The Once and Future King

I first read this book when I was 14 years olds in 1963. Since that time, I have reread it six times, the last being c. 10 years ago. I now feel a need to read it again as I approach my 50s. First time I read it, I read it much as a fairy tale. In latter readings, it came across very much as an adult novel. Something for everyone in it -- love, war, good, evil, quest for the Holy Grail, etc. My readings of the Once and Future King caused me to read Mallory's Le Morte de Arthur, Tennyson, as well as some of the original French and English legends about the subject. So, it incited a life-long passion in Arthurian drama although I don't think any of them ever approached the majesty of The Once and Future King.

This is one of the most horrible books I have ever read. It is long and drawn out. Sacrificing trees for this mindless drivel should be a crime. The only slightly interesting part was the first book, The Sword and the Stone, when seeing Arthur's early years in more depth then a Disney movie would allow made me optimistic about the rest of the book. After that, absolutely nothing of importance happens. Throughout this book, I was rooting for Lancelot and Guinever to die, so maybe we could focus on Arthur, the only interesting character. The others are all shallow and uninteresting. I felt no emotional connection to any of the characters that were being focused on.

I love reading this and I love teaching it. There are other reviews that clearly state the book has four parts, etc... but there is something just fun about this book that makes it easy to read. The first part, "The Sword and the Stone" mirrors the Disney movie and that just makes me smile. It also makes it easy to hook kids because they can imagine what's happening in a fun way. As a history and literature teacher, I know that there are other versions of the King Arthur legend and I'm pretty sure that I've read them all, but there is nothing to detract from this version. Jump in! Read them all!

The separate novels which make up the whole of T. H. White's Once and Future King, with or without the ending that was lost due to a wartime paper shortage but later published separately as The Book of Merlyn, are without question one of the great contributions to literature in the 20th century. The one-volume O&FK is my personal first on that much-touted list of 100 greatest books of the 20th century, where I am delighted to say it does appear. This book, and To Kill a Mockingbird, and 1984, are the books of my youth that shaped me as an adult.
White had many interests and was a versatile, quirky, and brilliant student - Sylvia Townsend Warner's biography of him illuminates this. His own philosophy of life was (as I think Warner notes) similar to Merlyn's: for every uncertainty and unhappiness in life, learning something new is a wonderful cure. White put his various enthusiasms to good use here; O&FK was my "student's guide" to the Middle Ages. What is an orrery? What the heck does "barbara celerant darii ferioque" mean? Look 'em up!...I had to look up so much about so many of the things he was talking about, that I learned to love the European Middle Ages very much, and also his sources (Malory, Walter Map, etc.). I even learned the "real" poems behind the parodies in the narrative (Peacock's "The War Song of Dinas Vawr" comes to mind, and that English folksong about John Peel, "The Horn of the Hunter") and the sources of the quotations which are the epigraphs to the different books - in fact T. H. White introduced me to A. E. Housman!
The twist in the story is, of course, that White makes the world of his beloved Morte d'Arthur the real world, and the world of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance the fantasy world...Malory is history, the Plantagenets et al. are fantasy. Merlyn's own recollections are also charmingly old-fashioned, though not intentionally - he lives backwards, so his youth is the era of White's own youth, and he remembers an Oxbridge landscape that is already out-of-date to us. Arthur's youth lies in Merlyn's future, exactly as Merlyn's youth lies in Arthur's future.
However, White's sometimes cheerful, sometimes earnest lessons are no less timeless now than when he wrote the book, living on the dark, stormy edge of a world conflict - his home at the time the books were finally compiled into a single volume was Ireland - and we are reminded that the Twentieth Century is without question the century of totalitarianism. Other reviewers here have properly noted White's comparison of the ants' lives to that in a totalitarian state of the right, but I think even White would have been alarmed - I'm pretty sure Merlyn would have been - that some have forgotten that other horrible totalitarianism, i.e. the totalitarianism of the left, which has been excused by many because it means well. Merlyn would certainly say it wouldn't matter if the ants meant well. And in China and Russia, I suspect this book could still be considered dangerous.
But the glory of this book is that it is a world unto itself, an enchanting, vivid, colorful, humorous, poignant, and precious world, one that tells us, of course, much about our own. It is a tale from a dream-England that every Anglophile in their heart loves. The story is full of poetry and laughter, high feeling and goofy humor ("You honk like a goose." "I do not, and you snore worse." "How can I snore worse if you don't snore at all?"). I hope it is never lost. Whenever I read the last pages, I turn around to read the first ones again, because I never want it to end. It is T. H. White's gift to a humanity that bemused and troubled him but which, in the end, he must have loved, to have left us all, the whole world over, this wonderful legacy drawn from the very core of his own being.
As a post script: Robert Lawton's illustrated Sword in the Stone is a delight to have, if you can find it. And if you can find Christopher Plummer's recording of The Book of Merlyn, it is well worth hearing.
Enjoy...

