The Book of Merlyn
T.H. White
Ace Books, New York, 1977
The book was written during WWII just after 'The Once and Future King' (TOAFK) as its fifth part, but was first published only in 1958. I expected this to be a magical ending to TOAFK, giving White's spin on the Lady of the Lake, and Excalibur, and Sir Bedwedyr, and Lancelot becoming a Hermit, and Guenever becoming a nun and later Abbess, etc. But except the last two events, which are briefly mentioned in the last few pages, the book is a boring diatribe on White's take on politics, before, after and during WWII. A committee consisting of animals and Merlyn is convened ostensibly to advice Arthur, (now a very old man, waiting on the battlefield to fight his bastard son, Mordred, and as it turns out, die at his hand) on the future course of his great civilisational project. White comes across as a misanthrope who sees nothing good in mankind, as compared to animals, birds or insects except perhaps ants. Ants colonies represent totalitarian (or even communist) societies, and are harshly dismissed. So is capitalism, which the committee claims is a form of society that is solely man's creation, and that no animals exploits its own kind or even other animals for personal benefit - an irrelevant observation, I thought. Anyway the final conclusion that White appears to heading for is some more ideal form of a free market society, actually quite in tune with neo-liberalism. A thoroughly disappointing, badly written book, especially since the two chief set pieces - Arthur's visit as an ant to an ant colony, and then his visit as a wild goose to a colony of wild geese - have both appeared already in The Sword in the Stone. The rest of the book represents the committee's discussions and arguments, except, as I said, the last few pages, where Mort d'Arthur and the rest of it is written as a kind of brief essay in an encyclopedia (Wikipedia?).
Disappointing.
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