Bibliomusings: I Am Mordred--Nancy Springer

Saturday, November 8, 2008

I Am Mordred--Nancy Springer

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Year Published: 2002
Pages: 192
Rating: 4/5

I really, really liked this book. Granted, I love the Arthurian mythology, and it is hard for me to not enjoy ANY retelling of that story. But I think what I really enjoyed about this book was the deeper theme of predestination--is it possible for us to avoid what we are meant to become?

In this novel, no. Destiny wins in the end, despite all of Mordred's better efforts. The reader is privy to his feelings of love and hate for Arthur, the father whom he is destined to destroy. We watch as he tries to let goodness overcome fate. We see Arthur's struggle as well, for he too knows that the son he loves but cannot acknowledge as his own will one day kill him. And in the end, it comes down to an effort between the two to save poor Mordred's soul.

The story is sad and captivating, simple and complex, and I recommend it to anyone, especially those with an interest in Arthurian retellings.

P.S. Does anyone else have an odd feeling that that is Brad Pitt under the helmet on the cover?

Book-a-week # 50
Challenge/s: Young Adult, Arthurian, Naming Conventions

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: I just ordered a copy of this after reading Nymeth's review. Looks like just my kind of thing.; November 27, 2008 at 4:41 AM

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Great Quotes

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (Atticus, To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee)

"But maybe the last part of the symphony was the music she loved the best--glad and like the greatest people in the world running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)

"Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." (The Road; Cormac McCarthy)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Douglas Adams)

"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity."

And he continued his confidences: "The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..." (The Little Prince; Anton de Saint-Exupery)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. (Betting on the Muse; Charles Bukowski)

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. (Tom Robbins)

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. (The Prophet; Kahlil Gibran)

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. (C.S. Lewis)

"For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who--one word--love." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)