T.H. White’s Arthurian saga The Once And Future King has a troubled publication history. The final volume, The Book of Merlyn, was submitted to his publishers in 1941 but was rejected as part of a collected volume due to wartime paper rationing. Undeterred, White took two major sequences in it – in which Merlyn transforms Arthur into an ant and then a goose – and inserted them into the first book, The Sword in the Stone. The Book of Merlyn was thus unincluded in later collected editions of the series, until the manuscript was discovered amongst White’s papers after his death in 1964. It was included in future collected editions from 1977 onwards, but – in order to present everything as accurately as possible – retains the ant and the goose sequences in The Sword in the Stone, while also later repeating them in The Book of Merlyn. (This is particularly notable because the goose sequence is probably the most famous and well-loved thing White ever wrote.)It’s a bit less confusing when you’ve read it all the way through, but the funny thing is that those sequences feel a lot more like they belong in the first book, when Arthur was a child being transformed into animals all the time as part of his education with Merlyn, rather than the final book, where Arthur is whisked away on the night before the great battle with Mordred to discuss human nature and warfare with Merlyn and his council of wise animals. The vast majority of The Book of Merlyn takes place in the badger’s cosy underground den, which has the air of a cluttered library or gentleman’s parlour, as White (through Merlyn) expounds his philosophy about the wretched, violent nature of man.Understanding T.H. White goes a long way towards understanding The Once and Future King, and my edition has an afterword discussing how the book came about. White was an unhappy man for much of his life: an alcoholic, a closeted homosexual, and a pacifist in a time of just war. When World War II was looming in 1939, he relocated himself to neutral Ireland and spent the rest of the war there as a conscientious objector. At this stage The Sword in the Stone had already been published, but it’s clear that the outbreak of WWII greatly influenced the rest of the series. “I have suddenly discovered that… the central theme to Morte d’Arthur is to find an antidote to war,” White wrote to his publisher. The Book of Merlyn expresses this more clearly than any other volume in the series; along with The Sword in the Stone, it effectively bookends the series, as Merlyn compares mankind to various animals – only now, with Arthur as an adult, he is no longer teaching him but rather discussing an intractable problem with him, to the king’s increasing weariness and despair.The Book of Merlyn ultimately presents no conclusion on the matter, no coherent moral or philosophy, because White himself didn’t have one. He was a confused man, a man full of doubt, a man aghast at the horrors of the world, a man who tried to make sense of it all as best he could. He was a writer, in other words, who moulded his love of Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur into his own unique, funny, beautiful epic, a meditation on the failures and foibles of the human race.I liked The Book of Merlyn a lot; it’s probably my favourite out of the series. Despite a current of nihilism and despair, White brought back all the elements that made The Sword in the Stone such a success, and the result is a sweet and affecting tale of a man who tried to do his best. I didn’t always enjoy The Once and Future King, but The Book of Merlyn is a strong conclusion which serves the series well. And as for the series overall? I may not have always liked it, I may have been bored and frustrated with it at times, but I can nonetheless appreciate it objectively as a powerful and important work of English fantasy.
What's the point?The Book of Merlyn, published posthumously, was T.H White's "True" ending to the otherwise beautiful Once and Future King. Having finished Once and Future King just a few days earlier, I was touched by the elegaic, bittersweet note upon which it ended. Once and Future King may be the finest fantasy novel ever written, and its final page is consequently one of the loveliest parting sentiments given to its eponymous hero.The Book of Merlyn takes place during the night prior to Arthur's final confrontation with Mordred. Merlyn shows up, something like forty years too late, with his whole menagerie of animal-philosophers in order to drag the King through one last sermon on the nature of man, the inherent wickedness in the heart of man, the inevitability of war and the necessity of failure.And Merlyn is a massive misanthrope. He comes off like Jean Paul Sartre and Nietzsche rolled into one cantankerous, bearded prat. He is professorial and crotchety, long-winded and without compassion. He isn't the Merlyn I remember, or the Merlyn Arthur remembers, that clumsy old man given to abstract idealism and pontification, the wise old mentor who hated violence and urged Arthur to follow his heart.And this is what troubles me the most about The Book of Merlyn. That night belonged to Arthur. So little of Arthur's life belonged to him. As a child, he was dragged along the currents of his fate by Merlyn and Sir Ector and Morgause. As a King, he was devoted to his Table, to the ideals of Right over Might, to the virtue of Justice. He was a good friend to Lancelot, and a loving husband, and a forgiving king. And he was never given a moment's peace.That night was to be his own. He'd done plenty of his own ruminations. Once and Future King describes Arthur in his silence, going over the familiar circles of his thoughts, contemplating war, and life, and love and misery and duty, and all these things that had been taught to him, these concepts with which he had grappled and struggled. Merlyn had always taught Arthur to think for himself--so what business now does Merlyn have, returning at the dusk of Arthur's life to give him some nihilist lecture on original sin and the futility of human effort?Arthur deserved better. And the readers deserve better. I don't know what T.H White was thinking with this unfinished manuscript, but The Book of Merlyn is a wholly inappropriate ending to the Once and Future King.The Once and Future King belongs to Arthur, and to Lancelot, and Guinevere and Mordred and the rest of the table. It is a story of humans doing their very best, and sometimes failing, and sometimes not, but trying nonetheless to be good and decent people. Arthur's lessons are his own. Life, experience and his own ambitions taught him more about humanity than Merlyn ever could.The Once and Future King was a tragedy; The Book of Merlyn, a travesty. Skip it.
What do You think about The Book Of Merlyn (1988)?
White had wanted this book to be published as part of Once and Future King (OTFK), to bring the quintet full circle (his editor refused). As a result he stole some parts for OTFK, especially the ant and goose segments, while also leaving them in Book of Merlyn. This makes Book repetitive, overly pedantic, and plodding (from my point of view), as Merlyn continues to explore the Human Problem, war, and species specialization, in much of the same way that he may have taught. His last chapter, though, was worth it--and would have been a nice ending to OTFK.
—Jeanne
I must admit some bias associated with this unfortunately short novel. Although it is a little weak when trying to read it independently of The Once & Future King, when you read it immediately after that greater work it is pure brilliance.White's narrative tone draws you into a deceptive bedtime story world that swiftly moves with old/young Arthur through more metamorphic juxtapositions than a week's worth of "Wild Kingdom," as the fabled sorcerer returns on the night before Arthur's fateful confrontation with his bastard son with a singular goal in mind: to return the Wart to the various cultures of the animals to understand the final truth about man's distinction and a little bit more about right and wrong.The adventure is extremely bittersweet, however, as Arthur learns of the mighty and the militant within the worlds of ants and geese, and unlike the earlier adventures of Arthur's youth under Merlin's tutelage, these world's are now cold and frightening in their comparison to man's distorted attempts to control everything for personal gain. As the conclusion of a complex and timeless saga, it's not as endearing or breathtaking as one might expect, but neither is it anticlimactic. It is, instead, a return visit by a wise old uncle you have not seen since you were 12, and now, 15 years later, you are ready for him to speak to you as one adult to another about the big, ugly realities of the world. A bedtime story it begins, but in the end is a much deeper and moving engagement.
—Jason
A wonderful book! I just love Merlyn. I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed the first four books of the Once and Future King. I overall enjoyed the Once and Future King but I felt the stories were drawn out. With the book of Merlyn you get to see the nature of King Arthur and see who he has become. Much of this is lacking in the Once and Future King. The book of Merlyn is a great quick read full of fantasy, values, and insight on the affects of the decisions people make. A book to be enjoyed by all!
—Michelle
