All Stories, Writers Reading

Writers Read by Michael Bloor

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Re-Reading John Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

In my generation, every child in Britain grew up knowing at least three stories – the Christ story, that of Robin Hood, and that of King Arthur and his knights. The Arthurian Legend has been told and re-told by many different tellers for around one and a half thousand years.

As for me, I was hooked early, by Tennyson’s re-telling in The Idylls of the King. And I can still chant effortlessly that chiming stanza that begins, ‘And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:’

 ‘I go […] to the island-valley of Avilion;

 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

  Nor ever the wind blows loudly: but it lies

           Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns

        And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,

  Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.’

For John Steinbeck (1902-68), it was Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, that he read and re-read as a child, enrolling his kid sister in imaginary battles against invaders and traitors. It had been Caxton’s early printing, in 1485, of Malory’s English text of Morte d’Arthur that kick-started the English-reading public’s enthusiasm for a hero-king from a glorious past. And Steinbeck believed that Malory’s telling of Arthur’s struggles against the plundering Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain had then acted as a rough template for a thousand other stories of righteous conflicts, right through to that of Gary Cooper in High Noon.

I was a big Steinbeck fan, having read and loved his Cannery Row in my mid-teens (I later discovered that Bob Dylan had been similarly smitten), so I was delighted to read, a decade after Steinbeck’s death, that there was a new Steinbeck publication – the manuscript of his incomplete reworking of Morte d’Arthur: The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (Heinemann, London, 1976). I made a rare hardback purchase.

To prepare for his Morte d’Arthur re-write, in 1956, Steinbeck and his wife came to the UK for three years, living in a country cottage in Somerset, with a view of Glastonbury Tor in the distance. For those three years, he researched and he wrote.

There’s a debate, of course, about whether or not Arthur was an historical figure or a bardic fiction. The case for a flesh-and-blood Arthur is strongest if we throw overboard a royal court, a chivalric order and all the medieval baggage. A plausible account would make Arthur a formidable warrior of the Gododdin, an independent warlike British tribe in what is now South-East Scotland, just north of the Roman garrisons on Hadrian’s Wall. The Gododdin would have been familiar with the tactics of the Roman cavalry, seeing how a mobile force of mounted men could surprise and rout a larger infantry army, such as that of the Saxons. When the last Roman legions left Britain in 407 AD and the attacks of the sea-pirates –  Angles, Saxons, and Jutes – intensified, the Romano-British appealed to the Emperor Honorius for help. The appeal went unanswered. The pirates came to plunder and they stayed to settle. The last best hope of the Britons lay in a native force accustomed to Roman tactics, led by a war-duke, a commander-in-chief who could unite the various petty kings of the British tribes. Arthur is thought to have been that war-duke. It’s certainly the case that, for a while, the tide turned and, in a battle at Badon Hill in the West Country, a large Saxon force was routed and destroyed around 500 AD. Gildas, a near-contemporary Welsh monk, reported that sixty years of peace followed that victory, but he doesn’t mention Arthur. The earliest surviving mention of Arthur is a passing reference to him as a great warrior of the past, in a bardic poem composed about the heroic but catastrophic defeat of the Gododdin cavalry at the Battle of Catraeth in around 600 AD.

But it’s doubtful if Steinbeck was much interested in these matters. It’s true that he visited the hill fort of Cadbury Castle, thought by some to have been Arthur’s Camelot. But he was much more enthused by a visit to Winchester to see a manuscript version of Morte d’Arthur that had been. discovered in the library of Winchester School in the 1930s. The Winchester ms. differed in some respects from Caxton’s printed text. Believing that Caxton may have edited Malory’s tale to it’s detriment, Steinbeck decided to base his re-telling on the Winchester version. Steinbeck was concerned with the Arthurian Legends as literature, not as history.

He stayed in that Somerset cottage for three years, but he left it with his version of Malory still unfinished. And it remained unfinished when he died nine years later. Nevertheless, 294 pages of Steinbeck’s version were eventually published in 1976, edited by Chase Horton, who had served as Steinbeck’s research assistant. Steinbeck completed seven chapters – ‘Merlin,’ ‘The Knight with The Two Swords,’ ‘The Wedding of King Arthur,’ ‘The Death of Merlin,’ ‘Morgan Le Fay’, ‘Gawain Ewain and Marhalt,’ and ‘The Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot of the Lake.’ Chase Horton added an appendix of letters Steinbeck had written to himself (Horton) and to his long-standing literary agent, Elizabeth Otis. It seems his agent had been shocked when she received the first (‘Merlin’) chapter – she’d envisaged a free adaptation of Morte d’Arthur, something like the very popular T.H. White’s ‘The Once and Future King.’ That wasn’t Steinbeck’s intention at all. He was determined to remain faithful to Mallory’s narrative; to eliminate archaic spellings and usages, but to retain the sense of remoteness. Take, for example, the opening paragraph of his fourth chapter, ‘The Death of Merlin:’   

