The Once and Future King by T.H. White (4/5)

The Once and Future King is a book written by T.H. White. It is a Fantasy Historical Fiction book about King Arthur and the knights of the round table. It is a challenging read because it has confusing language and it is also over 600 pages. The theme of this book is that people with a lot of power often abuse their power for their own personal gain. This book is split into four parts detailing different points in the story. In the first part, we find out that when King Arthur was a child, he was adopted, and his brother nicknamed him Wart. He wasn't a very high-ranking person in the world. Eventually he got tutored by Merlin, and he learned a lot from him. The previous king had recently died, so Arthur's brother went to the palace to compete to become the new king. However, when his brother was going to compete in a tournament, he forgot his sword and sent Arthur to get it. Arthur couldn’t get to the sword, so he searched for another and saw one in a stone. He pulled it out and brought it to his brother. When his brother then realized what sword Arthur had grabbed, he told everybody, and Arthur was crowned King, and also found out that his father was the previous king, Uther Pendragon.

The second part is about the many things he did as a king such as making the round table. The reason he made the round table was because he saw many powerful knights using their strength and riches to buy armor and weapons to be able to do whatever they wanted. King Arthur made the round table as an attempt to stop this and instead have the Knights fight for Justice.

Part three is about Lancelot, the greatest knight in the world, and the many quests he went on. It also explains how and why Guenever, Arthur’s wife, cheated on him with Lancelot.

The fourth and final part is all about how Mordred tricked King Arthur into banishing Lancelot and chasing after him. While Arthur was gone, Mordred took his chance to proclaim the King dead, and then take his place as his only son. However, Guenever knew he wasn’t dead and sent a letter to Arthur to warn him. When he got the letter, Arthur rushed back to the castle and began a war against Mordred and all people on his side.

I hadn’t heard the full story of King Arthur until I read this, so most of the stories were new to me. It was a good read and it was interesting enough to keep my attention.

This book was good, but it took a long time to read because all of the dialogue is a little bit confusing because the book is set in the sixth century. Overall it was a good book and I enjoyed reading it. For me, this book was a four out of five because it was interesting, and I enjoyed reading it, however it wasn’t a personal favorite of mine.