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Pagan Nuns: Thirteen Things That I Hate About 'Mists of Avalon'

 

 

I know, I know: lots of people just love Mists of Avalon. I even know some who became pagan because of it. I won't deny that it was (for its time, anyway) a significant book.

But it's a terrible book. These days, I find it virtually unreadable.

And as for its so-called paganism....

 

Pagan Nuns: Thirteen Things That I Hate About Mists of Avalon

 

Its medievalism.

Most Arthurian lore has come down to us in medieval form. MZB makes a half-hearted attempt to transpose these stories into sub-Roman Britain, but—since she hasn't bothered to educate herself about what 6th century Britain was actually like—we've still got the castles and duchesses, the frenchified names (“King Leodegranz”) and the faux medieval language (“I beg my Lady's pardon”). Ugh. Authenticity: F.

 

Its anachronism.

There's barely a page out of all 500+ that doesn't contain at least one anachronism. (Sorry, Marion, nobody said the rosary in 6th-century Britain; the rosary wasn't invented until hundreds of years later.) Really, if you're going to set a novel in 6th century Britain, shouldn't you know something about what 6th century Britain was actually like? Cultural authenticity: F.

 

Avalon's horrible 'pagan' nuns.

Penances. Chastity. A distant deity who expects blind obedience. Dea vult: Goddess wills it.

These aren't priestesses, they're nuns. Avalon isn't a temple, it's a convent.

Honestly, if that's your paganism, I'd rather be something else. Anything else. Priestesshood: F.

 

Its 'All gods are one god' premise.

If all gods are one god, and all ways lead to the same place, then why bother with the hard way?

Why not just crawl back to the church on your belly before you die?

Oh, yeah: that's exactly what MZB did. Caveat fidelis: Let the believer beware. Theology: F.

 

Its cardboard-y male characters.

MZB is one of those woman authors who couldn't create a convincing male character to save her life. (Just like all those male writers whose women characters are so thoroughly unbelievable.)

Since her female characters lack depth or substance as well, I suppose that this is not surprising. Still, it is one of the tests that I apply to any author, and—unsurprisingly—MZB fails. Characterization: F.

 

The 'nature' is all wrong.

Unlike real pagan fiction, 'Nature' and the Land play virtually no role in Mists, and what little there is, she mostly gets wrong. I'm sorry, in a pagan writer, that's simply unacceptable.

This isn't paganism; it's Christianity—at its worst—in drag. Knowledge of nature: F.

 

Its essential Christianity.

MZB apparently thought of Mists as a major contribution to pagan theology.

Unfortunately, there's no there there.

There's nothing to MZB's paganism. Even the supposedly 'pagan' characters cite Christian Scripture and precedent constantly. Whenever they express a supposedly 'pagan' sentiment, it's always by contrast with a Christian example. Christianity is the point of all comparison; Bradley's paganism has no life of its own.

To repeat: This isn't paganism; it's Christianity in drag. Paganism: F.

 

Its rituals.

Unlike, for instance, Rosemary Sutcliff's stunning Arthurian novel Sword at Sunset, there's not one single ritual in this novel that's actually worth the doing.

Yeah, like we're all going to stand around, silently waiting with bated breath, while the priestess drops acid and has a vision. Right.

Me, I think I'll go dance instead. See ya. Ritual: F.

 

Its length.

Jesus Christ, Morgaine, would you just make up your mind and actually do something? Honestly, it might help if you stopped feeling so bloody sorry for yourself. This you call priestesshood?

MoA would be a far better novel if it were 200 pages long, instead of 500+.

Not a good novel, mind you, but better. Concision: F.

 

Its language.

Published in 1982, MoA hasn't aged well.

People in Mists of Avalon “giggle” a lot. Giggle?

MZB's characters are late 20th century characters, thinking late 20th century thoughts, and expressing themselves in a late 20th-century language occasionally tarted up with a pseudo-medieval Morte d'Arthur turn of phrase or two.

Ah well. There are lots of good historical novelists out there, whose characters successfully give the impression of thinking period thoughts in period language.

Unfortunately, MZB isn't one of them. Period authenticity: F.

 

Its pedestrian prose.

MZB was a hack, not a poet. I don't hold that against her.

But—like Anne Rice—her language always does the expected thing. In all 500-whatever pages, you never once think: Gods, she got that exactly right! Or: I never noticed that before, but yes! Style: F.

 

Its relentless Christianity-bashing.

On page one, Bradley contrasts “the Great Goddess” with “the blue-robed Lady of Nazareth.” You tell me: where does her heart really lie?

That said, it's page after page of “this is wrong with Christianity,” “that is wrong with Christianity.”

I'm sorry, agree or don't agree, this kind of constant, needling critique does not make for interesting reading. It does not.

Really, is every Christian priest small-minded and misogynist? Why are Christian hymns and chants inevitably “doleful”? Tolerance: F.

 

It's not Sword at Sunset.

Rosemary Sutcliff's masterful 1963 novel Sword at Sunset successfully back-translates the medieval Arthurian 'matter' into 6th-century sub-Roman British culture. Sutcliff knows her landscape, her natural world, and her archaeology, and she actually makes it work. Reading the tale of Artos the Bear, you can't help but think: This is what it really must have been like.

Get this: she knew her Gardner and her Murray, too. She takes early Renaissance accounts of the witches' sabbat and asks: If this had been an actual pagan ritual, what would it have looked like?

Then she recreates a ritual so compelling that you ache to be there.

In short, Sword at Sunset is the novel that Mists of Avalon wants to be, but that MZB didn't have the smarts, the talent, or the depth to write. Learned from its betters: F.

 

Let me just add: among the uninformed, MZB gets a certain amount of credit for introducing themes of same-sex love into the Arthurian mythos.

She doesn't deserve it. Sutcliff did it first, and better.

 

Moral of the Story:

Sword at Sunset is a thirteen-course Harvest feast.

Mists of Avalon is a McD*nald's happy meal.

You decide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

Comments

  • Jamie
    Jamie Wednesday, 02 June 2021

    Mr. Posch,

    MZB was also a monster in real life.

    I never read, "Mists Of Avalon", but I did read, "Firebrand", which was about the Trojan War.

    I had many of the same criticisms about this author.

  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham Wednesday, 02 June 2021

    I did like her "Darkover Landfall" book and some of her other Darkover books were good; not all of them, but I didn't get past more than a few pages of Mists of Avalon. I had already read "The Crystal Cave" by Mary Stewart and Mists of Avalon didn't seem as well written as that.

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