Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country (Paperback)

I did enjoy most of the content of the book and it was well written. One thing that did bother me was the constant switching to thoughts in the middle of the story. It made things more confusing to figure out not only who was doing the "thinking" but also distracted for the storyline a bit. Otherwise, it was a decent read though I've found other books out there on the subject to be much more enjoyable.

Here we have Gunevere presented as a Pagan Celtic Queen of a Matriarchal tradition (a la Persia Woolley's books). I have no problem with this idea. But it becomes obvious fairly early on that Ms. Miles doesn't actually know anything about Pagan religions, either modern or ancient, besides the names of the holidays and the fact that women practice(d) some kind of sexual freedom. I tried hard to say "this is only a fantasy novel," but I happen to know that a great many people take what they read about such things in novels as absolutely true. So when Ms. Miles related that Imbolc--a Pagan spring holiday celebrating new life and healing--was sacred to the "dark maiden of death" I about blew a gasket.

That was one problem. Next was that the book is utterly ungrounded in any timeframe. Although it goes back to Welsh tradition, most of the Arthurian legend we are familiar with is based on 12th & 13th century French romances. The fashion currently is to draw on the older sources and try to find a possible historical basis, making Arthur a Roman Legionary, a Celtic Warrior King, or anything else that would potentially be possible for a dark ages leader of about the 6th century. Rosalind Miles chose to ignore this and her work harks back to Mallory in its castles, tournaments, and code of chivalry. I am not categorically opposed to this. But trying to merge a Middle Ages sentiment of that sort with a Neo-Pagan Matriarchal basis Just Didn't Work. It was very jarring and, rather than gving a new interpretation of the events, it just made them seems arbitrary.

Another thing that really bothered me was the way Ms. Miles jumps around in time without regard to events and without letting the reader know what's going on. One minute it's Beltain and the next it's midsummer, seemingly without transisiton. One day Arthur's setting out to deal with the infant Mordred and when he returns a week later Mordred appears at a tournament seven years old or so. No one seems to remark on this.

I could go on about how flat the characters are and how, although she seems to try to give people basis for their actions, Ms Miles' falls far short of the mark when it comes to creating real, believable situations. Most of the action is sensationalist. I get that the Matter of Britain deals with a lot of sensational stuff like rape and incest. But I'm looking for more than the bare bones these days.

If you've never read any reimagining of Arthurian myth, this book may not actually annoy you. It won't really teach you anything, either. I'd recommend giving it a miss. There's a thousand better boks on the subject than this travesty. I'd give it zero stars if I could.