Merlin's Harp PDF
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Niviene, daughter of the Lady of the Lake, sister to the faerie knight who would come to be known as Lancelot, and student of Merlin, finds her destiny in the court of the legendary Arthur. The author of A Woman's Place (1980) undertakes a lyrical retelling of the Arthurian cycle from the point of view of the faerie folk. Crompton's flowing prose creates an atmosphere in which the familiar tale becomes fresh again. An excellent addition to most fantasy and general fiction collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Take heed: the feminist possibilities of the Arthurian legendary cycle were not exhausted by Marion Zimmer Bradley's best-selling Mists of Avalon. In that book's manner, Crompton retells the Matter of Britain from the point of view of the Lady of the Lake, here called Niviene. From her perspective, the well-known legends become a real fairy story, for the main characters are all fairies or, in the book's term, Fey (Niviene, her mother, Merlin, even Sir Mell), and human changelings raised in a fairy Avalon (Lancelot, the Lady of Shallot). Although the resulting novel satisfies all the primal needs for narrative intensity and firm characterization, its strengths really lie in its poetic language and its finely wrought spiritual sense. The Fey philosophy is offered as an antidote to human failings as Crompton's pagan rather than Christian, womanist rather than patriarchal fairies live in unsentimental harmony with nature and with the elemental forces. A riveting good read. Patricia Monaghan
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