The Mists of Avalon: A Novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley (English) Paperback Book

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With more than 1 million copies in print and winner of the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, "The Mists of Avalon" is by far Marion Zimmer Bradley's most successful novel. Putting a new twist on the Arthurian legends, this beloved book tells the epic story of the women behind the rise and fall of King Arthur.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

The magical saga of the women behind King Arthur's throne."A monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An impressive achievement."—The New York Times Book ReviewIn Marion Zimmer Bradley's masterpiece, we see the tumult and adventures of Camelot's court through the eyes of the women who bolstered the king's rise and schemed for his fall. From their childhoods through the ultimate fulfillment of their destinies, we follow these women and the diverse cast of characters that surrounds them as the great Arthurian epic unfolds stunningly before us. As Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar struggle for control over the fate of Arthur's kingdom, as the Knights of the Round Table take on their infamous quest, as Merlin and Viviane wield their magics for the future of Old Britain, the Isle of Avalon slips further into the impenetrable mists of memory, until the fissure between old and new worlds' and old and new religions' claims its most famous victim.

Author Biography

Marion Zimmer Bradley began her distinguished book publishing career in 1961 with her first novel, The Door Through Space. The following year she wrote the first book in her hugely popular Darkover series, Sword of Aldones, which soon became a Hugo Award nominee. Bradley's novel The Forbidden Tower was also nominated for a Hugo, and The Heritage of Hastur was nominated for an esteemed Nebula Award.The Mists of Avalon was the single most successful novel of Bradley's career. It won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and has been among the top five trade paperback books on Locus's bestseller list for years.Ms. Bradley died in 1999.

Review

"[A] monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . Reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An impressive achievement."--The New York Times Book Review"Marion Zimmer Bradley has brilliantly and innovatively turned the myth inside out. . . . add[ing] a whole new dimension to our mythic history."--San Francisco Chronicle"Gripping . . . Superbly realized . . . A worthy addition to almost a thousand years of Arthurian tradition."--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Review Quote

"[A] monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends . . . Reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience. . . . An impressive achievement." --The New York Times Book Review "Marion Zimmer Bradley has brilliantly and innovatively turned the myth inside out. . . . add[ing] a whole new dimension to our mythic history." --San Francisco Chronicle "Gripping . . . Superbly realized . . . A worthy addition to almost a thousand years of Arthurian tradition." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer From the Hardcover edition.

Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide

1. Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion The Mists of Avalon revolves around a number of dualities: male/ female, Christianity/druidism, duty/desire. How are these duali- ties represented in the book? Can you think of others that were presented? 2. How does the book strive to challenge common stereotypes? How does it reinforce them? 3. Is Gwenhwyfar a sympathetic character? In your opinion, does Marion Zimmer Bradley treat physical beauty in a positive, negative, or neutral manner? Explain. 4. How responsible is Arthur for allowing the spread of Christianity and ultimate disappearance of Avalon? Was he simply being an honorable husband to Gwenhwyfar? Did you find the Arthur, Lancelet, Gwenhwyfar tryst disturbing? Although Arthur was an indisputably potent leader, can he, in the end, be deemed an effective one? 5. It seemed in several instances that Morgaine disappeared when she was most needed. Was she ultimately successful in represent- ing the Goddess? Would you say that she was a victim to her fate or that she ultimately rose to meet it? What parallels can you draw between Morgaine's life and Igraine's? Between Morgaine and Viviane? 6. The Merlin seems to play an ambiguous role in the story. Do you agree with this statement? In your opinion, was he motivated more by his faith, or by pride and ambition? 7. Throughout history, did the spread of Christianity really lead to a diminishing of tolerance? Does the Goddess have a place in today's world? Do you think that Christianity ever held woman as the principal of evil? 8. What symbolism, if any, would you apply to the dragon slain by Lancelet? What is the symbolism behind Excalibur? The Grail? The Holy Thorn? 9. At the end of Mists, did you feel that the Goddess had truly been absorbed into Christianity? 10. How has Mists changed your perception or understanding of the Arthurian legend? How has it changed your perception of women's roles in the making (and telling) of history?