When Merlin saw the damsel Nyneve, whom Sir Pellinore brought to court, he knew that his fate was on him, for his heart swelled like a boy’s heart in his aged breast and his desire overcame his years and his knowledge. Merlin wanted Nyneve more than his life, as he had foreseen. He pursued her with his wishes and would not let her rest. And Nyneve used her power over the besotted old Merlin and traded her company for his magic arts, for she was one of the damsels of the Lady of the Lake and schooled in wonders (Steinbeck, 1976, p.99).

Now, that is a cracking first paragraph. The reader is drawn in, right away. And the use of slightly antique phrases like ‘his desire overcame his years,’ serve to reinforce a sense of bygone days. In my humble view, this approach would be a much better re-telling than the T. H. White strategy.

However, Steinbeck seems to have strayed from his chosen path in the very last (Lancelot) chapter, where Lancelot and Guinevere (SPOIL ALERT) fall on each other like lost desert explorers with a single can of beer between them. No sense of remoteness there: just two excited, randy people. And yet that works too. The last sentence of the tale describes post-coital Lancelot as leaving the queen’s chamber ‘weeping bitterly’ (p.293).

Maybe Steinbeck abandoned the enterprise because he couldn’t decide which re-write approach to take?? The editor gives no clue. But we should be grateful that Steinbeck’s unfinished re-write saw the light of day. For myself, I find both the helplessness of irritating old Merlin (for all his wisdom and far-sightedness), and the tears of the oath-breaking perfect hero, very affecting.

Michael Bloor

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Published by literallystories2014

27 thoughts on “Writers Read by Michael Bloor”

    1. Thanks, Leila. Hope you enjoy Steinbeck’s KIng Arthur. He’s a lovely writer. He was a favourite author of my dad’s, a man who left school at 14, and was often too tired to read much.
      best wishes to all at LS, Mick

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  2. Mick
    I’ve given up on television almost completely, except for documentaries. Lately, I’ve been into Boudica, Merlin, all of King Arthur’s extended crew, & Shakespeare. It is amazing how much we know that is contradictory or simply untrue, which makes it more fun than simply history lessons.
    Thanks for shedding some light into the hopeless mist. — Gerry

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    1. Thanks Gerry, but I guess you’ll know that things are bound to remain pretty misty given the paucity of documentary evidence. Odd that there’s rather more evidence to support the existence of Merlin (aka Myrddin) than Arthur. Mick

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      1. Who needs God when Milton and others gave us such great Satans? Myrddin & Arthur, like all the rest, exist in our heads either way. Nice trip into the head. — Gerry

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  3. Hi Mick!
    I absolutely LOVED this essay for a million different reasons!
    One reason being that today is my twin daughters’ eighteenth birthday and when I was 17 or 18 years old, I discovered this Steinbeck book…That phrase “wept bitterly” at the end remained in my mind for many years, but I had forgotten it…THANKS for resurrecting this memory. The scene between Lancelot and Guinevere as presented by Steinbeck was/is truly heartbreaking and tragic.
    Your essay does a fabulous job of presenting all this material. I’m a big fan of Steinbeck, Tennyson, Merlin, and the whole crew you discuss above and you boil it all down and present it in a near-perfect (perfect being neither possible nor desirable) way for a reader who loves this material but hasn’t looked at it for a while (like me) and also for new readers who may not be familiar.
    I want to say “brilliant first paragraph” but actually, every single paragraph in this piece is just as good!!!
    Have to run off to a birthday party right now but I’ll have more to say about this essay later today or tomorrow.
    THANK YOU for this…Can’t say thank you enough! Great work!
    Dale

