“For I have promised to do the battle to the uttermost, by faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had liefer to die with honour than to live with shame; and if it were possible for me to die an hundred times, I had liefer to die oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame.”
Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur
Sometimes you’ve got to go back to the classics. You just coulda/shoulda/woulda have to!In today’s tech-heavy, beep beep beep world where more people actually die from texting while behind the wheel of a car than from drunk driving, it’s sobering and grounding and refreshing to know that there was a time when people put pen (or quill) to paper (or papyrus) and wrote ¡legends!
Le Morte d’Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table is one of those books you should put on your literary bucket list. Sir Thomas Malory wrote this sweeping epic in the 15th century, but it wasn’t actually published until 14 years after his death, in 1485. (Sucks that they didn’t have print-on-demand available back then…or cell phones.)
I mean, haven’t you ever wondered what really happened between King Arthur and Guinevere-don’t-call-me-Stefani? Or was Sir Launcelot the world’s first real studmuffin and how much heat did he really pack in that jousting lance of his? How about learning why Merlin turned down an audition at the original Hogwarts?
So the next time you’re oscillating between Sophie Kinsella and Dan Brown (or From Rocket Fuel to Rocket Fun!: Blow Your Friends and Their Minds at the Same Time and Cats Don’t Have Opposable Thumbs, Dumbass: But They Sure Can Drive Good!) as to what you will read next, do yourself a favour and consider a classic, maybe not Tommy M.’s contribution to world literature, but something you’ve told yourself a million times that you totally, absolutely have to read before you die.
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Richard H. Harris 