[Rhubarb]

My turn to make a thread about my favouritest author ever that no one else cares about.

Umm, lessee, he was this funky guy who was a bit messed up in the head and wrote lots of cool stuff, the most famous of which was The Once And Future King because it appeared in the X-Men 2 movie when Ian McKellen was reading it. Ian McKellen is also very cool, but not as cool as T.H. White. TOAFK is five books about King Arthur, the last of which, The Book Of Merlyn, was banned because it was anti-war and British people weren't supposed to be anti-war in the 1940s because it was letting the side down and not keeping a stiff upper lip, so it generally doesn't appear in most bound volumes and that sucks for most people, but not for me because I have it on my shelf. The first book, The Sword In The Stone, was made into a Disney film that I used to love until I found out that Disney just lifted entire scenes and pieces of dialogue from the book and added weird songs. The books are full of intellectual stuff like allegories and metaphors and they're also funny and have swords in them, so they appeal to lowbrow readers like me. He wrote other books too but I can't be arsed dissecting them and some of them I haven't read yet, but one of them was about training falcons and another was about the Lilliputians from Swift's Gulliver's Travels. White was a very clever man who possessed a wonderful insight and keen sense of humour, and I agree on pretty much all of his philosophical, social, political, and psychological opinions (except the one about truth being an absolute, that was stupid) and I wish he hadn't been born a century ago in another country because I won't ever get to meet him and it makes me sad.

Oh, and The Once And Future King also got this terrible musical made about it called Camelot, and Monty Python totally took the piss out of Camelot in Holy Grail with their 'Knights of the Round Table' song. So T.H. White is related to Monty Python because they would both have thought Camelot was gay, and that rules.

If anyone manages to find something truly negative to say about the guy, I'll be very impressed. Unless it's Bateman, who is not allowed in this thread, lest the awesomeness cause him to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.

This post has been edited by Rhubarb: 29 June 2005 - 04:51 AM

[Slade]

I haven't read it yet, but it's on my to read list. I've seen excerpts and it looks downright hilarious. And anybody who writes about Gulliver's Travels must be given kudos. The parts in G's T that weren't the tediousness of writing it in the style of a travel journal were wonderful social satire.

[scubasteve4lyfe]

I've only read the first book of The Once and Future King, and parts of the fourth. I don't think I can will myself to read 700 pages of King Arthur. I'm not smart enough.

[J m HofMarN]

I have read this book, and thoroughly endorse it. I'm not sure about the book of Merlyn though, is that the part where he mentions how Feudal lords like to send peasants out to die for them while they're safely ensconced in their armor?

[Rhubarb]

Book of Merlyn is the fifth and final book, usually not included in The Once And Future King volume because it was held back from being published as too antiwar, and is basically about King Arthur being uber-old and at the end of his life, and Merlyn coming to visit him in dreams to give him some more education. The stuff about the ants and the geese is repeated in this book for some reason.

The stuff about the peasants and Feudal lords in book 2 is awesome.

[J m HofMarN]

I dont think I got that then, damned censors. The last part I read was where Arthur is talking to the kid on the battlefield just before his death.

[Wayne]

I checked out TOAFK from my school's library last week. Its awesome.