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      1. Mick
        I re-read this essay again and liked it just as much the second time. The material you discuss is so deep, and your presentation of it so clear and thorough, it’s a joy to study this piece.
        A few more notes:
        One: The fact that you can still chant Tennyson effortlessly is amazing. And something that should be thought about deeply by anyone who can still think.
        Two: This material, with Steinbeck moving across the water to re-tell the tales as an American, is great material to put out there in LS because of the trans-Atlantic nature of Steinbeck and his book and the current LS project itself.
        Three: I’ve always been fascinated by the linkages, influences, etc. between the Arthur legends and the LORD OF THE RINGS and HOBIT books, etc etc. JRRT was not “stealing” in a bad way, but Picasso rightly said that great artists don’t borrow, they STEAL (TS Eliot said the same thing) and MERLIN and GANDALF, for example, are so similar they can darn well be said to be the EXACT SAME PERSON (wizard) in a different body (that looks the same) and with a new name.
        The HOBIT books and their successors would NEVER have been written without Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Guinevere, etc.
        I read new research recently that says: MERLIN WAS A REAL PERSON AND SO WAS HIS SISTER, GWEDRYN.
        Instead of warlocks and witches, they were nature poets, and early environmental prophets who were singing out against all the animals being killed and all the trees being cut down (which happened too, then, as now). They were morphed into their more magical forms via centuries of story-telling about them, kind of like Arthur was.
        I also really like how closely and thoughtfully you follow/ed Steinbeck the author in your essay, speculating upon his authorial motives, telling about where he lived, etc etc.
        Again, great job on this piece! Thank you for writing!
        Dale

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      2. PS
        And after all, Dylan called one of his albums:
        “LOVE AND THEFT.” Meaning: Love the material and steal it…(and then reinvent it or the experiment goes cold and dead)…
        Dale

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      3. Dale, I’m afraid WordPress doesn’t seem to allow me a sequential reply to your second post (below), so I’ll have to post this out of sequence and hope you spot it. Thanks for coming back with additional comments – much appreciated. Some responses…

        Yes, I’m sure you’re right. There’s quite a lot of documentary evidence that Merlin/Myrddin existed, and was probably a druid (as you say, a nature poet) living in what is now the Scottish Borders. But there’s no evidence that Myrddin and Arthur met. If it’s true that Arthur was a leader of the Gododdin tribe (also in Southern Scotland), then it’s possible that later writers like Geoffrey of Monmouth linked them because of their geographical proximity.

        It’s plain from Steinbeck’s correspondence reproduced in ‘The Acts of King Arthur & His Noble Knights,’ that he shared your view that the Arthurian legends were an inspiration and precursor of great swathes of our literature.

        Re: my chanting of Tennyson, a neighbour and close friend of fifty years standing is suffering from dementia and can do almost nothing for himself. But he and I chant away together about ‘the island-valley of Avilion’ with the greatest of ease. I believe it’s because Tennyson was a lyrical poet. You probably know that songs are almost the last thing that dementia sufferers remember.

        Thanks again for commenting, Mick

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  4. Utterly fascinating, & the work in question utterly unknown to me. Quite apart from all else, it provides one heck of introduction. Thank you Mick.

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    1. Pleased it caught your interest, which I guess is the purpose behind this ‘Writers Read’ section. You’ll see from Dale’s comment above that his favourite is the Lancelot & Guinevere section, while my favourite is The Death of Merlin. So there’s plenty of good stuff to choose from. Happy reading, Mick

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  5. A few years ago I read “biographies” of Artur and Jesus. The parallels were intriguing. Both were heroes who were meant to save their lands – England and Israel respectively. In the case of Artur, it was suggested he many have been a composite of more than one king.

    In both cases, the bios suggested they were real characters, but their lives were largely mythology. In the case of Jesus, it was thought much of what he said and did was fabricated, and his followers may have been interested in freedom from Rome more than a religious savior. In Artur’s case it was also freeing the land from the various invaders. The myths of both suggest coming back when they were needed.

    The romance part of Artur’s story was thought to be added by the French.

    Movie “Excalibur” – wow expecially Helen Mirren.

    In 1988 we were close to where Camelot was supposed to have been.

    Don’t think I’ll get to Jerusalem in this life.

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    1. Thanks Doug. You’re dead right that Arthur probably did exist, but his true character is lost to historians. Perhaps that’s one reason why Steinbeck was much more interested in Arthurian literature than Arthurian history. bw MIck

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  6. Hi Mick,

    Your telling of anything in history is infectious. Whether or not the subject interests the reader, your enthusiasm comes shinning through!

    This is as expected, beautifully written and informative and I always enjoy reading your enthusiasm!!!

    To be brutally honest, I, not all my country-men, have absolutely no knowledge of kings / queens / heraldry etc. (For me, not only English but Scottish as well) I chose not to learn. I think it was the Rebellious Scot in me!!! (Is that not in one of the un-sung verses of ‘The Flower Of Scotland??) I’ve always thought I have a reasonable General Knowledge but know without a shadow of a doubt that I’m fucked if asked about monarchy, soap operas, horse racing, cricket and reality shows!!

