I find bad history in "The Mists of Avalon"

The Mists of Avalon ***
By Marion Zimmer Bradley

The stilted language in "The Mists of Avalon" is a terrible drawback for anybody who really wants to enjoy the book. Yeah, I know Bradley was going for a style reminiscent of Mallory's "Morte d'Arthur," since this is a retelling of the Arthur myth from Morgan le Fey's POV, but often it just sounded like pretentious Yoda speak a la, "Do not you know that torturing syntax makes the book speak as would a bard of old?"


At least there were no "wot ye wells," though, thank you God.

The book is also long on extolling the virtues of ancient British paganism, which is Goddess-centered and controlled by the priestesses of Avalon who are the kingmakers of Britain, and who also have handy skills like the Second Sight and who control the Mystical Regalia (a cup, a plate, a sword, but no Holy Hand Grenade) in which the power of the Goddess resides.

Christianity, which is in mortal philosophical conflict with the ancient religion as the book opens, somewhere at the end of the sixth century, is narrow-minded, male-centered, and bent on imposing sexual hang-ups and a sense of sin on the natives. At its head is Patricius, former bishop of Ireland (yep, ol' St. Patrick), who comes off as a scheming martinet.

For several hundred pages, things continue in this vein: Goddess good, life-affirming, and woman-centered, as embodied by the self-directed and sexually liberated Morgaine. Christianity bad, misogynistic, and sexually repressed, as evinced by the whiny and frightened Gwenhwyfar (Guenivere to you).

Some of this is just bad history. For instance, nobody knows much about the Druids or the place women had in the ancient heirarchy of Britain (the legends of Boudicca notwithstanding). The Druids didn't write anything down. All we know about them are what Roman outsiders wrote (not much) and what archaeological sites have revealed. Which is that the Druids were big on human sacrifice that involved slow disemboweling or throwing a hog-tied victim into a mushy peat bog, but all that is conveniently glossed over here.

Also in truth, St. Patrick was himself British/Welsh, enslaved by the Irish, escaped to France where he converted, and then returned to Ireland to preach brotherhood and freedom of slaves to the Irish. (Those interested in the history of women do well to study what the Northumbrian Anglo-Saxons did with Christianity as handed down by their Irish missionaries, how they revered their abbesses, who ran monasteries that were comprised of both monks, nuns and large, well-fed lay populations, and became the premiere sites of literacy in Europe.)

I confess I "Moby Dicked" this book--that is, I skimmed over a lot of the less interesting and tiresome bits--though I'm glad I stuck with it as the book takes an interesting turn in the final 200 pages, with a truly spectacular and grandly ambiguous appearance of the Holy Grail, which presages a major cultural shift in Britain.

In the Epilogue, ***SPOILERS BELOW*** Morgaine, old and alone, the Goddess's last partisan, realizes that the schemes of Avalon to control Arthur's throne have been in vain, that the powers of the diety, whether Goddess or Christ, cannot be controlled by man or woman, priest or priestess. In the end, as the ways of Avalon die, Morgaine sees that she has been as as narrow and bigoted as Gwenhwyfar, that the spirit of Christ and God have merged, that her Goddess, which is only half of the godhead, is still alive in the kindly nuns who tend her sister Viviane's grave and in the Blessed Virgin to whom women take their troubles.

It is a transcendent and generous ending, and one that made me glad I didn't give up on the book.

Sorta.