I
found this novel, also published by Ignatius Press, via Amazon's
suggestions based on the fact that I'd read Toward
the Gleam [LINK]. This is not Toward
the Gleam.
Although I found the description enticing – American graduate
students in England in 1940, interacting with the Inklings, on a
quest for an Arthurian relic – and was immediately hooked by the
first chapter or so in the Kindle preview so that I immediately
purchased it, I ended up being disappointed by it. There are
elements of this novel I really liked. It opens at one of my
favorite places in the world, the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey in
southwestern England, the reputed resting place of King Arthur, and
much of the story takes place at other significant medieval sites
that I'm familiar with or are on my list of places I would like to
get
familiar with (two trips are not nearly enough!) As the narrative
progressed it takes an unexpected turn in that the object of the
quest becomes ultimately less King Arthur than one of my subjects of
historical interest, King Athelstan (r. 924-939), probably the most
important of the late Anglo-Saxon kings of England, a true “Christian
King and Hero” [LINK] who may well have come into possession of one of the most powerful
relics of the Crucifixion. Frankly, for all his importance, Athelstan is largely forgotten in the memory of later ages, overshadowed by his grandfather Alfred the Great, and it is cool beyond words to find his legend at the heart of a modern novel. Looking for the King is suffused with the early medieval
England that I love, and seems well researched as evidenced by a good
set of historical notes and a bibliography at the end. (The mistaken
identification of the foes defeated by Otto of Saxony at the Battle
of the Lechfeld in 955 as “Mongols” rather than Magyars I'm
willing to dismiss as a literary slip of the tongue.)
