The Once and Future King: The Sword in the Stone

[osprey_archer]

After I confessed to skygiants that I have never read T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, she kindly took it on herself to send me a copy and read it along with me, which turned out to be VERY useful as this is one of those books where the publication history turns out to be as much of a story as the story itself.

So The Once and Future King was originally published as four separate books. (I will be reviewing it book by book as we go. This first book is The Sword in the Stone.) White actually wrote five books, but for Reasons the fifth book was not published as part of The Once and Future King, so White decided to take the parts that he considered most important and bung them into The Sword and the Stone, with the sly comment that “it’s really too early in your education” for Merlin to send the Wart to visit the totalitarian ants, but that’s the only way for White to get it in the book and so in it goes.

(This scene is EXTREMELY 1984, except that instead of “good” and “ungood” the ants say “done” and “not-done” [as in, “It’s just not done to wear white after Labor Day!”] But it was written in 1941 before 1984 was published, and not published till after 1984 so it couldn’t possibly have influenced Orwell’s book. A fascinating example of synchronicity!)

White also (perhaps to create room for the ants etc?) shortened several episodes from the original publication. skygiants informs me that the scene where the Wart and his foster brother Kay team up with Robin Hood rescue prisoners from Morgan le Fay’s extremely unappealing castle made of food (a castle should not be made of cheese and butter!) was originally much longer. Also, there was originally a whole entire scene where the Wart is an owl, which has been cut in favor of a book five scene where the Wart hangs out with a bunch of geese and nearly bags a goose girlfriend, only she is deeply put off when he explains to her about war and she’s like WHY would geese kill other geese, it doesn’t make SENSE.

There is also a scene where the Wart spends the night in the mews as a hawk, and this is apparently drawn from the time that T. H. White decided to train a goshawk using a three hundred year old manual that explained the only way to tame a goshawk is to keep both it and yourself awake for three days running at which point you let the goshawk fall asleep on your fist. (Spoilers: by the 1930s, they had realized there were other ways to train a goshawk.)

This particular book, The Sword and the Stone, is the source for the Disney movie of the same name. For a Disney adaptation it hews surprisingly close to the plot beats of the original, but it flattens the characterization. In the book, Kay is a tense, high-strung boy who sometimes lashes out from his own frustration and fear of inadequacy. (White does an amazing job on the sibling relationship between Kay and the Wart: they sometimes get furious at each other, but even during their worst quarrels there’s a rock solid love for each other underneath.) Sir Ector is a bluff, hearty knight who is nonetheless a loving father (for both his son and foster son) beneath the bluster. In the movie, they’re just buffoons.

I enjoyed all the scenes where Merlin turns the Wart into animals, but the subtlety of the characterization is what really made the book for me. I’m super curious to see White’s interpretations of other Arthurian characters as they come into the narrative.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

The chapter with the totalitarian ants is the part of The Sword and the Stone that left the deepest impression on me, goodness knows why.

I look forward to your thoughts on the rest of the book! I especially can't wait to hear your thoughts on the Orkney clan; it's so heart-breaking to go from the Wart's childhood to theirs.

[osprey_archer]

EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY.

That is to say, the totalitarian ants are very memorable!

[rachelmanija]

The DONE/NOT DONE ants are extremely memorable.

[ethelmay]

I feel so old. I remember when The Book of Merlyn came out (1977 - I think my mother bought it as a Christmas present, whether for me or a sibling I am not sure) and that was the first I heard of the ants and the geese. I think I had not read the full Once and Future King at that point. I loved The Sword and the Stone (and also Mistress Masham's Repose, for what that's worth), and had just assumed a lot of it would make more sense to me when I was older, and then realized no, it really didn't, in fact it rather fell apart in some ways. I was something of a Platonist at that age (too much C.S. Lewis) and felt there should be one ideal form of a book, and the patchy messed-about different versions rather appalled me, though as the daughter of a writer I knew something about different drafts. I would have been a freshman in high school that year and it was that year or the next that I would first have read Sylvia Townsend Warner's biography of White, which I was obsessed with for a few years.

[osprey_archer]

I'm glad to hear the Sylvia Townsend Warner biography is good! I've been thinking about reading it after I finish Once and Future King.

[ethelmay]

It's a wonderful book in its way, but very much due for an update - there was a lot she had to leave out because certain materials couldn't be quoted until well after his death. I am surprised there hasn't been another bio (at least I have not heard of any in the works - I could be out of date there and indeed hope I am).

[osprey_archer]

I googled round a bit and found this article, which says the Warner biography is the only one, although there are a few book-length studies of White's works.

[ethelmay]

That's an interesting article. I had no idea anyone was so invested in the idea that White wasn't queer. (White damn well said he was in multiple places, unless we assume Sylvia Townsend Warner was just making up quotations from his letters and journals.)