I hate to have to say that I’ve been slacking again–this time worse than usual! No posts in March! How can that be?
I feel like I’ve been incredibly busy with a variety of things, and none of them included blogging, but I will shortly try to catch up on what’s r
elevant. Like these much over-due book reviews. Because it’s been several weeks since I read them, I will merge these two into one.
At the Crossing Places is the second book in Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Arthur trilogy, a sort of retelling of Arthurian legend from the eyes of aboy named Arthur living separate from King Arthur, but nonetheless the adventures of the knights of the Round Table seem to have parallels to his own.
In this book, Arthur de Caldicot (or is it Gortanore?) begins his life as a squire to Lord Stephen and the household prepares from them to go to war. We meet an array of interesting characters, including Winnie, to whom Arthur hopes to be betrothed. To be honest, the plot of this one was a bit more plodding than the first. I mentioned in Book 1’s review that it is very much a character-driven rather than plot-driven series, which I enjoy, but very little seemed to be happening at all in Book 2 and I wasn’t as engrossed as I was in Book 1. I tend to find that’s the way of trilogies, though–the second book is almost never as good as the first or third. Nevertheless, I wasn’t so put off that I didn’t want to continue on, and I found Book 3 a lot more interesting.
King of the Middle-March is the third book in the series, and picks up two years after the end of the second. Arthur and the other crusaders are still in limbo, trying to get ships to take them to Jerusalem. Problem after problem ensues — the crusaders are short on money, Arthur’s birth father and foster brother turn up at an inopportune time, and suddenly they’re not fighting heathens but their fellow Christians as a way of paying for the Venetian ships. Arthur witnesses battles, and they’re not at all as heroic as he thought they would be. To top it all, Lord Stephen is injured, precipitating a quick departure back to England.
All in all, Book 3 was probably the most action-packed, but Arthur still grew a lot as a person. The biggest complaint I’ve seen is that there isn’t a strong connection between Arthur and Arthur-in-the-stone. I disagree; while a clear link isn’t explicitly stated, you can easily see the similarities and Arthur clearly takes the lessons learned in the stone and applies them to his life.
Anyway, a thoroughly enjoyable series that I recommend to just about anyone–wonderfully written!
More Than One Page 