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I am on my Itouch ask me anything. V.bored


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The story of Arthur traditionally begins as the story of male lust. Thomas Berger rendered this origin of the saga in the opening sentences of his hilarious and exquisite ''Arthur Rex'': ''Now Uther Pendragon, King of All Britain, conceived an inordinate passion for the fair Ygraine, duchess of Cornwall, and having otherwise no access to her, he proceeded to wage war upon her husband, Gorlois, the duke.'' Five centuries ago Thomas Malory started his ''Morte d'Arthur'' with two effectively prurient paragraphs on the same desire.

 

In ''The Mists of Avalon,'' Marion Zimmer Bradley's monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends, the story begins differently, in the slow stages of female desire and of moral, even mythic, choice. Stepping into this world through the Avalon mists, we see the saga from an entirely untraditional perspective: not Arthur's, not Lancelot's, not Merlin's. We see the creation of Camelot from the vantage point of its principal women - Viviane, Gwynyfar, Morgaine and Igraine. This, the untold Arthurian story, is no less tragic, but it has gained a mythic coherence; reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience.

 

In Mrs. Bradley's novel Viviane is the Lady of the Lake, High Priestess of Avalon and sister of the Lady Igraine. In a vision granted by the Great Goddess, Viviane has foreseen a Britain united in peace under a high king who will remain true to Avalon and the old religion of pagan Goddess worship while tolerating the new religion of the male Christ that is now winning its way across the land. Viviane accordingly chooses her sister, Igraine, to give birth to this future king, Arthur. She also chooses and trains Morgaine, Igraine's daughter and therefore Arthur's half-sister, to succeed her as priestess of the mysteries of Avalon. However, Viviane's plan to insure a doubly royal heir for Arthur goes awry: She selects Morgaine as the priestess-virgin to be deflowered in the primitive ritual Arthur must carry out to become king. Horrified to learn that this incestuous union with her half-brother has made her pregnant, Morgaine leaves Avalon, abandoning her duty as High Priestess and sowing the seed of future tragedy. Thus Mrs. Bradley gives us a plot behind the plot of the Arthurian story as we have known it.

 

It is the last of the four heroines, the Christian queen, Gwynyfar, who pushes forward the inexorable destruction of Camelot. Driven to a maddened piety by her continued barrenness and by guilt over her unconsummated love for Lancelot, Gwynyfar begs Arthur to break his oath to Avalon: If he flies the banner of the Cross and Virgin in place of that of the Dragon, if he consecrates the chalice of the Goddess's Holy Regalia by using it in the Christian mass, perhaps Gwynyfar will be able to conceive an heir.

 

Arthur does betray Avalon. Revenge is taken by the Goddess herself. At the moment when the cup of the Druids is transmuted into the cup of the Christian mass, the Goddess appears in a stunning vision, inspiring the knights of the Round Table to their quest of the Holy Grail: ''Arthur had forsaken the Goddess and the Goddess had scattered his fellowship with a wind blowing from her holy place. And the final irony was this: that her holiest of visions should inspire the most passionate legend of Christian worship.''

 

THE more traditional story too is all here in the 876 pages of ''The Mists of Avalon'': all the jousts, tourneys and battles. And all the familiar romance and sexual desire is here, with some new additions: not only Gwynyfar's love for Lancelot and his for her but the love of both for Arthur and his love for them, and Arthur's for Morgaine, and Morgaine's for Lancelot and for her stepson. Such are the permutations and combinations of desire inspired by the Goddess who cares nothing for mere mortal prohibitions against incest or homophilia.

 

''The Mists of Avalon'' is a different kind of novel for Mrs. Bradley, creator of the Darkover series of fantasies. What she has done here is reinvent the underlying mythology of the Arthurian legends. It is an impressive achievement. Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Celtic and Orphic stories are all swirled into a massive narrative that is rich in events placed in landscapes no less real for often being magical. Nor is it a surprise to find at this time a rewriting of the ''matter of Britain'' from the female perspective, as Jean M. Auel's Children of Earth series has begun to rewrite prehistory the same way. Looking at the Arthurian legend from the other side, as in one of Morgaine's magic weavings, we see all the interconnecting threads, not merely the artful pattern. It makes one eager to hear that tale of another weaver, Penelope, from her point of view. ''Was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning? ... From the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud.''

 

In Mrs. Bradley's version, Morgaine finally learns that she is herself the Goddess, herself the Fairy Queen. In this recognition, ''The Mists of Avalon'' harks back to the 14-century ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,'' one of the first and perhaps the most perfect Arthurian poem in English; only at its end do we discover that the scheme to test Gawain's chastity and temper the pride of Arthur's court, which is the central story of the poem, has been Morgan's. Suddenly to bring in Morgan has often seemed to scholars a cheat in an otherwise flawless poem. ''The Mists of Avalon'' rewrites Arthur's story so that we realize it has always also been the story of his sister, the Fairy Queen.

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Shut up Gerbil....

