Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was reading through the one-star reviews, and I felt that I should mount a defence of my favourite book. First of all, I think it's rather important to remember that The Once and Future King is not a book about King Arthur. It is a book about being human, and about the misery and joy which attend that particular condition. It is a book about T.H. White's peculiar solitude, about loving nature more than men, and about loving humans fiercely for their flaws and their sorrows, and for the hollowness of their glory. Coming from this perspective, I think that White is one of the only modern writers whose approach to Camelot mirrors that of the original Arthurian authors. Chretien de Troyes and Mallory were not writing about Arthur, they were writing about their own times -- the places and fashions that mattered, the people and manners that they experienced, reflected in the idealized mirror of Arthur. The Once and Future King is about White's experiences with war and tragedy -- these are mirrored in the childish foolishness and aged grief of the Wart, and muddled into the tragedy of Lancelot and Guenever. It is not always an easy book. It is very obviously a product of its own peculiar place and time, as all good Arthurian stories should be. It is my favourite book.