up on the stage

I had originally wanted to listen to this one on audio, but there’s a length at which it just seems more practical to read the paper version, and 23 hours is about there. This chunker of a book clocks in at around 670 pages and it’s an entry in the Arthurian Legends. It’s The Bright Sword, by Lev Grossman.

Any book that long has to justify itself as far as I’m concerned. I might read a mediocre 300-page novel, but I’m not going through almost 700 pages unless it’s good. Happy to report this one is!

I have some familiarity with the Arthurian Legends—in that I’ve read The Once and Future King—but I haven’t gotten around to Le Mort d’Arthur or other more original elements yet, so just some perspective to keep in mind if you are someone more read in this area.

Grossman’s take involves a young wannabe knight, Collum of the Out Isles, who steals armor from his liege lord and runs away to mainland Britain in hopes of the chance to try out for the Knights of the Round Table. He hasn’t even set his goal as becoming one of them really, just the chance to try. Unfortunately, by the time he arrives at Camelot, King Arthur is 2 weeks dead and most of the Round Table is gone too, leaving behind only the less illustrious knights.

I thought it was very bold to center the story on Grossman’s original character, but I think it works. Collum is likeable and interesting and watching him interact with characters we know from the legends is fun.

The Bright Sword obviously comes from a place of love for Arthuriana. This is not a “genre-busting” book, but one that comes from deep attachment to the stories that spawned it. It balances the weight of epic legend well with humor—I laughed out loud a couple of times. It also does a very good job I thought of making the story appeal to a modern audience without copy/pasting 21^st century morals onto a book set well in the past. For instance, there are queer knights at the Table (And really, how could there not be? If you were a gay man of moderate athletic ability in Arthur’s Britan, and you heard about the Table, would you not be trying to get in there?), but they don’t use modern terminology to describe themselves, and their attitudes towards themselves and others feel appropriate for the setting.