The Mists of Avalon [Paperback]

Others have mentioned the factual arguments against "Mists": that by the time Arthur supposedly lived, Britain was already mostly Christian; that the "matriarchy" allegedly embraced by everyone in Europe before those eeeeevil Xtians came along has been greatly exaggerated by feminist scholars; and that paganism had its own shortcomings, notably human sacrifice. Everyone knows that the Church burned millions of "witches" in the Middle Ages; fewer know that the pagan Celts often locked their human sacrifices in giant wicker cages and burned them to death therein.

I don't recall all that much about the female protagonists Morgaine, Morgause, Igraine, and Viviane, except that there was a fair amount of whining and other uncommendable behavior. I do recall, however, Bradley's malicious trashing of her male characters and also Guinevere ("Gwenhwyfar," which is the original Welsh spelling). Arthur, as someone else mentioned, is [so weak] that you wonder how such a character might have ruled a lemonade stand, let alone a feud-rent nation of disparate clans and tribes. Lancelot has about as much depth as a male Calvin Klein underwear model. Gwenhwyfar's father is the typical insensitive, domineering patriarch. And so on and so forth.

The only man I seem to remember NOT getting savaged was Merlin -- and I'm hardly commending MZB's treatment of him, as he was reduced to nothing more than the doddering living representative of the Horned God with whom the priestesses mated during the fertility festivals. From Bradley's book, you'd never know of the awe-inspiring figure Merlin has traditionally cut as sorceror, sage, and protector of the infant Arthur.

But the worst-treated character by far in "Mists" is Gwenhwyfar, who is little but stereotype: that of the naïve, narrow-minded, puritanical, high-strung, and ultimately deceitful Christian woman. Nobility and royalty are of course no guarantee of anyone's character, but highborn women of Britain and Europe (at least until Victorian times) were generally raised to command large corps of servants, oversee their many and varied duties, take charge when the men were away at war, and certainly pitch in with the work themselves. You'd think that a woman who in legend was queen for some 20 years, and whose country was in her day at the outer reaches of civilization, would have more resourcefulness, practicality, spine, and shrewdness, even if she wasn't an admirable character.

Other readers have taken Bradley to task for the incest scenes, not realizing that Arthur's coupling with his half-sister (Morgause and Morgaine are sometimes merged into one character, as in Mary Stewart's books) that produces Mordred is central to the legend. Totally foreign to it, however, is the ménage-à-trois between Arthur, Gwenhwyfar, and Lancelot, justified in their minds by Arthur's inability to impregnate his wife. Though that scene mercifully stops short before Bradley could get into any graphic detail, to me it symbolizes everything that's wrong with this novel: the legend's best-known characters, already repeatedly depicted as lily-livered, are now painted as amoral hypocrites, just so Bradley can make the other female characters into heroines for the age of political correctness.

And, like just about any book that runs for 800-odd pages and six decades, "Mists" is too damn long and rambling -- it's the "Shogun" or "War and Peace" of Arthurian fantasy. I wonder if Bradley's editor(s) simply trusted her work based on her reputation and didn't bother to examine it too closely, perhaps fearing that such a superstar of fantasy wouldn't have brooked the severe editing job the book badly needed, and just might have taken it to another publishing house out of pique.

Given all the five-star reviews, I doubt my opinion will sway any of its fans among the teeny pagan set, or among adult women who loved it *because* of its polemics. So let me reiterate what others have suggested: that they read other retellings of the story such as Gillian Bradshaw's "In Winter's Shadow" (told from Gwenhwyfar's viewpoint); Mary Stewart's Arthurian tetralogy; Diana L. Paxson's own series on the subject, as well as her novel "The White Raven" (a reworking of the Tristan and Iseult romance narrated by Iseult's handmaiden); and, finally, a book by a (gasp!) male author, Parke Godwin, called "Firelord," which is from Arthur's perspective but is highly sympathetic to "Morgana," as he calls her.

A life-long enjoyment of Arthuriana will teach you one very clear thing: there is no definitive story or Arthur, and therefore all interpretations are as valid as the next. The existence of Arthur can barely be proven, and his identity is certainly up for debate. The stories of Camelot, the Round Table, and certainly of Lancelot and Guinevere are all Norman-French additions to a tale set hundreds of years prior in the Dark Ages. Arthur is an enduring legend but, as we know him, mostly a legend nonetheless.

Bradley's story, then, of the tale of Arthur through the women who knew him, is no less valid an interpretation than any of the rest, and certainly a unique one. Rich with its own legends and myths, "The Mists of Avalon" begins with Igraine, and goes forward through the eyes of Viviane, Morgaine, Morgause, and Gwenhwyfar, each with their own perspective on what truly were momentous times in the history of Britain. As Arthurian myth, it stands on its own two feet as well as any other, with its tales of war, love, religion, loyalty and betrayal spread across and repeated through several generations, closing with the end of an era and the beginning of Saxon rule over the island.

It is also, however, a tale of one human woman, Morgaine, and her life: her beginnings, her path, her faith, her love, her choices, her mistakes, and ultimately, her will to survive. The lesson of "The Mists of Avalon" that I take with me each time I read it is this: we are born to strive towards something, and in the struggle, we sometimes misstep along the way. It is our free will that gives us the ability to make mistakes, and also to accept them, later, as part of being human. It is, in many ways, the struggle that matters most, not the outcome.

This is the lesson of Morgaine's life, and it is what makes "The Mists of Avalon" a life-altering experience for me, and for many others who have read and taken it to their hearts.