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The KingAuthor: Donald Barthelme American Literature Series March 2006 157 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 Paperback, 1-56478-413-4 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $10.36—20% OFF! 
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Book Description
In The King, a retelling of Le Morte D'Arthur, Donald Barthelme moves the chivalrous Knights of the Round Table to the cruelty of the Second World War. Dunkirk has fallen, Europe is at the breaking point, Ezra Pound and Lord Haw-Haw are poisoning the radio waves, Mordred has fled to Nazi Germany, and King Arthur and his worshipful Knights are deep in the fighting.
When the Holy Grail presents itself—which is, in this version, the atomic bomb, "a superweapon if you will, with which we can chastise and thwart the enemy"—they must decide whether to hew to their knightly ways or adopt a modern ruthlessness. Barthelme makes brilliant comic use of anachronism to show that war is center stage in the theater of human absurdity and cruelty.
But Arthur, in deciding to decline the power of the Grail, announces his unwillingness to go along: "It's not the way we wage war. The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon."
About the Author
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Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) was the son of an avant-garde architect. He wrote a series of novels and story collections that earned him a wide reputation as one of the most innovative and important voices in American literature. Though born in New York, he grew up, attended college, and began his writing career in Houston. Winner of the National Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a PEN/Faulkner Award, Barthelme's interest was both literary and cultural. His style was, in the words of Robert Coover, "precise, urbane, ironic, rivetingly succinct accumulative in its comical and often surreal juxtapositions." Barthelme was a master of turning his spare, surprising sentences to the frail absurdity of the modern world as he saw it. |
Praise
"A pacifist tract, a rueful travesty, a bumptious 'feast of blague,' and a dazzlement of style both minimal and musical, The King has been elegantly produced."—New Yorker"It is heartening to say that this, apparently Barthelme's last book, is an absolute charmer, funny, sexy, and serene . . . every page sparkles in The King."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post
"The King is his pure Barthelme: deadpan, sly and cunning. Its barely concealed moments of seriousness make it his most learned and ambitious novel."—Herbert Mitgang, New York Times
“See there! It’s Launcelot!”
“Riding, riding—”
“How swiftly he goes!”
“As if enchanted by a fiend!”
“The splendid muscles of his horse move rhythmically under the drenched skin of same!”
“By Jesu, he is in a vast hurry!”
“But now he pulls up the horse and sits for a moment, lost in thought!”
“Now he wags his great head in daffish fashion!”
“He reins the horse about and puts the golden spurs to her!”
“But that is the direction from which he lately came with such excess of speed!”
“No, it’s slightly different! It’s an angle of about fifteen degrees to the first!”
“This breakbone pace will soon unhorse him!”
“Not Launcelot! Launcelot is the greatest horseman in the realm!”
“Look you! Launcelot and his horse have plunged into a deep mire!”
“He’s thrown! The horse is down!”
“Now the horse struggles to his feet! But Launcelot’s still on the ground! Perhaps he’s broken something!”
“No, he’s up, he inspects the horse, he leaps into the saddle, he reigns about once again—Now he rides off furiously in still another way!”
“He burns the ground in his careening!”
“It is as if he hears beans a-bulging from every quarter of his compass!”
“His responsibilities are grave and many!”
“Look there, there is another knight in Launcelot’s path the twain have fewtered their spears they hurtle fast together the knight who is not Sir Launcelot is shocked out of the saddle he rises in the air turning end over end—”
“Launcelot wallops on doesn’t even stop to smite the fellow’s head off but pounds ever more fiercely toward a distant goal—”
“I’m losing sight of him, his figure dwindles and grows small!”
“I can see him still, getting smaller and smaller in the remote distance!”
“Riding, riding—”
Guinevere in London, at the palace. Sitting in a chair buttering an apple.
“I’m getting sick, sore, and tired of this,” she said.
“Yes, mum,” said Varley.
“Good evening, fellow Englishmen,” the radio said. “This is Germany calling.”
“A fundamentally disagreeable voice,” said Guinevere, “stale cabbage.”
“The invincible forces of the Reich,” said Haw-Haw, “are advancing on all fronts. Dunkirk has been completely secured. The slaughter is very great. Gawain as been reported captured—”
“Not in a hundred million years,” said Guinevere. “Gawain will pepper their pork for them.”
“The false and miscreant king, Arthur, languishes meanwhile at Dover, according to my spies. Conspicuously alone. No Guinevere. I think we may, dear countrymen, wonder what this may mean. ”
“This will be a bit about you, mum.”
“I suppose.”
“And where is Launcelot? Where indeed? Where Guinevere is,” said Haw-Haw. “The war forgot. Helm and mail laid aside, hanging from the bedpost.”