Excerpt from Book

Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, Lady of Duke Gorlois, looked out over the sea from the headland. As she stared into the fogs and mists, she wondered how she would ever know when the night and day were of equal length, so that she could keep the Feast of the New Year. This year the spring storms had been unusually violent; night and day the crash of the sea had resounded over the castle until no man or woman within could sleep, and even the hounds whimpered mournfully. Tintagel . . . there were still those who believed the castle had been raised, on the crags at the far end of the long causeway into the sea, by the magic of the ancient folk of Ys. Duke Gorlois laughed at this and said that if he had any of their magic, he would have used it to keep the sea from encroaching, year by year, upon the shoreline. In the four years since she had come here as Gorlois''s bride, Igraine had seen land, good land, crumble into the Cornish sea. Long arms of black rock, sharp and craggy, extended into the ocean from the coast. When the sun shone, it could be fair and brilliant, the sky and water as brilliant as the jewels Gorlois had heaped on her on the day when she told him she bore his first child. But Igraine had never liked wearing them. The jewel which hung now at her throat had been given her in Avalon: a moonstone which sometimes reflected the blue brilliance of sky and sea; but in the fog, today, even the jewel looked shadowed. In the fog, sounds carried a long way. It seemed to Igraine, as she stood looking from the causeway back toward the mainland, that she could hear footfalls of horses and mules, and the sound of voices-human voices, here in isolated Tintagel, where nothing lived but goats and sheep, and the herdsmen and their dogs, and the ladies of the castle with a few serving women and a few old men to guard them. Slowly, Igraine turned and went back toward the castle. As always, standing in its shadow, she felt dwarfed by the loom of these ancient stones at the end of the long causeway which stretched into the sea. The herdsmen believed that the castle had been built by the Ancient Ones from the lost lands of Lyonnesse and Ys; on a clear day, so the fishermen said, their old castles could be seen far out under the water. But to Igraine they looked like towers of rock, ancient mountains and hills drowned by the ever encroaching sea that nibbled away, even now, at the very crags below the castle. Here at the end of the world, where the sea ate endlessly at the land, it was easy to believe in drowned lands to the west; there were tales of a great fire mountain which had exploded, far to the south, and engulfed a great land there. Igraine never knew whether she believed those tales or not. Yes; surely she could hear voices in the fog. It could not be savage raiders from over the sea, or from the wild shores of Erin. The time was long past when she needed to startle at a strange sound or a shadow. It was not her husband, the Duke; he was far away to the North, fighting Saxons at the side of Ambrosius Aurelianus, High King of Britain; he would have sent word if he intended to return. And she need not fear. If the riders were hostile, the guards and soldiers in the fort at the landward end of the causeway, stationed there by Duke Gorlois to guard his wife and child, would have stopped them. It would take an army to cut through them. And who would send an army against Tintagel? There was a time-Igraine remembered without bitterness, moving slowly into the castle yard-when she would have known who rode toward her castle. The thought held little sadness, now. Since Morgaine''s birth she no longer even wept for her home. And Gorlois was kind to her. He had soothed her through her early fear and hatred, had given her jewels and beautiful things, trophies of war, had surrounded her with ladies to wait upon her, and treated her always as his equal, except in councils of war. She could have asked no more, unless she had married a man of the Tribes. And in this she had been given no choice. A daughter of the Holy Isle must do as was best for her people, whether it meant going to death in sacrifice, or laying down her maidenhood in the Sacred Marriage, or marrying where it was thought meet to cement alliances; this Igraine had done, marrying a Romanized Duke of Cornwall, a citizen who lived, even though Rome was gone from all of Britain, in Roman fashion. She shrugged the cloak from her shoulders; inside the court it was warmer, out of the biting wind. And there, as the fog swirled and cleared, for a moment a figure stood before her, materialized out of the fog and mist: her half-sister, Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, the Lady of the Holy Isle. "Sister!" The words wavered, and Igraine knew she had not cried them aloud, but only whispered, her hands