The Real Thing

[amari_z]

For various reasons, which are probably apparent to any of you who've been nice enough to read the latest Resurrection fic, I've been thumbing through Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur recently. Revisiting it after quite a while has brought home to me that no mater how crazy anything I write is, Malory is the crackiest crack that ever cracked. I had forgotten just how very insane his book is. I could never, ever hope to match it in sheer craziness.


You thought movie!Lancelot was jealous of movie!Arthur's interest in God? Well he has nothing on Malory!Guin and her upset with Malory!Launcelot's desire to be all Christian. Malory!Guin becomes pissed at Malory!Launcelot (who is really, far, far more unbalanced than movie!Lancelot could ever dream of being) whenever he gets a case of religion, since that means he tries to stop sleeping with her or goes off to do knightly errant stuff (which inevitably means helping damsels in distress). She screeches like a fishwife and claims he doesn't love her and that he's cheating on her with all these damsels. Which he, of course, can’t handle and he either (1) goes mad and runs around in forests naked or (2) flees to go live with a hermit (yes, really, feel free to snicker and think of jokes). He generally returns triumphant in the end in a plot involving him fighting various other KoftRT (his sworn brothers, remember) and trouncing them utterly and then being revealed as the missing Sir Launcelot! *gasp!* Didn't see that coming.

Malory!Launcelot actually has some serious issues about disguising himself and then fighting with his fellow knights. Hidden rage? Secret resentments? Who can say. My favorite instance of his pure craziness is when he disguises himself and fights in a tournament against the KoftRT and gets into a bloody fight with his own family members who have no idea who he is. He beats on eight of his family until his brother and two cousins gang up on him and he gets what he thinks is a mortal wound. (It’s not, of course, but imagine how nice that would have been for his poor relatives (who for reasons that are not apparent when you really start thinking about it, seem to adore him) to realize they’d actually killed their beloved brother/cousin/uncle whatever). He starts winning again and is actually about to kill them (and remember that while they don’t know who is, he well knows who they are) but then Malory tells us: "He might have slain them, but when he saw their visages his heart might not serve him thereto, but left them there."

Perhaps there's some chivalric point I'm supposed to get here, but um, okay. You go, crazy Malory!Launcelot! Good for you that the sight of your family members' faces prevented you from cutting their heads off.

Oh, and btw, Malory!Arthur (who is hardly as interesting as Movie!Arthur (he invokes none of my rage)) earlier recognized Malory!Launcelot (and don’t get your hopes that this means that they have a special bond, because there are other times when he doesn’t recognize Launcelot, despite even hearing his voice) and does nothing while watching all of his other knights get knocked silly. As the king, he might have said, hey, crazy Malory!Launce dude, why are you beating the shit out of all my knights (not to mention your own family)? But he doesn't. I guess that would have ruined the later surprise, when all the knights realize that the guy who beat them bloody (breaking no few heads and limbs on his way) was supposed to be on their side. No wonder some of them tattle on him and Fishwife!Malory!Guin later.

Oh and for any BSG watchers, I had to giggle because there's a line in Malory where Malory!Arthur says something to his knights, and Malory tells us "And so said they all." Hee.

Comments

[darklyscarlett.livejournal.com]

Oh dear me, she's losing it! And at work, no less!

Seriously, Malory IS crack -- pure. high-grade, crystalline lunacy. Arthur's round table reminds me more of the motley, crazed crew of club kids that ran the coke and e at Disco 2000 at the Limelight, and then proceed to hack up their own (winged) dealer and rat on their king and on each other. I followed reading Malory with the more staid E.B. White when I was younger, and followed THAT with a viewing of Boorman's Excalibur. Explains a lot about how I view the world these days. **rolls eyes with the memory**

Malory!Arthur seems so laconic/catatonic throughout all the drama, that I think he's been hanging out with Tolkien!Gandalf (the crossover hermit) and hitting the pipe weed. And no wonder why Galahad turned out to be the most noble and morally unimpeachable knight when he had that brilliant specimen of conflicted chivalry as an absent father. Oi!

[darklyscarlett.livejournal.com]

Make that conflicted chivalry and piety.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Losing it? Hah! I lost it long ago (and I’m rather surprised at you for having missed that fact). :p

I love your description of Marlory!Arthur. He really is rather like an old hippie pothead isn’t he? Yes, and no wonder Malory!Galahad dies a virgin with his two shining parental examples--not just crazy Malory!Launcelot but also rapist!Elaine.

