Tag Archives: Myth

Never Ending

Stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are legion, but they usually end before or at Arthur’s death. After all, what’s left to say about Arthur and his knights after the legendary king dies? Nothing. The story is over.

Then again, Arthur is the once and future king, so perhaps stories about Britain after his death are as pertinent to the Arthurian myth as the ones during his life. Maybe stories don’t end just because certain characters, even main ones, die. Perhaps the stories continue, but with new characters and different adventures. Just maybe the stories go on forever. Lev Grossman thinks that might be the case, and he makes a compelling argument in The Bright Sword, his thoroughly enjoyable addition to the Arthurian myth.

The story opens with a knight, Collum, traveling to Camelot to join King Arthur and the Round Table. Collum is a poor orphan, and he’s wearing stolen armor. His chances of acceptance into this elite fighting group appear slim, but his timing is perfect. Many of Arthur’s bravest knights never returned from the quest for the Holy Grail. And then there’s Mordred, King Arthur’s bastard son. Just days ago, Arthur and Mordred killed each other in a battle that claimed most of the remaining Round Table.

Britain is now a dark and divided land. While Arthur brought unification, order, and peace, he was the “last light in the darkness.” Old Britain is asserting itself. The fairies never went away, but they’ve become bold again. Christianity is in retreat, and threats from foreign lands are everywhere. The remaining knights are ragtag so they can’t be choosey. Collum is in.

He isn’t without talents. At seventeen, Collum is incredibly strong and quick. He’s the greatest fighter his island, Mull, has ever seen, but Mull is tiny and remote. Regardless, he’ll be handy on a quest. And what do you know? These undistinguished knights suddenly have one. They must find the rightful heir to the throne. Arthur was tall, but this task is taller.

As they travel across Britain and Fairyland, the knights encounter all the major characters from the Arthurian legends, but Guinevere, Merlin, Lancelot, and Morgan le Fay aren’t the romanticized characters you might remember. They help make this addition to the canon all the more appealing.

Like all quests, this one is full of enchantment and danger. A successor is found, but the cost is great and much is uncertain. But that’s a quest for you. “Stories never really [end], they just [roll] one into the next. The past [is] never wholly lost, and the future [is] never quite found.” Quests, like stories, never really end. They’re never quite resolved.

That’s good news, my friends, because your grail is still out there, and you’ll never attain it. But like Collum, you can have wonderful adventures as you try. Quest on and quest well.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Myths of Self-Reliance – My Favorite Myths

In Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, Barbara Van Laar, a thirteen-year old at summer camp in the lush Adirondacks, has gone missing. The most important rule at this remote camp is “When lost sit down and yell.” Barbara hasn’t done that, which is strange because her wealthy family owns the camp. She’s aware of the rule. Her family also owns the mansion overlooking the beautiful mountain lake next to the campgrounds. Barbara knows the area. She’s not lost.

This is also strange. Barbara’s brother, nicknamed Bear, went missing in the same area fourteen years earlier in the summer of 1961. He was only eight years old, and he was never found. Stranger still, Jacob Sluiter, whose ancestors previously owned the ancient woods surrounding the mansion and campgrounds, escaped from prison a few weeks before Barbara disappeared. He’s a notorious killer, convicted of murdering eleven people between 1960 and 1964. He was blamed for Bear’s disappearance. That’s a coincidence, I’m sure, because there are rumors that Barbara has a much older secret boyfriend, and she may have run off with him.

All of this means there’s some urgency to the search for her, and the state troopers are brought in to lead it. Judyta is a young woman in her mid-twenties, and she has just been promoted to investigator. She doesn’t have much experience looking for missing children, but she does know how to work within patriarchal systems. Since this is 1975, those skills serve her well, as the patriarchy is everywhere.

There’s much to like about this book. Moore does a nice job jumping between the timelines relating to each child’s disappearance. She’s devised an interesting plot with two engrossing mysteries. The exploration of female empowerment working within a suffocating patriarchy is effective and authentic. Moore isn’t afraid of irony or poking fun at patriarchal and capitalist mythology. The Van Laar’s Adirondack mansion is named Self-Reliance, but it was built by the local townsfolk, and time and again the Van Laars must rely on the locals for help.

While the book is an enjoyable read, it falls short of being great. Judyta is a distant, less compelling, cousin of The Silence of the Lambs‘ Clarice Starling. At times the prose is silly and clunky. “When one’s parents and grandparents have already quested and conquered, what is there for subsequent generations to do?” But the real problem is the ending. The mysteries are solved, but only one resolution is satisfactory. The other one is ludicrous. Throughout the story, Moore correctly shows how self-reliance is a hypocritical myth perpetuated by the patriarchy. However, she then takes self-reliance to absurd lengths to mythologize female empowerment.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Charles Portis – Truly Gritful

Charles Portis’ True Grit, which was published in 1968, is considered a classic American Western, and that’s a shame because in reality it’s a classic regardless of genre. The story is narrated by the flawless Mattie Ross. Now to be clear, the only thing that’s flawless about Mattie is her storytelling.

Mattie is an old woman when the book opens. It’s the 1920s, and the Old West is long gone. Mattie is a smart woman. There are only two things in the world she loves: her church and her bank. But she doesn’t want to talk about them. She wants to talk about her quest to avenge her father’s “blood over in the Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground.” It was in the 1870s, and Mattie was 14 years old. Her father, the “gentlest, most honorable man who ever lived,” was gunned down by Tom Chaney, a hired hand on her family’s Arkansas farm. Mattie travels alone to Fort Smith to finish her father’s business and start a little business of her own. She’s going to bring Chaney to justice, dead or alive.

But Chaney has escaped to the Indian Nation, which is just over the Arkansas state line in Oklahoma. That territory is a “sink of crime” but that’s not the Indians’ fault. They’ve been “cruelly imposed upon by the felonious intruders from the States.” The local sheriff has no jurisdiction in Indian territory, so Mattie needs the assistance of a U.S. Marshal. She asks for references and settles on Rooster Cogburn, a “pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don’t enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork.” He’s a man with grit. A Texas ranger, LaBoeuf (pronounced LaBeef) is also looking for Chaney because he killed a state senator. This odd trio goes into the Indian Nation searching for a killer. What’s the worst that could happen?

This isn’t Disney’s version of the Old West. There are no singing cowboys on horseback. Actually, LaBoeuf does sing some, but you get my point. Mattie can recall “when half the old ladies in the county were ‘dopeheads.'” I never heard anyone in the Apple Dumpling Gang say that. There’s a high body count, and no one returns unscathed.

Rooster Cogburn is an iconic character in American literature, but the story is a classic because it’s told by Mattie Ross. Her voice is matter-of-fact, unintentionally humorous at times, and indelible. “I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked though often useful.” You’ll remember Mattie Ross for a long time. She’s the one with true grit.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor