I suddenly found myself in the mood to read through Le Morte D'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, and figured I better pounce on that since it isn't an easy read necessarily. The language is old. The chapters are nice and bite-sized though and it isn't a complicated book....just lengthy and elderly and a bit formal. Additionally, it wasn't written to entertain - it was written to document. That's not a ding at all...I was still entertained while I read the documentation, but it affects its tone and delivery. I got an immaculate copy of it from Easton Press, which I used for my read through.
This version was illustrated by Anna-Marie Ferguson. I understand this was the first time that a woman illustrated a whole version of this book. She did an amazing job as you'll see with the pictures I'm including in this blog posting.
I initially read portions of this book my freshman year in high school. I would give a lot to see which excerpts I read...it was assigned reading, but I simply don't recall. Just curious is all. This time I read the whole thing, though. It was truly epic in scope and delivery. And very bloody. There was a lot of killing in this book...and lots of fighting...one knight will smite another and take his horse, only to have someone else smite him and take his horse. Another knight can have his helm taken off and be beheaded. Then they'll eat super.
Lots of tournaments too. It seemed that it was ingrained in their society...it's one of the things knights did. The prize could be a diamond or just bragging rights, but it was important for them.
I really enjoyed some parts of this book more than others, but enjoyed the book overall as well. Some of the stories were quite powerful. Especially the treason or Mordred and its outcome. Others were even humorous (Sir Kay has a habit of giving derisory nick names to other knights, for example).
It often spoke of knights fighting for hours and I recall my freshman English teacher saying it was an exaggeration. I think I recall that. She was smarter than me but I wonder if because they were so heavily clad in armor it really took that long to effectively hurt each other...it slows everything down after all. I'm not sure. Anyway, this book is a blend of legend and history and reads as such. You have to take that kind of stuff and roll with it without overanalyzing everything. It's a fun book.
I'm a little bit proud to say I actually found three mistakes. I know that readers will naturally read over mistakes a lot of the time when just reading a book...I probably did the same with other errors. It's incredible that there were only three that I noticed in a book of this length, though. Very well done and edited....well put together, too. One of the finest books produced by Easton Press I have read yet.
I would recommend this book only to folks that have an interest in Arthurian legend or that like reading really old books like this. This one was written in the late 1480's, to give you an idea. And, if you can and have the inclination, I highly recommend the Easton Press edition of this which, as of the time of this writing, is still available so you wouldn't need to pay a premium for it on eBay..
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