flying to her breast. "Do I truly see you here?" The face was reproachful, and the words seemed to blow away in the sound of the wind beyond the walls. Have you given up the Sight, Igraine? Of your free will? Stung by the injustice of that, Igraine retorted, "It was you who decreed that I must marry Gorlois . . ." but the form of her sister had wavered into shadows, was not there, had never been there. Igraine blinked; the brief apparition was gone. She pulled the cloak around her body, for she was cold, ice cold; she knew the vision had drawn its force from the warmth and life of her own body. She thought, I didn''t know I could still see in that way, I was sure I could not . . . and then she shivered, knowing that Father Columba would consider this the work of the Devil, and she should confess it to him. True, here at the end of the world the priests were lax, but an unconfessed vision would surely be treated as a thing unholy. She frowned; why should she treat a visit from her own sister as the work of the Devil? Father Columba could say what he wished; perhaps his God was wiser than he was. Which, Igraine thought, suppressing a giggle, would not be very difficult. Perhaps Father Columba had become a priest of Christ because no college of Druids would have had a man so stupid among their ranks. The Christ God seemed not to care whether a priest was stupid or not, so long as he could mumble their mass, and read and write a little. She, Igraine herself, had more clerkly skills than Father Columba, and spoke better Latin when she wished. Igraine did not think of herself as well educated; she had not had the hardihood to study the deeper wisdom of the Old Religion, or to go into the Mysteries any further than was absolutely necessary for a daughter of the Holy Isle. Nevertheless, although she was ignorant in any Temple of the Mysteries, she could pass among the Romanized barbarians as a well-educated lady. In the small room off the court where there was sun on fine days, her younger sister, Morgause, thirteen years old and budding, wearing a loose house robe of undyed wool and her old frowsy cloak about her shoulders, was spinning listlessly with a drop spindle, taking up her uneven yarn on a wobbly reel. On the floor by the fire, Morgaine was rolling an old spindle around for a ball, watching the erratic patterns the uneven cylinder made, knocking it this way and that with chubby fingers. "Haven''t I done enough spinning?" Morgause complained. "My fingers ache! Why must I spin, spin, spin all the time, as if I were a waiting-woman?" "Every lady must learn to spin," rebuked Igraine as she knew she ought to do, "and your thread is a disgrace, now thick, now thin. . . . Your fingers will lose their weariness as you accustom them to the work. Aching fingers are a sign that you have been lazy, since they are not hardened to their task." She took the reel and spindle from Morgause and twirled it with careless ease; the uneven yarn, under her experienced fingers, smoothed out into a thread of perfectly even thickness. "Look, one could weave this yarn without snagging the shuttle . . ." and suddenly she tired of behaving as she ought. "But you may put the spindle away now; guests will be here before midafternoon." Morgause stared at her. "I heard nothing," she said, "nor any rider with a message!" "That does not surprise me," Igraine said, "for there was no rider. It was a Sending. Viviane is upon her way here, and the Merlin is with her." She had not known that last until she said it. "So you may take Morgaine to her nurse, and go and put on your holiday robe, the one dyed with saffron." Morgause put away the spindle with alacrity, but paused to stare at Igraine. "My saffron gown? For my sister?" Igraine corrected her, sharply. "Not for our sister, Morgause, but for the Lady of the Holy Isle, and for the Messenger of the Gods." Morgause looked down at the patterned floor. She was a tall, sturdy girl, just beginning to lengthen and ripen into womanhood; her thick hair was reddish like Igraine''s own, and there were splotches of freckles on her skin, no matter how carefully she soaked it in buttermilk a

Details ISBN0345350499 Author Marion Zimmer Bradley Short Title MISTS OF AVALON Pages 912 Language English ISBN-10 0345350499 ISBN-13 9780345350497 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 1987 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Alternative 9780780636132 Birth 1930 Imprint Fawcett Audience Age 14-18 Residence Berkeley, CA, US Death 1999 Series Readers Circle Subtitle A Novel DOI 10.1604/9780345350497 AU Release Date 1987-05-12 NZ Release Date 1987-05-12 US Release Date 1987-05-12 UK Release Date 1987-05-12 Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 1987-05-12 Replaces 9780345314529 Audience General We've got this

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