    I know of the King Arthur Legends but don’t know the specifics. (Was he the guy that pulled the sword out of the stone??) I think my hatred of all of that comes down to the juxtaposition (Never sure if I use that word correctly) of the deterring of invaders against the oppression by royalty to their own people??

    Steinbeck, I’ve read two books. One, I was forced to at school, which always put my back up. It was ‘of Mice And Men’. I may be being unfair, but I was bored and didn’t read the last couple of chapters. I was asked in English class about the significance of the rabbits at the end and winged it…I wittered on about something or another and my teacher looked and me and said, ‘Shut up!! You never read it, did you??’ I got into more trouble when I was brutally honest and told him that it had bored me into distraction!!!

    The other one that I read was ‘Tortilla Flat’ but I couldn’t comment on it as I have very little recollection.

    No matter though – I’ve said on many occasions that I know nothing about cars or fishing but was happy to watch ‘Top Gear’ and any Robson Greene’s fishing programmes. It had nothing to do with the subject, I just loved the presenters delight and enthusiasm. Please take this as a huge compliment when I say that this piece makes me smile in the way that I do about enthusiasm more than my interest of the subject!!

    All the very best my fine friend.

    Hugh

    …Oh, I have a slight knowledge of the 1745 rebellion. Not because of me being a rebellious Scot…More an unhealthy love of Drambuie!!!!!!!

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    1. Thanks Hugh. Yes, I remember ‘Of Mice and Men’ was/is a school text. Has the merit of being short, but it’s a lot less fun than Cannery Row. I suppose someone reckoned they couldn’t have Cannery Row as the text because there’s a good deal of uproarious drinking in it. bw Mick

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    1. Thanks David. Oddly, considering that the book wasn’t published til 8 years after his death, Steinbeck wrote a short (3 page) introduction to the book, all about his childhood enthusiasm for Morte d’Arthur. I think it also might’ve had the object of getting his rebuttal in first to any snotty academic critics who might claim that he didnt understand Chaucerian (sp?) English. bw Mick

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  8. Writing about King Arthur – a major departure for Steinbeck who wrote mainly about working class Californians, farmers and migrant workers, although underneath he was very interested in exploring the concepts of good and evil, so that may have motivated him. I mean, his books did range, from “The Pearl” to “Of Mice And Men.” Interesting paragraph about the possible historical roots of Arthur, wow, sixty years of peace, that’s major for those times!

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  9. Thanks Harrison. It seems that writing about King Arthur was always a major item on Steinbeck’s bucket list. A pity he didn’t manage to take it on til late in his life when his health was failing. Mick

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  10. I love Steinbeck and the Arthurian legends (I even called my son Arthur for this very reason) and so this was a great combination for me and adore this book (I’m the happy owner of a UK first edition), so it’s a genuine joy to know we share this love, Mick.

    Both these areas play a large part in my life as I wasn’t an avid reader as a child at all, and it wasn’t until I gave into my father’s repeated pressure to read Tolkien that I became a regular reader and have barely stopped since. So, after I read everything Tolkien had written I turned my attention to the Arthurian legends (on the back of Tolkien’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), starting with T. S. White (still one of my all time favourite pair of books), then to Malory, Chretien de Troyes, back to some more modern adaptations, then to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Tennyson’s Idylls, then to anything Arthurian I could get my hands on including history books and literary studies, and related tales such as Tristan and Iseult, Taliessin, etc.

    In turn, Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and his Knights led me to other Steinbeck novels, and The Grapes of Wrath remains one of my all time top ten reads, and I believe I’ve read pretty much everything Steinbeck published.

    Needless to say, I loved reading your post, and will read it again, and I bow to your ability to write about this book with such love, research, and knowledge. In short, nice to meet a fellow King Arthur / Steinbeck fan!

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  11. That’s a very fine reader’s autobiography, Paul…much in content like my own-we even have the same edition of Steinbeck’s ‘The Acts…’, with that rather sad dust-jacket picture of Steinbeck in the summer sun outside Wells Cathedral, be-hatted and wrapped-up, with his walking stick, though everyone else is in shirt-sleeves and summer dresses. Nice to meet you too! With my thanks for your kind comments, Mick.

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    1. Hi Mick

      I think it was perfect, but I took a liberty that I hope you won’t mind and went in and slightly altered the sentence you were worried about.

      Hope I wasn’t too forward. Added “in content “

      Leila

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