 

 

 

 

The story of Arthur traditionally begins as the story of male lust. Thomas Berger rendered this origin of the saga in the opening sentences of his hilarious and exquisite ''Arthur Rex'': ''Now Uther Pendragon, King of All Britain, conceived an inordinate passion for the fair Ygraine, duchess of Cornwall, and having otherwise no access to her, he proceeded to wage war upon her husband, Gorlois, the duke.'' Five centuries ago Thomas Malory started his ''Morte d'Arthur'' with two effectively prurient paragraphs on the same desire.

 

In ''The Mists of Avalon,'' Marion Zimmer Bradley's monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends, the story begins differently, in the slow stages of female desire and of moral, even mythic, choice. Stepping into this world through the Avalon mists, we see the saga from an entirely untraditional perspective: not Arthur's, not Lancelot's, not Merlin's. We see the creation of Camelot from the vantage point of its principal women - Viviane, Gwynyfar, Morgaine and Igraine. This, the untold Arthurian story, is no less tragic, but it has gained a mythic coherence; reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience.

 

In Mrs. Bradley's novel Viviane is the Lady of the Lake, High Priestess of Avalon and sister of the Lady Igraine. In a vision granted by the Great Goddess, Viviane has foreseen a Britain united in peace under a high king who will remain true to Avalon and the old religion of pagan Goddess worship while tolerating the new religion of the male Christ that is now winning its way across the land. Viviane accordingly chooses her sister, Igraine, to give birth to this future king, Arthur. She also chooses and trains Morgaine, Igraine's daughter and therefore Arthur's half-sister, to succeed her as priestess of the mysteries of Avalon. However, Viviane's plan to insure a doubly royal heir for Arthur goes awry: She selects Morgaine as the priestess-virgin to be deflowered in the primitive ritual Arthur must carry out to become king. Horrified to learn that this incestuous union with her half-brother has made her pregnant, Morgaine leaves Avalon, abandoning her duty as High Priestess and sowing the seed of future tragedy. Thus Mrs. Bradley gives us a plot behind the plot of the Arthurian story as we have known it.

 

It is the last of the four heroines, the Christian queen, Gwynyfar, who pushes forward the inexorable destruction of Camelot. Driven to a maddened piety by her continued barrenness and by guilt over her unconsummated love for Lancelot, Gwynyfar begs Arthur to break his oath to Avalon: If he flies the banner of the Cross and Virgin in place of that of the Dragon, if he consecrates the chalice of the Goddess's Holy Regalia by using it in the Christian mass, perhaps Gwynyfar will be able to conceive an heir.

 

Arthur does betray Avalon. Revenge is taken by the Goddess herself. At the moment when the cup of the Druids is transmuted into the cup of the Christian mass, the Goddess appears in a stunning vision, inspiring the knights of the Round Table to their quest of the Holy Grail: ''Arthur had forsaken the Goddess and the Goddess had scattered his fellowship with a wind blowing from her holy place. And the final irony was this: that her holiest of visions should inspire the most passionate legend of Christian worship.''

 

THE more traditional story too is all here in the 876 pages of ''The Mists of Avalon'': all the jousts, tourneys and battles. And all the familiar romance and sexual desire is here, with some new additions: not only Gwynyfar's love for Lancelot and his for her but the love of both for Arthur and his love for them, and Arthur's for Morgaine, and Morgaine's for Lancelot and for her stepson. Such are the permutations and combinations of desire inspired by the Goddess who cares nothing for mere mortal prohibitions against incest or homophilia.

 

''The Mists of Avalon'' is a different kind of novel for Mrs. Bradley, creator of the Darkover series of fantasies. What she has done here is reinvent the underlying mythology of the Arthurian legends. It is an impressive achievement. Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Celtic and Orphic stories are all swirled into a massive narrative that is rich in events placed in landscapes no less real for often being magical. Nor is it a surprise to find at this time a rewriting of the ''matter of Britain'' from the female perspective, as Jean M. Auel's Children of Earth series has begun to rewrite prehistory the same way. Looking at the Arthurian legend from the other side, as in one of Morgaine's magic weavings, we see all the interconnecting threads, not merely the artful pattern. It makes one eager to hear that tale of another weaver, Penelope, from her point of view. ''Was it any wonder that one of the visions of the Goddess was a woman spinning? ... From the time a man comes into the world we spin his baby clothes, till we at last spin a shroud.''

 

In Mrs. Bradley's version, Morgaine finally learns that she is herself the Goddess, herself the Fairy Queen. In this recognition, ''The Mists of Avalon'' harks back to the 14-century ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,'' one of the first and perhaps the most perfect Arthurian poem in English; only at its end do we discover that the scheme to test Gawain's chastity and temper the pride of Arthur's court, which is the central story of the poem, has been Morgan's. Suddenly to bring in Morgan has often seemed to scholars a cheat in an otherwise flawless poem. ''The Mists of Avalon'' rewrites Arthur's story so that we realize it has always also been the story of his sister, the Fairy Queen.

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The other day I left work and saw a midget standing on the hood of a car making out with a normal sized person.

 

My question is. Is it bad that I wanted to stop and ask how she got on the hood?

Cause I picture normal guy lifting her up by her armpits like a child. Or did she crawl up there some how.

 

This is a completely true story.

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