What I've Been Reading, Arthurian edition: The Winter King, by Bernard Cornwell
Before I get into this week's book, I'd like to talk a bit about the author, Bernard Cornwell. Cornwell is a fairly prolific writer of historical fiction, with a primary focus on British history (given that he was born there, that's hardly surprising). He's written novels about everything from a reconstruction of Stonehenge in 2000 BC, to a quest for the Holy Grail during the Hundred Years' War, to an as-yet unfinished series about two soldiers in the American Civil War, but he's probably best known as the writer of the Richard Sharpe books. If you've never heard of him, look up his catalogue online - I'm sure you'll probably find something of his you'll like.
Anyway, on to the book - The Winter King, book one of Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles
Much like Jack Whyte's Dream of Eagles series, The Warlord Chronicles tells the story of Arthur's rise and fall in a reasonably historically accurate setting - in this case, Britain during the Saxon invasion of the late-5th to early-6th centuries. But unlike with Whyte's novels, Cornwell spends the series discussing Arthur's life when he's having the most impact, rather than on the events leading up to Arthur's prominence.
The series is framed as the memoirs of a monk named Derfel Cadarn, who is writing down the story of Arthur for the queen of the kingdom where Derfel's monastery happens to be located. The queen has grown up hearing tales about Arthur, and wants to hear them from someone who was actually there. And often enough, the real thing doesn't quite live up to the stories. I love the parts where the narrative shifts back to the frame, where the queen essentially tells Derfel that he's telling the story wrong - it's a bit like in the movie The Princess Bride. And all Derfel can tell her is "Well, that's how it happened. Sorry to disappoint you." It's almost like Cornwell is confronting the audience and saying "This is my version of Arthur, and you don't get to tell me how to write it."
In Cornwell's version, Arthur isn't the king. He isn't even royalty. He's the warlord of the British kingdom of Dumnonia, and guardian of the rightful king, Uther's grandson Mordred. But, since Mordred is still too young to rule, Arthur is more-or-less in charge of things. On top of ensuring that his nephew lives to inherit the crown, and that there's a crown to inherit, Arthur's also set a personal goal - unite the British kingdoms and drive out the Saxon invaders. It doesn't help that Arthur is a pagan and that there are several Christian leaders within Dumnonia plotting against him.
And there's another element that makes me prefer Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles to Whyte's Dream of Eagles - the issue of religion in post-Roman Britain, which in turn probably stems from the differences between Cornwell's Dumnonia and Whyte's Camulod.
Camulod is distinctly Roman in feel - the characters are either Roman soldiers or raised and trained by Roman soldiers. Camulod isn't a mixing of Roman and British into something new - it's an attempt to hold on to the Roman world after Rome has abandoned Britain. Because of this, just about every character is a Christian. There might be a few non-Christians around, but there's no real mention of religion.
Dumnonia, as well as the rest of Cornwell's Britain, is a different story. There's Christians, of course, but also a wide range of pagan religions - the native British gods, the male-only Roman-imported warrior cult of Mithras, the female-centric Cult of Isis, not to mention Saxon paganism. The underlying conflict between these two camps creates great tension - how can the Britons be united when their beliefs are so fundamentally different? And this helps to make Cornwell's setting feel more real to me - Dumnonia fuses elements left by the Romans with those native to Britain to create something completely new.
Cornwell also has some character interpretations that I especially like, namely Lancelot. In most stories, Lancelot is the great hero, the best of Arthur's warriors, the one everyone admires. Here, he's a coward, mean, and a bit of a fop. And after reading Le Mort d'Arthur, I really like seeing Lancelot taken down a peg or two. Derfel admits that he's biased against Lancelot, but several other characters share his distaste for the man. But Cornwell also manages to redeem a few characters that I'd grown to hate in other sources, like Galahad. Again, I quickly grew to despise Galahad in Le Mort d'Arthur, but this version of Galahad is probably how he was intended to come off - a brave, friendly, forgiving warrior. Galahad is also one of the few nice Christians - while a devote believer, he doesn't try to force his beliefs on his pagan friends. Yeah, he's essentially a Token Enemy Minority character, but it's probably necessary to show that most Christians in the series aren't all that bad.
So there're my thoughts on The Winter King. I'm currently reading the sequel, Enemy of God, and thoroughly enjoying it. If you want to read a 'historical' version of Arthur, but don't want something as depressingly grounded as Dream of Eagles, I'd highly recommend it.