dear Mr Cornwell, just a short note, to let you know (my ego tells me you’d be interested) that I’ve been re-reading the Arthurian books, and I was struck, by the different way I’m viewing some of the characters this time round (I was late-twenties when I last read them, I’m mid-thirties now)and I now find I’m less in awe of Merlin, more thinking him now different to any religious, nut is ingenuous, salesman? Clever, very clever, but wanting to sell his religion anyway, Arthur comes across, now, as 100% a politician doing undesirable things, such as the Irish girl on the beach, still, obviously a great warrior. I felt a bit sorry for Mordred, in the second reading; pushed from pillar to post, no wonder he was the was he was. Derfel seemed the same, a blunt tool (ingenuous too) I still disliked Lancelot, but, maybe being a bit older than I was, I could appreciate his cunning more and Guinevere ambitions (a great brain, trapped in a females body, when the female stock is low. And I think the main thing I’ve taken from the 2nd reading (and I think the press coverage of the ‘polish invasion’ to Britain, over the last few years, has coloured this view a bit) but there’s a hint of unsavoury nationalism, ‘they’ve come over here and pinched our homes and our jobs, let’s fight them!’ Anyway, thank you for indulging me (if you have) and I’ve no doubt I’ll have a different view on the trilogy when I read them again, in my forties!
Stephen Marsland