King - by Donald Barthelme (Paperback)

About the Book

Dunkirk has fallen, the Americans have not yet entered the war, and King Arthur and his Knights of the Table Round are hip-deep in the fighting. And Churchill and the new chaps think they are running things. A retelling of Le Morte d'Arthur as only Donald Barthelme could dream it up--sublime comedy and dark romance. Illustrated.

Book Synopsis

In The King, a retelling of Le Morte D'Arthur, Donald Barthelme moves the chivalrous Knights of the Round Table to the cruelty of the Second World War. Dunkirk has fallen, Europe is at the breaking point, Ezra Pound and Lord Haw-Haw are poisoning the radio waves, Mordred has fled to Nazi Germany, and King Arthur and his worshipful Knights are deep in the fighting. When the Holy Grail presents itself--which is, in this version, the atomic bomb, "a superweapon if you will, with which we can chastise and thwart the enemy"--they must decide whether to hew to their knightly ways or adopt a modern ruthlessness. Barthelme makes brilliant comic use of anachronism to show that war is center stage in the theater of human absurdity and cruelty. But Arthur, in deciding to decline the power of the Grail, announces his unwillingness to go along: "It's not the way we wage war. The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon."

Review Quotes

a daring tour de force that combines legend, parody and literature' -Herbert Mitgang, New York Times

About the Author

Donald Barthelme was one of the most influential American novelists of the 1970s and 1980s, bringing a unique postmodern voice to his novels, short stories and essays. He died in 1989.