Medieval 2011

So it is with a heavy heart that I declare myself to have finished reading the whole series of The Squire's Tales by Gerald Morris.

The series, "The Squire's Tales" is a modern day retelling of the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table and while in is essence fiction based on fiction, Mr Morris has succeeded in recreating the world of King Arthur and his knights with breathtaking wit and a delightful irreverence for chivalry.

Ok so it sounds like an obituary but forsooth I am sad. His books were pretty much the whole reason why I got interested in King Arthur in the first place. There's something enthralling and gripping about reading of a chronologically asynchronous king who lived sometime in 6AD but whose tales are set in the Medieval times. + there's magic, lots of magic, adventure and action-twisting, stabbing, jousting, parrying-that sorta thing and lots of sleeping around, sometimes by accident

(but which is told in a really funny way-

like when Galahad tells Sir Brandegoris that he,
Sir Galahad, was the son of Sir Lancelot
(born 'cause Lancelot slept with Elaine but didn't know she had borne him a son)

Sir Brandegoris says: "Son of Lancelot? First I've heard of it!"

And Beaufils with his innocent, smart-ass mouth, chuckles and goes:
"It's the first Lancelot had heard of it, too")

HAHAHAHA

Anyway, to a kid, the way he wrote his stories were fascinating and even as I read the 8th, 9th and final book, I found myself equally fascinated. Plus I love the way he writes of the Other World a.k.a the Faery Court, there's nothing terribly difficult to understand 'bout his writing but the way he describes it, you get this otherworldly sense of calm and excitement at the same time. 'Cause it's the Seely Court! Anything can happen!
Couple that with tight storylines, funny conversation and boy, It's amazing.

And pretty much all the knights ain't one dimensional, that's the best part. I guess it's cause there's such a wealth of stories to be had about King Arthur-dating back to the Medieval times but still it takes loads of skill to fit that many mufti-dimensional characters and play them off against each other in a book. Everyone's so real. Arthur and Guinevere were clearly a couple with relationship problems (in Morris' books) and Lancelot was the dude who went to close to his best friends' girl. The other knights and ladies are mostly just people on a quest to find out who they really are and their role in the world.

They could be just about anybody here on earth, they could be you.

And that's why I'm sad that I've finished the series, I know that I probably won't find books of this quality that I can feed off and nourish myself for a week ever again nor will I tire of this series. But it's hard to say goodbye to something I enjoy so much.

I guess Harry Potter's an alternative, but the tradition of King Arthur dates backs to centuries ago and I guess there's this part of me that loves knowing 'bout the past and how people lived. The creation of a whole new fantasy world, no matter how fabulous doesn't intrigue me as much as the way people lived back then. How was the air like? How gorgeous were the stars? Was it really as miserable as it is made out to be? I.e. drafty English Castles/ sleeping in muck if you were poor.

In fact other people's cultures fascinate me much more than my own culture does. I guess it's because I've watched enough tv serials to know what Ancient China was like and I didn't like it much. But the mystery of what it means to be of another culture, a culture long gone, appeals to me more than I can say. And now I've to stop my hunt for The Squire's Tales Series.

I last read them in 2007 and then I forgot about them 'cause everytime I hunted for new books from the series, they never appeared. And I just found out that the last 2 books came out in 2009 and 2010 so it wasn't too bad that I lost track of it for 4 years.

I'm glad I remembered.

Gahh I've gone on a Gothic + Medieval books rampage. This was before I got hold of the last 3 books of The Squire's Tales series. So you could say that the rampage led me back to where my heart belonged (in books) (: