A short, charming retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in which Arthur and his knights are RAF pilots in WWII who get interrupted at the pub by a strange man dressed all in green.
If you're not familiar with the original story, and you will enjoy this book a lot more if you are, it goes basically like this. A Green Knight marches into King Arthur's court and challenges his knights to an exchange of blows. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and beheads him. The Green Knight puts his head back on and tells Gawain that in one year, they must meet at the green chapel and Gawain must accept an equal blow from him. One year later, Gawain goes off to search for the chapel, and ends up a guest of Lord and Lady Bertilak. He agrees to an exchange of gifts with the Lord - whatever he's given in the castle, he must give to Lord Bertilak in turn - and then finds himself in a quandary when Lady Bertilak kisses him...
A Garter as a Lesser Gift feels something like a fairy tale, though one conscious of itself; the pilots are amazed by the green man's ability to survive a mortal wound, but accept it more easily than if this was a more straight-up historical fantasy, and Gawain keeps an eye out for animals in trouble he could help, as that seems to work in fairy tales. It's also something like The Once and Future King, with its layered references and understated glimpses of terrible things, like a conversation between Gawain and Lord Bertilak about how being a fighter pilot is something like being a hunter; Gawain refers to his prey as airplanes, Bertilak points out that it's really airmen, and Gawain says he prefers not to think of it that way.
A Garter as a Lesser Gift is light on the surface, full of coziness and good food and longing, but it has substance underneath. The knights other than Gawain make brief appearances, but they're all immediately recognizable and not just by their names. However you interpret the weird original poem, it's about (if not only about) the juxtaposition of life in the form of sexuality and love with sudden violent death and the dread of death, and living life while facing mortality. This novella gets at that without getting too dark; the RAF pilots face their own deaths and the deaths of their friends every day.
The Bertilaks are fascinating creations, both down-home and otherworldly, worthy of longing but also dangerous, within time (they're subject to rationing rules, sort of) and without it (Gawain has to explain to them that they're hunting game that no longer lives in England.) Their library is full of mystery novels, but their own mystery is not so easily solved, and maybe doesn't need to be. The resolution is very satisfying, but I'd love to read more Arthurian tales within this setting.
Disclosure: the author is![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer and a friend of mine.
If you're not familiar with the original story, and you will enjoy this book a lot more if you are, it goes basically like this. A Green Knight marches into King Arthur's court and challenges his knights to an exchange of blows. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and beheads him. The Green Knight puts his head back on and tells Gawain that in one year, they must meet at the green chapel and Gawain must accept an equal blow from him. One year later, Gawain goes off to search for the chapel, and ends up a guest of Lord and Lady Bertilak. He agrees to an exchange of gifts with the Lord - whatever he's given in the castle, he must give to Lord Bertilak in turn - and then finds himself in a quandary when Lady Bertilak kisses him...
A Garter as a Lesser Gift feels something like a fairy tale, though one conscious of itself; the pilots are amazed by the green man's ability to survive a mortal wound, but accept it more easily than if this was a more straight-up historical fantasy, and Gawain keeps an eye out for animals in trouble he could help, as that seems to work in fairy tales. It's also something like The Once and Future King, with its layered references and understated glimpses of terrible things, like a conversation between Gawain and Lord Bertilak about how being a fighter pilot is something like being a hunter; Gawain refers to his prey as airplanes, Bertilak points out that it's really airmen, and Gawain says he prefers not to think of it that way.
A Garter as a Lesser Gift is light on the surface, full of coziness and good food and longing, but it has substance underneath. The knights other than Gawain make brief appearances, but they're all immediately recognizable and not just by their names. However you interpret the weird original poem, it's about (if not only about) the juxtaposition of life in the form of sexuality and love with sudden violent death and the dread of death, and living life while facing mortality. This novella gets at that without getting too dark; the RAF pilots face their own deaths and the deaths of their friends every day.
The Bertilaks are fascinating creations, both down-home and otherworldly, worthy of longing but also dangerous, within time (they're subject to rationing rules, sort of) and without it (Gawain has to explain to them that they're hunting game that no longer lives in England.) Their library is full of mystery novels, but their own mystery is not so easily solved, and maybe doesn't need to be. The resolution is very satisfying, but I'd love to read more Arthurian tales within this setting.
Disclosure: the author is
osprey_archer and a friend of mine.
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You will definitely love this book. It's really up your alley.
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One of my favorite lines in this was the maid saying that, per the rules of the wager, she couldn't give Gawain a piece of her mind, or a piece of advice, without it going back to Bertilak— fairy tale logic!! I love it!!
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