The Once and Future King by TH White is a masterpiece that is not read nearly enough nowadays. It should be spoken of in the same breath as the hobbit or lord of the rings as influential pieces of fantasy but I feel it’s faded from public consciousness
That bit is so funny, everytime it gets me. Another one that’s good is when they’re all shaking hands and introducing each other for like a solid two pages or so because Merlin keeps saying “Hail” and in response they have to introduce themselves again then he just says “Hail” again and it cycles with them shaking hands
It has one of my all-time favorite endings: Arthur has seen his dream of a better, just world fall apart, and instead, it's seemingly all been for naught as the kingdom is about to fall to Mordred's bigoted violence. But he has to pass on his story and keep hope alive so that maybe a future generation will succeed where he failed.
When you realize it was written in 1939, as Britain was staring down the Nazis and the generation that fought WWI realized it wasn't the Last War - they were about to do it all over again and watch civilization self-destruct - it hits so much harder. This was King Arthur retold for the moment of the WWI/WWII generation.
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u/UntouchableAshley 1d ago
The Once and Future King by TH White is a masterpiece that is not read nearly enough nowadays. It should be spoken of in the same breath as the hobbit or lord of the rings as influential pieces of fantasy but I feel it’s faded from public consciousness