I don't know why I started thinking about it, maybe because I blogged about Merlin recently. I originally came to the Arthurian legend via the movie Excalibur. It is what ultimately got me into becoming a medievalist specialized in Arthurian literature. For many people of my generation, they discovered the Arthurian legend through... The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I came across this book in college when one of my teacher got her class to read it. By that time, I had already read a few medieval Arthurian romances, so while I was far from an academic, I knew my stuff pretty well. So I plodded through the mists, and I... hated, hated, hated it. Even at that age, I could see the sheer stupidity of it: poorly researched material, using the Arthurian legend as a vehicle for neo Pagan, pseudo-feminist, modern mumbo jumbo. Characters and tropes were twisted beyond recognition and it was so very badly written. It was so bad it was vile. It was also rather creepy and distasteful when it came to sexual content. For instance, the author seeming to make an apology of the incest between King Arthur and Morgain that was going to produce Mordrer, depicting it as something mystical and noble.
While I was one of the few in my class to despise the book, I discovered in the following years that my feelings were shared by many medievalists. But it is only in recent years that I learned the truth about Mists and its author: Marion Zimmer Bradley allegedly raped and abused both her children and was complicit in the sex crimes of her husband. This came out in 2014, but I only found out last year. And this is why I think the novel is so despicable: because it does make apology of incestuous rape and sexual predatorism, and twists one of the greatest literary works of Western civilisation to defend a sick ideology. This is what infuriated me then, reading that rubbish book, and I did not even know the truth at the core of it. Bradley was a vicious monster, disguised as a terrible writer, hailed as some kind of brilliant writer of fantasy and neo Pagan guru. I am very sad for the many people she hurt, that said as a medievalist, I can't help but feel vindicated.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who disliked that book, though I do vaguely recall that the incest was because Avalon was using Morgan for its own political needs, and neither she nor Arthur knew what they had done till he does a gesture she recognises from their childhood. Then she is horrified. Of course, it was a very long time ago. I only read it once - I have plenty of Arthurian books more worth re-reading.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was horrifying when the truth about MZB came out. She was no feminist either and had made a lot of ignorant comments over the years on that topic.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I loved "The Mists of Avalon" when I first read it. I liked how it was told from the women's point of view, since the Arthurian Legends always treated women as sexist stereotypes (given the times in which those legends were created and perpetuated). And Sue is right that incest was not glorified or treated apologetically in the book.
There are a gazillion sequels to the original novel, written by MZB and a collaborator whose name escapes me now, but those books are truly unreadable. I attempted to get into them, but they were just too awful.
I disagree with you both on the apology of rape and incest: it's most definitely there in MOA and I'm not saying this because of Bradley's own opinions and crimes on the matter. That the forces of Avalon (meant to be the good guys in the story) manipulate Arthur and Morgain to have sex for political purposes is damming enough. But the moment Arthur and Morgain discover what happened and are horrified, Morgain already tries justify it saying that for one night they were two lovers who did this for the Great Goddess or something of the sort. Sounds like something MZB or her husband could easily have said to her own children.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I’m not at all sure that Avalon were the good guys, given what they did to Morgain and Arthur and then to Nimue and the Merlin. But they might have been meant to be. If so, even worse! As I said - I read it once, then never again, years ago, so may have forgotten a lot. I hated what this author did to my lovely Arthur!
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