I adore E.B. White and how he highlights Malory’s craziness—although the transition from Wart in the SitS and Arthur in the rest of the book always seemed jarring.

[darklyscarlett.livejournal.com]

Well, I was holding out for hope. :p

I forgot that Gally was the virgin knight. Surprised that Bors didn't drum in that little bit as well -- that would've sent poor Gally straight into bed with Gaheris, even. That reminds me that you've plunked him down into a rather awkward situation with Gaheris being alive again. Poor little brat. Poor Gawain, really.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Well, Bors has already had some 6 months to tease the shit out of Galahad, so perhaps he's already done so? Or maybe he's just waiting for the right moment. :p

Yes, poor poppet. His life is rather trying isn't it? I rather suspect Gawain is actually enjoying it all, but he'd probably kill me if I said so. :p

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

I just had one of those weird mind hiccups and out of the blue realized that I was talking about T.H. White here. I tried to mind my own business, but it nagged at me, so must correct. Seriously bizarre how the (my) mind works.

[nindulgence.livejournal.com]

You go, crazy Malory!Launcelot! Good for you that the sight of your families’ faces prevented you from cutting their heads off.

The past really is another country, isn't it? ;-)

~

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. Although in Malory's case, I think he might have been transmitting from another planet . . . .

[sasha-b.livejournal.com]

So, I haven't had to read this crack since I was in high school, and I never read all of it.

Any particular translation you like the best?

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

It's not translated. I have a cheap Penguin ed. from college which comes in two volumes. You can also read most of it on line--see the link in my sidebar. : )

[sasha-b.livejournal.com]

Huh. It wasn't originally written in French? Why do I think that?

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Nope, Middle English. A lot of the other Arthur stuff is in French--Chretien de Troyes, the prose Lancelot, and at least two other works with similar titles, but Malory wrote in English. He was supposedly in prison at the time he wrote it. :P

Although, technically, most of the modern editions, including the Penguin I have, are "translated" in the sense that the Middle English is fixed up with modern spelling--although the edition I have otherwise leaves the syntax as it was.

[sasha-b.livejournal.com]

Ah cool.

Thanks for the info, dear. :))

[borogrove-42.livejournal.com]

He was supposedly in prison at the time he wrote it. :P

That explains so much. :-P Maybe flailing naked through the underbrush is a metaphor for dropping the soap.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Hee. Never thought of it quite that way before . . . .

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Hi!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me!

One way to “explain” Malory is to look at the tradition in which he was writing. You can view the love triangle in the legend as arising from the medieval courtly romance, which requires a lady to have a knight (not her husband) show his love for his lady by chivalric actions. Some view this as the origin of the modern concept of romantic love. Marriage was not the source of romantic love, since marriage was a political/financial arrangement. Malory, or his source material, can be viewed as co-opting what some view as female-empowering paradigm, by actually making the romance a hindrance to knightly deeds, instead, making a knights love for his lady the source of his chivalric deeds, as was originally the case. Malory is actually quite a misogynist, if you look at this way. (And by most other standards as well--one of the reasons to find the love triangle unpalatable is that his Guin appears so unattractive and selfish that it is hard to sympathize with the lovers). And Malory does show Lancelot’s inability to resist Guin as his one failing--the failing that prevents him achieving the grail, so Lancelot does suffer the consequences for his weakness/immorality. At least this is one way of looking at the story.

Personally, I don’t believe that the stories had any Arthur/Lancelot romance. Lancelot was probably a hero from a completely different set of mythology/folklore, who, as I understand it, came to be added to the Arthur story around the same time as courtly romance genre was being developed. He might have been added to the story to fill the needs of the courtly romance paradigm. I’m not really aware of any real hints of bisexuality in the legends. Even among the modern retellings (published ones anyway), the only one that I can think of that suggests it is Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, where her Lancelot might be bisexual, but her Arthur is not.

I’m glad you’re enjoying Resurrection. I love playing with these legends, since, in my mind, fanfic is merely a continuation of the long traditon of retelling these stories. Part of the fun is that each of us can interpret the legends to fulfill our own ideas--Malory doesn’t have the monopoly on it. :)

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Feel free to friend me if you like and I'd be happy to friend you back--it’s pretty easy. I think if you just put your cursor over my user pic, it’ll give you that option. You can also go to my user’s page and do it (see the side bar on my journal where it says “user info” and click the button on the top left with the drawing of a person with a plus sign).

Thanks for your comments!