Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I came across Arthur Rex twenty seven years ago, in my high school library. That day I discovered two things: the joy of browsing stacks and finding random gems, and the joy of reading Thomas Berger.
Arthur Rex was like no other book I’d ever read, (nor was it like any other Berger wrote, I’d come to find). Seemingly gussied up with thees and thous, it was nevertheless easy to read. Such a matter-of-fact style. And that whole “show, don’t tell” rule? Annihilated.
Berger sticks to the Arthurian romance most of us already know, and gets us through the big stories: Arthur’s accidental fathering of Mordred, Tristram and Isolde, Guinivere and Lancelot, Gawaine and the Green Knight, to name a few. But in the finer details, Berger maintains a consistency that would be otherwise missing if this was just a gathering of the old stories. Gawaine, for example, when tested by temptation before he faces the Green Knight, speaks no ill of women (unlike the “Pearl Poet version) when he realizes the nature of the Green Knight’s game. In this way, Berger takes the traditional definition of “romance” and updates it to mean what it meant all along: novel.
I decided to reread Arthur thanks to being able to get it “free” on my e-reader via Kindle Unlimited, and I found myself reading it on all of my devices that support the Kindle App. On my tablet before bed, on my PC at work, on my phone waiting in the doctor’s office. Berger’s prose style for Arthur Rex is that easy to fall into. It really does feel like you’re being told a story by your old grandpa. The Princess Bride treatment of The Round Table.
Lovers of the King Arthur stories should read this book, as it stands up against any other telling, including Mallory, White, and Pyle. Lovers of Thomas Berger should read this book, as it shows how his subtle hand can nevertheless create a deep and rich tapestry. Lovers of reading should read this book because it’s just fun to read.