More than a book! (The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley)

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Product:	The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Date:	07/06/01 (174 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: mystic

Disadvantages: nothing

Mists of Avalon

What is life doing with us? What do we do with our life?


You can read a book, you can understand a book but it is also possible to live a book.
In the human fantasy is enough space for a fairytale that we would like to belief in.
Didn't we trust in the fairytales that grandma told us?
Are you still fascinated from fairytales, which can be in your mind live and seems to be true?
Books aren't for me Pages, who wanted to be reed in the meaning of consume.
There is always a new space in my mind that wanted to be filled with Marion Zimmer Bradley words.
The reading will be unconscious and the thoughts find their own way into this fairytale.

The Author
~~~~~~~~~
There is not so much known. In the book cover you can find information, but in the most cases there is only a picture of her.
The most outstanding of her is the quantity of her books, which she left behind.
The biggest parts are the darkover-books and since the 80ties her fantasy books, that she published behind her "Mists of Avalon".
Marion Zimmer Bradley died almost unnoticed from the world around in the age of 69 in autumn 1999. She had a heart attack.
In the obituary of the German newsmagazine SPIEGEL there is an honour as "one of the remarkable fantasy author in the present".
I think they are right, there was no book better than "The Mists of Avalon", but all her books are worth reading

The mists of Avalon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is more than 12 years ago, that I have read this book the first time.
It was more than reading, because I read this book too often the following six years.
How other should I describe the fact, that when I read the first words of this book all pictures, all given facts, the circumstances and the stories of the people who are involved in this fairytale are present with all their details?
Everything is in my head, th
e gladness, the desperation, the love and the hate.
I would like to say: "I hate this book", no book has me so deeply moved and was so real in my mind.


The figures
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Morgaine:
She is the Arthur's sister; she is the teller of the story and the daughter of Igraine and Gorlois.
She has the face, that her gives the possibility to see the future.

Igraine:
the mother of Arthur's and Morgaine. She submitted to the will of the high priestess and married Gorlois. Her true love she lived with Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father.

Viviane:
High priestess of Avalon. Together with Merlin she is plotting and scheming to save the "old blood" in the monarchy enclose the power of Avalon in political decision.

Arthur:
Son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon.
Avalon does everything to make him to the king of Britannia and he should reign with a sense for Avalon.

More figures I do not wanted to introduce, because Marion Zimmer Bradley has so many figures in her book involved.
It is hard the names to assign to the fairytale figure, because the author used the "old" names.
The names we know are Christian names.
For instance the name of Guinevere is in the book Gwenhwyfar (Welsh). Lancelot was called Galahad by good fiends and his mom (Viviane).

Were does the story take place?
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Also here is a big confusion (I thought at first), but the author helps with very detailed descriptions. Two of these places I would like to describe.

Camelot
Will be the residence of Arthur and it is the centre of the story.
There also will happen the Story of the Holy Grail.
The author did not write about the quest of the grail, intended, because this book is different.
At the end of this book Camelot will be forgotten like the glorious times of the Knights of the Rounds Table and it is unr
eachable in the mist.

Avalon
Isle of priestesses, hidden in the mist, which only the priestesses can cross.
If anyone would like to reach the isle, they need the help of the priestesses.
"
"In the past" said Morgaine at the beginning "everyone could cross the mist and reach Avalon."
But the people forgot Avalon.
In this time Marion Zimmer Bradley used an analogy.
At the end of the story it will be harder to get through the mist. That happened because the Christians get more and more power in Britannia and Avalon has not longer the chance to influence the people. So the people forgot Avalon.


The Story
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Morgain is a girl, who knows too much for her age and so nobody understand her.
She has to watch over her little brother Arthur.

One day when Viviane visited her sister Igraine, Morgaine felt understand by Viviane and her mystic.
Viviane found out, that Morgain "has the face" and took her to Avalon.
The priestess education she finished as one of the best. She has a sense that there is something more that should happen to her in the future, but she does not know exactly what.
When she felt in love to Viviane's son Galahad, she has to make her first decision.
The temptation to fall in love and let the feelings be free, or to follow her calling (Avalons will)

In this book Morgain often have to decide between her live and Avalons will, who is "nothing more" than Viviane's plans and makes herself to a person that is in a conflict.
Lost in her fate and not lost in her fate she makes a (I hope you understand it) tightrope walk between the things who can be and the prevention of her own fortune.

The fates of the figures are closed together, so it is unfathomable something of connections. In the beginning several acts have no belonging and nothing ends in a final. In the Arthurian Legends always
Arthur was the person in the centre. In this book is the story the centre. Every person is imported and has her own destiny.

Marion Zimmer Bradley let flow this into the religion of the "old people" (druids and priestess). In this religion everyone has his purpose of life and the people have this to carry out.
The hopelessness that goes along with the purpose of life, this is reason why "simple" people convert to Christianity.

Arthurian Legends get a completely new stile and are more interesting than before.

The introduction of rituals and uses of the British people, as they used in pre-Christian times, lets the story appear more mystically and frees her from the heroic touch, that heavily weighted on the Arthurian Legends.

My Opinion
°°°°°°°°°°°
When I had read this book the first time, I understand nothing, but I was fascinated.
So I read the book once more and so I got deeper and deeper in the story. I searched for more new points of view for understanding why figures act like they do.

The author has nothing forgotten. There is no thing that can not be explained in a logical or mystical way.

My own investigation have my opinion to the story (like Marion Zimmer Bradley they wrote) stabled.
Once more I was fascinated, because fortune ore not, the author needs a huge knowledge. The border between things that can be and the fantasy is so small, that it is not hard to free the mind and believing


So free your mind and read!

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