The Sword in the Stone (1938)

This book lost my interest in a couple of spots, but overall it was quite enjoyable. My kids and I laughed out loud at several points. I know I read this when I was younger, but reading/listening to it it this time, I only remembered the part about the pike. I have a vague memory of Wart's night in the mews, but I could have manufactured that while reading H is for Hawk.

Actually, I think that part of why I don't remember much from my earlier reading of The Sword in the Stone is that so much of the language went over my head. Reading H is for Hawk just before helped fill in some of the hawking terminology and made my T.H. White experience richer. That's worth a couple of false memories, I think. Now to tackle The Once and Future King...again. ( )

He comes pre-humbled
great leadership qualities
...bit weird about geese. ( )

A young boy named Wart, being fostered in the home of Sir Ector, finds himself being tutored by the wizard Merlyn in this classic treatment of the youth of King Arthur. Transformed into various different creatures during the course of his education - a fish, a hawk, an ant, a goose and a badge - Wart learns about the nature of power and of warfare, and is taught to question the issues of fairness and justice. Unbeknownst to him, he is in training for his future as a king, and the book ends at the tournament in London, where the future monarch will be revealed by his ability to pull the sword from its stone...

Originally published in 1938 in a slightly different form than its current one - I believe the episode with the ants was added later - The Sword in the Stone was eventually published, together with three sequels - The Witch in the Wood, The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind - as the first part of The Once and Future King, T.H. White's epic reimagining of the Arthurian saga. Although the larger work is not considered a children's book, The Sword in the Stone often is, and I recall reading it myself as a girl. White's work was included in the syllabus of the course on the history of children's literature that I took while getting my masters, and I was glad to encounter it again. I found the animal transformations here quite interesting, and was quite struck by the passage in which Wart reflects on Merlyn's teaching style: "the Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk. He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise the, pouring and leaping through strange seas."

This is an influential book, inspiring a Disney animated film, and providing the template, in the figure of Merlyn, for such authors as Neil Gaiman and J.K. Rowling, who have both acknowledged a debt to White. I think I also see White's influence in some of Susan Cooper's Arthurian-linked fantasy series, The Dark Is Rising sequence. Well worth the time of any reader who enjoys fantasy fiction. For my part, I'd like to get to the longer work, The Once and Future King at some point. ( )

Some thoughts here:
http://ciaracatscifi.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-sword-in-stone-by-t-h-white.html ( )

For a long holiday road trip with my son, I thought he'd enjoy this introduction to Arthurian mythology. I did it with some hesitation, as The Once and Future King was one of my favorite books as a child and I feared it may not hold up to nostalgia. I'm pleased though that this first installment of the tetralogy is still an enjoyable, modernist spin on the story of King Arthur, filling in the story of Arthur's childhood. Of course, I always thought the The Sword in the Stone was the best of the four parts. One thing I didn't know is that White actually made major changes when he incorporated The Sword in the Stone into The Once and Future King, and while I can't really remember enough to recognize most of the changes I was surprised that Disney didn't actually make up the duel between Merlyn and Madame Mim. Another thing I didn't notice is a kid was just how blatant the anachronisms are, with Meryln living backwards in time making them a running gag. Knowing how much White loved hunting, I also noticed that he puts a lot of detail into his descriptions of hunts throughout the book, something I must have glazed over as a child. What remains the same is that the book contains a lot of humor, adventure, animal lore, a cameo by Robin Hood (er, Robin Wood), and surreptitious pacifist social satire. And my son, well he covered his ears a lot during the scary party, but insisted we keep listening to the story and that we move on to The Witch in the Wood next. ( )