The embarrassment of this book is this: I’m positive I loved this book, but honestly I struggle to remember more than a handful of (rather vivid) scenes from the book. In my defense there are a lot of characters and a lot of mythology (and pop culture!) referenced, so you spend a lot of your brainpower trying to understand what you’re reading and putting it in context of everything else you know about Arthurian retellings. But all in all, this book is a marvel of storytelling and asking the same questions as in The Magicians, a decade(?) on in the hands of a storyteller who has learnt and grown himself.
This book can broadly be split into three parts: in the first, our lead character Collum sets out for Camelot, bright eyed and bushy tailed (and a bit worse for wear) only to arrive and be told that he just missed the party. You see, Arthur died two weeks, no heir, and honestly there aren’t that many knights left either. It’s a rather disorienting beginning (less so as a reader, of course, because it’s the start of the book’s blurb), but after a bit of “but what are we going to do??” (but this time said by the men) they decide to venture forth for the second part, which is Quest to Recover Camelot. But, and this isn’t a spoiler but since the myth of Arthur doesn’t borrow from Jesus and resurrection, once they realize that Camelot is well and done, they move to the third part, or, what’s next?
What do you do when Camelot is lost, this book starts to asks, before answering the question “what even is Camelot to you?”
This is a hefty book, with large digressions for each of our remaining knights (oddballs, most of whom I’ve never heard of before) to flashback and reminisce about their lives to date. Plenty of time to Quest about, chasing after Questing Beasts and Goblets and Grails and who knows what else to try and find someone else who can be in charge and tell everyone what to do, because the alternative (having to find the answers ourselves) is hella scary.
It’s also a pensive book, wrestling with questions of ownership–of culture, of land, of right, ultimately of the stories that we tell. Is it Arthur who defines the age? Is it the pagan traditions of the ancient Britons who he displaced? Is it the invaders, the Saxons, who in time will become the Anglo-Saxons who in turn co-opt the Arthur legend for their own attempts at creating a right to rule?
As with all books that leave impressions but have either a lot (this) or a little plot, it’s hard to really review this in substantive detail. All I can say is that the feeling of wonder/confusion/honor/adventure and the vibes therein are great in this book, and if anything to do with Arthur interests you I highly suggest picking this up. And if Lev Grossman has become problematic in the years since I last looked into me…sigh, perhaps don’t tell me until 2025?