Victor Canning
Paperback | Pages: 550 pages Rating: 3.78 | 107 Users | 15 Reviews
Itemize Books As The Crimson Chalice (The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1)
| Original Title: | The Crimson Chalice |
| ISBN: | 044112190X (ISBN13: 9780441121908) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1 |
Commentary To Books The Crimson Chalice (The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1)
Another reworking of the Arthurian legend, but so bereft of Arthurian resonance that it might have worked better as an unvarnished or unvarnished historical novel of the Roman twilight in Britain. As the Saxon pillagers sweep ever farther west, young Baradoc, Roman army veteran & son of a British tribal chief, meets Tia, a Roman girl fleeing the troubles. Their son Arturo, a child hugely endowed with wildness, blarney & arrogance, grows up to inherit his father's dream of uniting Britain against the Saxons. The story is chiefly concerned with the slow building of his campaign, from his early rebellion against the delaying tactics of the anti-Saxon forces to the great victory of Mt Badon. Like many imaginers of an earlier Britain, Canning is best when describing the wild countryside & the homely skills of its inhabitants. His attempts to graft this material onto the Grail legend are effortful platitudes. Merlin appears & disappears at climactic moments, saying things like "Only the gods know that." Speeches are peppered with ritual interjections of "Aie..." to indicate deep thought. People look at each other & instinctively know something, or undergo some tremendous change "from that moment"...Canning's Arturo does occasionally come to life during his stormy childhood in the Tribe of the Enduring Crow; once he is grown, one feels that Canning, like Sir Bedivere, has lost sight of the barge.--KirkusBeginning note: "At the time of this story—roughly 450 AD—any effective Roman presence in Britain had long gone. The shadow of the Dark Ages—which were to last nearly 300 years—had already fallen across the country. The Saxon mercenaries, hired originally to fight against the Pictish invasions from the North, were now breaking out of the lands granted to them in the East. Constantly reinforced by more of their kind they were beginning to sweep westwards across the country, massacring & pillaging, to make it their own."
Postscript: "Although there are no incontrovertible facts about King Arthur, the renown of his life & deeds in the Dark Ages was lodged for over 600 years in folk memory. & folk, being what they are, invariably alter & embroider a good story. Wm of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth & then Sir Thomas Malory were landed with the result. Lesser as well as better writers have followed them. Acknowledging that I come in the first of these two categories, I feel no shame in entering the lists poorly armed but securely mounted on a horse I have ridden for years called Imagination."
Mention Regarding Books The Crimson Chalice (The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1)
| Title | : | The Crimson Chalice (The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1) |
| Author | : | Victor Canning |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 550 pages |
| Published | : | August 1979 by Ace Books (first published 1976) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Fiction. Mythology. Arthurian. Historical. Historical Fiction |
Rating Regarding Books The Crimson Chalice (The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1)
Ratings: 3.78 From 107 Users | 15 ReviewsAppraise Regarding Books The Crimson Chalice (The Crimson Chalice trilogy #1)
So very boring..skimmed a lot , beautiful stepback though:/Libro molto avvincente su Artù; in effetti ricalca poco la leggenda dei cavalieri della tavola rotonda, come generalmente conosciuta: l'Autore ha cercato di dargli un'appropriato quadro storico, ispirandosi al personaggio, ma costruendo una storia ambientata in una credibile Britannia del V secolo (in particolare nell'attuale Cornovaglia), con la sua frammentazione tribale e le lotte contro gli invasori sassoni. In effetti si avvicina più ad un romanzo storico (tipo Le storie dei re Sassoni, di
It has been more than twenty five years since I read this book, but time has not changed the pleasure I got from re-reading an enchanting tale of the meeting of King Arthur's parents, and an interesting take on the legend. I love the kindle version as there are so many references to Roman names for places in Britain that it is really handy to keep checking where in England Baradaoc and Tia are, and to relate to the lovely descriptions of the landscapes. It's a historical romance with a
This is a better-than-average reworking of the Arthurian and Grail matter written with an intelligent grounding of the history of the Britons after the Roman withdrawal.
Was such a good read! I loved it!
Marked as didn't finish as I only managed the first book (of the three combined in this ed). Not bad, just found myself page-counting, and at this point I'm unlikely to go back to it.I recommend Jo Walton's Tir Tanagiri books for anyone on the look-out for Arthur variants.
I think this was one of the best tellings of the story of Arthur which I've read, and I've read quite a few. The author chose to write a more plausible version of the story of Arthur, noting that Arthur's existence was likely just based on the fact of the long-lasting stories. There isn't a bunch of magic and romance added to this version of the story. It is based on some actual history and what could have truly happened to bring about this long-lived tale of King Arthur.
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