This book is in my lifetime top ten list. I've read it three times. Its pages are full of wisdom, humor, mysticism and hard life, an unbeatable combination. I call the story "a hopeful tragedy." For sure it is a high tragedy up to Greek levels and then some. And yet it's hopefulness lies in King Arthur's ability to continue deepening, learning, reaching for the goodness that he still believes is in every person.

Someone said that The Once and Future King was the "Harry Potter" of its day. While I love the Harry Potter series, Rowling is no T.H. White. Her writing is a serviceable yeoman's march compared with White's kingly, profound, sometimes soaring performance. Harry changes very little as he grows up, while his supporting characters seem to stay exactly the same. Not so with Arthur. He changes before our very eyes, sometimes not for the better, as does Lancelot, Guinever and others. Though both tales are mythological, White's story feels real and gets us deep down in the bowels of our conscience, our morality and our fears. Eventually, it provokes compassion, allowing us to become more forgiving of ourselves and others. Not a bad way to live in the world. When you really learn something, you become a different person. You will really learn something from The Once and Future King, making T.H. the Once and Future White.

I read this for the first time as a teenager. I lost the paperback years ago but wanted to read it again so purchased the hardcover. I'd forgotten much of it so it was delightful to enjoy it again. Stories of this quality don't come along all that often and this is one that everyone should experience.

Easily the best modern novel written about the Middle Ages. A fantastic story full of detail and beauty.

This was a good book in all. It' s writing was a bit inconsistent. The first half was very narative and sometimes a bit tedious, but it did an excelent work of introducing the reader to life in the middle ages. It is explained how Arthur grew up, rose to the throne of England and thought of the idea of the round table. In the seccond half the story of Lancelot is told, his affair with the queen and how it helped the kingdom decay. Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere are explained as the tragical figures that they are and portrayed very well as human beings and not mythical figures.

The book is not focused on telling the story of Arthur, one can read it in great detail in Malory' s boook as the author states, but instead on giving his vision of how he wanted to shape his country and how it all turned out. In this the book succeeds very well.

A very good reading indeed.

Fantastic book, well written, and relevant to today's world. Have read this multiple times since college. Each reading brings new insights. Have worn out 3 paperbacks and need hardcover to last through rest of my readings.

I have only read the first part of the three books in The Once and Future King, and I am already hooked. Before, I was never interested in the tales of King Arthur, and when I found out we would be reading the book (part I) in class I was extremely dissapointed.
The first 'book' of The Once and Future King tells how Arthur was brought up, thus foreshadowing how he will act when he becomes the king of England. T. H. White wrote this novel while serving in the war, and the book shows his opinion on issues such as communism, democracy, and even war itself (in a descrete way). These opinions are expressed when Arthur (also called Wart in his childhood years) is turned into different animals such as a fish, an ant, an owl, a goose, and a badger by his faithful educator, Merlin.
Throughout the first section of this book you will laugh and cry at the same time. Heroes emerge from the most unlikely people in true times of need. You will meet new people that will change your view on life forever, no matter what age you are. Even though I've only read the first part of The Once and Future King, I have already started on the next book which is also superior and impossible to put down. This is ultimately a promising book that people of all ages will adore!