle of Tours against some surprisingly numerous Saracens, leaving the time frame of the stories rather ambiguous. Lots of weird little details, like a magic ring that some lady loaned to some knight, which changed all the colors he was wearing into other colors. The need of knights to fight in a tournament without being recognized comes up far more than I would have expected. There isn't just one Sword in the Stone, but many Swords in the Stone, or magic sheath, all just kind of waiting around for the right person to come along and draw them finally. The (first) Lady of the Lake does give Excalibur to Arthur, but only on the promise he would grant a boon later. (This never works out well for anyone involved, btw.) Later she shows up and demand the head of one of Arthur's knights, who instead cuts her head off, using one of those other fated blades, in self defense. Then anotherLady of the Lake shows up, and she ends up imprisoning Merlin in a rock because he won't stop trying to rape her. Chivalry!
But beyond the interesting little weird bits, it's just dull and repetitive. Another book meant to be read out loud over many, many nights, it doesn't even have the charm and characterization of the Decameron stories. No knight has a personality beyond good and evil. No maiden has a personality beyond chaste and lascivious. No dwarf has a personality at all. At that's pretty the entire stock of character types. Even the battles manage to be boring. Either you are told and not shown, or the details shown are overused. The two knights smote each other passing sore and verily did knock each other from their horse. Then they fought for another two hours, until the ground was red with blood and their shields had been chopped to splinters. Then one either kills the other with a blow to the head that cuts down to shoulder, or knock them out with a blow to the head, or knocks their helmet off and the other yields. That's it, repeated, I dunno, 600 times.
(The language is pretty fun, though, hitting that perfect sweet spot of late Middle English where other than spelling it's really entirely readable yet still sounds super Ye Olde Fashion.)
The ending was pretty surprising, knowing only modern interpretations of the mythos. Lancelot is found in Guinevere's chamber, so he straight up murders a dozen knights to get away, and then murders another 4 dozen the next day to rescue Guinevere from being burned alive. (Not the first time he had to do that, either. Arthur is surprisingly willing to accept anyone's accusations against Guinevere.) He takes her back to his castle, then Arthur and the rest of the Round Table knights besiege it for months, until a truce is made. Lancelot goes back to France and is a great king there, until Arthur invades and starts the whole thing up again. Finally everyone but the two of them are dead, and Arthur has to go die in Mordred's coup back in England. So much honor and worship!
I also resent this book because it tricked me into watching Excalibur, and that was just dreadful.
It was neat hearing some of the older forms of the Arthurian mythos, certainly. And there is some wild stuff in there. Fairly early on Arthur goes to war with the Roman Empire, and easily wins, then that just isn't ever mentioned again. He also wins a British version of the Battle of Tours against some surprisingly numerous Saracens, leaving the time frame of the stories rather ambiguous. Lots of weird little details, like a magic ring that some lady loaned to some knight, which changed all the colors he was wearing into other colors. The need of knights to fight in a tournament without being recognized comes up far more than I would have expected. There isn't just one Sword in the Stone, but many Swords in the Stone, or magic sheath, all just kind of waiting around for the right person to come along and draw them finally. The (first) Lady of the Lake does give Excalibur to Arthur, but only on the promise he would grant a boon later. (This never works out well for anyone involved, btw.) Later she shows up and demand the head of one of Arthur's knights, who instead cuts her head off, using one of those other fated blades, in self defense. Then anotherLady of the Lake shows up, and she ends up imprisoning Merlin in a rock because he won't stop trying to rape her. Chivalry!
But beyond the interesting little weird bits, it's just dull and repetitive. Another book meant to be read out loud over many, many nights, it doesn't even have the charm and characterization of the Decameron stories. No knight has a personality beyond good and evil. No maiden has a personality beyond chaste and lascivious. No dwarf has a personality at all. At that's pretty the entire stock of character types. Even the battles manage to be boring. Either you are told and not shown, or the details shown are overused. The two knights smote each other passing sore and verily did knock each other from their horse. Then they fought for another two hours, until the ground was red with blood and their shields had been chopped to splinters. Then one either kills the other with a blow to the head that cuts down to shoulder, or knock them out with a blow to the head, or knocks their helmet off and the other yields. That's it, repeated, I dunno, 600 times.
(The language is pretty fun, though, hitting that perfect sweet spot of late Middle English where other than spelling it's really entirely readable yet still sounds super Ye Olde Fashion.)
The ending was pretty surprising, knowing only modern interpretations of the mythos. Lancelot is found in Guinevere's chamber, so he straight up murders a dozen knights to get away, and then murders another 4 dozen the next day to rescue Guinevere from being burned alive. (Not the first time he had to do that, either. Arthur is surprisingly willing to accept anyone's accusations against Guinevere.) He takes her back to his castle, then Arthur and the rest of the Round Table knights besiege it for months, until a truce is made. Lancelot goes back to France and is a great king there, until Arthur invades and starts the whole thing up again. Finally everyone but the two of them are dead, and Arthur has to go die in Mordred's coup back in England. So much honor and worship!
I also resent this book because it tricked me into watching Excalibur, and that was just dreadful.