The Once and Future King

I am quite surprised that this was not a part of my literary education growing up. I read a lot of classics and books written in and about England and old wars. This tale is as good as any of them. It is fantasy, Merlyn and King Arthur and the round table, but the line seems blurrier now to me than ever—It came alive in this book. At no point did it become boring or slow. King Arthur is just like me, and just like anyone else. He may not be the smartest person, but he sincerely wants to use what knowledge and experience he does have to simply make the world better. And he tries. He tries so hard.

I fell in love with the story, with poor King Arthur—growing old as the Round Table falls apart, with Lancelot and his stolid, gold heart and his flaws, with Queen Guenever and her fate—things always seem to just happen, and never as we expect. But courage, bravery, kindness can't be wrong.

I can't believe I haven't read this before, and I want to read it again someday. It has a sense of grandeur that goes beyond simply King Arthur and the round table. The people in this book are so real, unlike the King Arthurs I've always pictured. Wart in the Disney adaptation The Sword in the Stone is a good depiction I think of young Arthur, and what I loved about this book is how far beyond young Arthur it went. It takes us through all of King Arthur's struggles and shows us old King Arthur, and his old knights, and his old queen, and asks us: "Is this the hero you always imagined? He's just like you. He's just like me." We all have the potential to make changes, learn, and think like King Arthur. We can challenge the thinking of the day and we can all try to simply make the world better. Like King Arthur, we can fail, but it won't be for lack of bravery or goodness—the world is simply beyond us. But we can do our part.

And that's what I've brought away in my first reading of this beautiful fantasy. I hope you'll read and love it too, because it is well deserving.