Sunday, February 03, 2013

On Second Thought, Let's Not Go to Camelot...

Book #4 is The Camelot Papers by Peter David

It was through comic books (of course) that I was first introduced to Peter David. And these days, his X-Factor is one of the few comics I'm still reading. Over the years, I've branched out and read a fair amount of his prose too, most of which I've also reviewed here.

Peter had a stroke at the end of last year. He's recovering nicely (yay!), but of course, his health insurance doesn't cover everything, so when the call went out to buy some of his books in order to help him out, I immediately did so. Which brings us to The Camelot Papers.

Written in the form of a diary (and with a framing device that these are 'authentic' writings that were discovered and are now being studied) authored by Viviana, a name often ascribed to the Lady of the Lake in the Legends. Not so much here.

Viviana is a slave, sold into servitude by her debt-ridden father, she ends up at Camelot, working in the kitchens, until her intelligence is noticed by... pretty much everyone and she becomes a lady-in-waiting to the new Queen, Guinevere.

Peter plays about with the structure and characters of Camelot quite a bit here, and still (mostly) makes it fit the overall Legends. His Arthur is a dimwitted, too tenderhearted, yet extremely likable doofus. Guinevere is a headstrong tomboy. She and Morgan are sisters (and yes, Morgan is still half-sister to Arthur as well. Mordred is an incredibly intelligent (and creepy) albino child. And Lancelot is a big, French jerk (sigh). And Galahad is a completely fabricated knight of Viviana's invention.

In his other Arthurian books, Peter gets very political-allegory like, and he does so again here. He uses the time-honoured attack on Guinevere and Igraine by Meleagrance as a (not at all) veiled allegory for the Iraq war. Which is fine in and of itself, but I'm not entirely sure what the point was. Yes, Arthur (and the kingdom) lose it's innocence over this, but working in a framework of tales where the characters were often and always at war, it's hard to really feel that this was any worse than anything else Arthur has done in the tales (can you say Childslayer?), so for me, the ill-found war against Meleagrance and his WMD's (yes, that acronym is actually employed) didn't really hit home for me.

That said though, I did enjoy the characterizations and seeing things unfold through Vivana's eyes and interpretations. So yes, I liked this book even if this Lancelot was a jerk :)

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