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The Once and Future King

I'm not sure what I was reading at the time but T. H. White's "The Once and Future King" was mentioned and I ended up adding it to my BookMooch queue. Not long afterwards a copy came available and I mooched it. I remember watching Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" countless times while growing up. Needless to say the book covers much more than that movie could :)

The legend of King Arthur has been told in many forms by many people for some time (as a skim of his Wikipedia page supports). I found White's retelling of it a joy to read. Some of the dialog was best read aloud due to the heavy accents transcribed in text. "Nae doot ye heard of yon. I missed to tell ye in my tale." [442]

Out of the four stories told, "The Sword in the Stone" and "The Ill-Made Knight" I felt were best. "The Candle in the Wind" felt more intellectual and didn't complete the story as satisfactorily as I would have liked. I might have just been hoping for more action. Or maybe I should read his unpublished "The Book of Merlyn".

Tags: books