The Bright Sword was a Disappointment

I just finished reading Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword and found it to be very disappointing.

I absolutely loved The Magicians trilogy, and while I haven't read any of the older Arthurian works I did thoroughly enjoy The Mists of Avalon and the film Excalibur. Therefore, I was excited when I found out that Grossman had written an Arthurian adventure and immediately put the book at the front of my queue.

Unfortunately, I really struggled to finish this book. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I didn't just DNF because it really was annoying me. After finishing the book, I reflected on why I disliked it so much and came up with 3 main reasons:

• Plot design and pacing
• Boring and unsympathetic characters
• Unnecessary deconstruction

The most obvious problem with the book is the plot and pacing. The idea of a story set in a post-Arthur world that is still beholden to the magic/anachronisms of the internal logic of the Arthurian legend is sooo cool! And yet, the idea is wasted with extremely long and purposeless asides, boring nonsense plot points that don't impact the larger story, and several instances of deus ex machina resolutions to plot tension.

Collum's journey to join the round table and then to resolve the question of Arthur's succession was compelling for the first half of the narrative. Once the book reaches the middle sections, the forward movement of the story completely dies. Meandering side missions and red herrings destroy the momentum of the narrative for hundreds of pages until the end when >!the gang goes to Avalon. !<

When the story reaches the end, the resolution is very abrupt and unsatisfying. >!Collum gets Excalibur, defeats the undefeatable Lancelot by just trying a little bit harder, I guess, and then the gang literally sails off into the sunset. !<

The most egregious problem though is the numerous chapters devoted to the backstories of the various remaining knights. Some of these were interesting, and some did an okay job of characterizing their subjects, but they were largely a boring distraction from the main plot of the story.

This could have been forgivable if the characterizations developed in these asides had some impact on the story, but largely they did not! They established the characters' worldview and motivations, but then these rarely had any impact on the decisions those characters made in the story, or how they interacted with each other. I think the main reason for this was because almost all of the characters were exactly the same. They all had similar struggles and attitudes that made it very difficult as a reader to differentiate them. The only exceptions being Scipio and the Jester guy.

Finally, I did not like how Grossman deconstructed the Arthurian legends for his story. This obviously leans more into personal preference than criticism, but it really weakened the book for me.

I thought it was hubristic of him to want to deconstruct these legends in the first place. With The Magicians, his characters were worldly and aloof, but Grossman as author was very earnest in his treatment of the setting. This is the reverse of The Bright Sword, where the characters act in earnest but the author is clearly cynical about the world.

The legendary knights with their chivalric flaws that inhabit the Arthurian canon become flawed knights with legendary aspirations instead. The traditional heroes of deed and action become buffoons, ignorant to the true state of the world, buffeted along the course of the plot by forces outside of their control. This is all deeply cynical stuff. At least when Marion Zimmer-Bradley turned the Arthurian legend on its head she still had a point of view that someone was the hero.