Morris, Gerald. The Squire's Tale.
I only regret taking
so long to finally start in on this series!! To be fair, for a long time I couldn't find them - this was before I did nearly all my book shopping in used bookstores or online at Amazon and ThriftBooks. Barnes & Noble really has
nothing... Unless it's a well-known title or a filmed adaption is about to be released... But never mind. I've got the book now, and mean to get the others as soon as humanly possible. The writing style and overall tone of this story/collection of stories is not exactly what I expected, and at first I wasn't sure of it because I was so taken aback. Morris' style reminds me of... Well, not this exactly, but I can only compare it to Twain's style combined with BBCMerlin's humour. (Yes, I know Morris' Squire's Tales predate BBCMerlin.) At the same time, it reads much like Malory's Morte D'Arthur (which makes sense, as Morris notes that Malory was one of his main sources). And I think that's what I miss so often in Arthurian tales - the humour. I get caught up in the "downer" aspects of the story as a whole - Arthur's high hopes and ambitions to create The Perfect Kingdom, the betrayals (especially The Betrayal...a pox on you, Lancelot), the complicated family struggles (Mordred anyone?), the disillusionment, Arthur's death - and, yes, all of that is tragic and awful. But no matter which version of the legends you read, there are many adventures, quests, and even just small incidents and conversations, to enjoy before the final ghastly pages/paragraphs/lines. And plenty of these adventures end sadly, but many of them also have humourous aspects - often simply because of the sheer
ridiculousness of the situation itself. To return to the point: Morris (at least it appears so from this first book in the series) has managed to capture all these elements perfectly and tell the stories in an entertaining manner, though he doesn't try
too hard to make it "new/trendy" just to please the kids, which is wise.
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