My Catholic friend tilted her teacup like a fortune-teller. "You know," she said, "I think people who don't have God in their lives are like people...
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I recently read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley Zimmer as a school assignment. I think that the author, Marion Zimmer Bradley had a creative idea in telling the life story of King Arthur from the perspective of the women in his life. However, I also think that because there were so many women the plot gets extremely confusing. The Mists of Avalon is very well written, and gives a descriptive picture of what life in the Middle Ages was like for nobles and knights. The Mists of Avalon follows the life of King Arthur’s mother, half sister, aunt and wife. All of the woman with the exception of his wife, battle with being devout Christians or following their age old pagan beliefs. It deals with the woman’s marriages, childbearing, and jealousy toward each other.
As I earlier said, it was my personal opinion that The Mists of Avalon was quite confusing. I had to keep track of the three women who all had similar names, how they were related to each other, how they were related to Arthur, if they had magical powers, who they were married to and who they wished that they were married to. In the end readers only find out the end of three of the probably fifteen women whose lives we had been working so hard to keep straight. The author Marion Zimmer Bradley did a wonderful job of incorporating the dialect of the Middle Ages and the vocabulary that they used. I got a detailed picture of the lonely lives led my noble woman in the Middle Ages. Even the High Queen led a quite isolated life. Noble woman were forced into marriages at an incredibly early age to men they had never seen that were usually the age of their fathers. The Mists of Avalon describes these women as being completely petrified and often taken advantage of by these older men.
These past few months my class has been studying the Middle Ages. So often in reading The Mists of Avalon I was able to make connections from my studies with that of the characters lives. I learned that nobles of the Middle Ages lived lives that we would now consider impoverished. The author describes the characters as eating various roots and a lot of porridge, even the High King and Queen rarely feasted on meats except during holidays. They might get the weekly boar or small birds. The castles they lived in were cold, damp and completely filthy.
In sum, I think that The Mists of Avalon is confusing at times, but gives a brutally honest picture of the life of nobles in the Middle Ages and the conflict between the Church and peoples old religions. I would recommend this book to women middle school age and up.
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The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Larkin P., April 5, 2007
I recently read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley Zimmer as a school assignment. I think that the author, Marion Zimmer Bradley had a creative idea in telling the life story of King Arthur from the perspective of the women in his life. However, I also think that because there were so many women the plot gets extremely confusing. The Mists of Avalon is very well written, and gives a descriptive picture of what life in the Middle Ages was like for nobles and knights. The Mists of Avalon follows the life of King Arthur’s mother, half sister, aunt and wife. All of the woman with the exception of his wife, battle with being devout Christians or following their age old pagan beliefs. It deals with the woman’s marriages, childbearing, and jealousy toward each other.As I earlier said, it was my personal opinion that The Mists of Avalon was quite confusing. I had to keep track of the three women who all had similar names, how they were related to each other, how they were related to Arthur, if they had magical powers, who they were married to and who they wished that they were married to. In the end readers only find out the end of three of the probably fifteen women whose lives we had been working so hard to keep straight. The author Marion Zimmer Bradley did a wonderful job of incorporating the dialect of the Middle Ages and the vocabulary that they used. I got a detailed picture of the lonely lives led my noble woman in the Middle Ages. Even the High Queen led a quite isolated life. Noble woman were forced into marriages at an incredibly early age to men they had never seen that were usually the age of their fathers. The Mists of Avalon describes these women as being completely petrified and often taken advantage of by these older men.
These past few months my class has been studying the Middle Ages. So often in reading The Mists of Avalon I was able to make connections from my studies with that of the characters lives. I learned that nobles of the Middle Ages lived lives that we would now consider impoverished. The author describes the characters as eating various roots and a lot of porridge, even the High King and Queen rarely feasted on meats except during holidays. They might get the weekly boar or small birds. The castles they lived in were cold, damp and completely filthy.
In sum, I think that The Mists of Avalon is confusing at times, but gives a brutally honest picture of the life of nobles in the Middle Ages and the conflict between the Church and peoples old religions. I would recommend this book to women middle school age and up.
(7 of 13 readers found this comment helpful)