I managed somehow to put up a blank post – instead of just deleting it I’m filling it in. This was part of my super-long “fiction” post below, but I cut it because the post was already too long.
I have recently become interested in Avalonian spirituality. Well, I always have been, but I pushed it away because I thought of it as too fictional, too imaginary. Everyone involved in it seems to think Marion Zimmer Bradley was divinely inspired, though they will be quick to deny that their spirituality is based on her books. I have to admit that I have never read the Mists of Avalon. I started it and got about a page into it when I decided that her style was too irritating for me. I don’t mind bad writing if it knows what it is – pulpy sci-fi or juvenile fantasy or even really horrible and smutty romance novels can be totally absorbing and fun. It’s when the cheesy fantasy author thinks she is writing Serious Literature that I get annoyed. I pegged Bradley that way after the first page or so and stopped reading.
I might have been too quick to judge, or unfair – so many seem to love it. I’m conflicted about whether to give it another shot, and now that my spirituality has become partly bound up in Avalon it’s an important decision to me as to whether I should read it. Fictional characters tend to take up lots of space in the imagination, and are hard to shake – after reading, and not particularly liking, Morgan Llewellyn’s The Druids, her Vercingetorix is now who I imagine when I read about the historical Vercingetorix. I’m annoyed by this but there is little I can do about it now. If I read Bradley, will her Avalon supplant mine? I’m fine with that if I like her Avalon, but if I don’t I might be stuck with it.
April 21, 2007 at 9:35 am
That is the shortest post I’ve ever seen.
April 21, 2007 at 12:04 pm
oops – I was trying to do something, didn’t like it, and thought I deleted it. Guess it came out as a blank post. I’ll fill something in instead of deleting it.
April 21, 2007 at 3:45 pm
It’s been a while since I read Avalon. I quite liked it.
I will say, however, that the viewpoint Bradley takes is quite different than most Arthurian tales. Bradley tells the story from the standpoint of the women, mostly Morgaine.
Characters that are considered heroes in other versions take on somewhat of a villainous flavor, and some of those who are considered “evil” in most versions get to tell their side of the story.
I like Bradley’s vision of Avalon very much.
April 29, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Read “The Crystal Cave” instead. I couldn’t finish “Mists,” I got about 100 pages into it, and it moved so slowly and was very preachy. “The Crystal Cave” trilogy is much better. Author: Mary Stewart.
Great seeing you! Blessings!
April 29, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I read all the Mary Stewart books multiple times when I was a teenager – they were among my favorites but I haven’t read them in years. Stewart’s Merlin is and always will be the Merlin of my imagination – he’s one that I don’t begrudge the space he takes up in my imagination. Her Theseus is like that for me, too, if you ever read “The King Must Die” – and I’m an unbearable snob when it comes to novels with themes from classical mythology. Stewart is the only one that I can think of at the moment who does it well.
Preachy – yes. that’s one of the words that came to mind as I started reading “Mists.” I went to the library yesterday and got “Lady of Avalon” – they didn’t have “Mists” on the shelf – and if I like that I’ll give “Mists” another shot. If I don’t like it, then forget it – life is too short to read dull books.
Good seeing you to, Anne! And the “spare” as well (was that the spare?)
May 2, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I’m starting to get why people like these books so much. “Lady of Avalon” is not a particularly good book – it’s slow moving, the characters seem very flat, and the writing is awful (“It was quiet. Too quiet.” I am not kidding.)
However, I keep reading because her vision of Avalon is so compelling – she’s definitely keying in to some kind of archetype that really resonates for me and obviously for many others. Her characters don’t feel real but her Avalon does.
June 9, 2007 at 11:49 am
Oh thank you thank you thank you! It’s so refreshing to meet other Pagans who don’t like “Mists.” I was actually wondering if the druid path, with it’s emphasis on Arthurian stories, could possibly be right for me . . .
I read quite far into the book and found that for a supposedly “feminist” novel, there was a whole lot of sighing over men. I kept reading, kept hoping that at some point, a female character would stand up and say, “No, this story is about ME.” But no, they just kept sighing and moping about the men in their lives. “Oh, Lancelot. He’s so DREAMY. Why doesn’t he like me? What does that blonde girl have that I don’t? Hey, Lance! Oh, Lance-y-poo! Look over here! Do you like my new earrings?”
Ugh.
While I wait for someone to write and interpretation of the Arthur story where the woman are less drippy, I’ll go back to Mary Stewart and day-dream that *I* am Merlin.
April 21, 2012 at 10:09 pm
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