[.ca] Parzival and the Stone from Heaven (ISBN 0007108133)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Lindsay Clarke's Parzival and the Stone from Heaven is a hypnotic retelling of the medieval romance of the quest for the Holy Grail. However, Clarke's book is not a novel in the conventional sense, but a free adaptation of Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th-century story Parzival. Drawing on Eschenbach, Clarke recounts the adventures of the royal-born Parzival, whose name means, "to pierce through the middle". Brought up by a mother crazed with grief at the death of her chivalrous husband on the battlefield, Parzival is initially ignorant of his destiny as a knight who must search for the Holy Grail and unite it with the earth. As Parzival's swashbuckling adventures lead him from ignorance and wounding to insight and healing, he meets King Arthur, the Gawain Knight and the mysterious Fisherman, the failed guardian of the Grail. Clarke takes many liberties with Eschenbach's original, but tells a well-paced story, one whose characters are more archetype than individual. This is why, for Clarke, the story is universal and remains "a contemporary story and a salutary myth for our own troubled and exhilarating times". --Jerry Brotton

Nice retelling:
I enjoyed the only other retellings of the Parzival legends I've read, "Parzival's Page" and Katherine Paterson's "Parzival." A brief flip-through the book made me think at first that I wouldn't enjoy it, but I did end up liking it. Clarke does a good job of sapping the stiffness from old legends and making it palatable to the modern reader. The story begins with the story of Gahmuret, who goes off on a Crusade and then returns to Britain, marrying two women along the way -- a Moorish queen and a Welsh queen. He's killed shortly after the birth of his son Parzival, and the shock of his death drives his Welsh widow mad. She secludes herself in the woods with her son, trying to keep him sheltered away from the world that might make him a warrior knight. Years pass, and Parzival accidently encounters three knights on the road. Immediately he becomes obsessed with being a knight, and despite his mother's protests, he leaves to become one. By training and assistance, he does become a knight and marries the beautiful queen Blanchefleur. But before he arrives at King Arthur's court, Parzival comes to a magical castle where he is expected to ask the king a question. His failure to do so drives him away from God and into a desperate quest for redemption. Alongside Parzival's quest, we also have the adventures of Sir Gawain, who seems to develop a crush on any mildly pretty lady he comes across. He becomes enamored of a very proud and obnoxious woman, who is entrapped in the dark magic of an evil sorcerer. This is a nice book. It isn't perfect; with the exception of Gawain and Parzival, the characters are pretty two-dimensional, especially Kei, who is obnoxious for no reason that anyone can really explain. Other characters, like the pig-faced sorceress Cundrie, seem to exist for no other reason than to tell Parzival and Gawain things. Fans of the usual Camelot love triangle will be disappointed, while people who dislike the much-rehashed love story will probably enjoy reading some Camelot-related material that hasn't been done to death. The writing style and dialogue are formal but not incomprehensible; Clarke does a good job of giving us a view inside the heads of the lead two characters. The plot itself is fairly straightforward, with some sudden twists and turns that might confuse people unfamiliar with the original legends. Readers may need to backpedal a few times. This book would probably be a good retelling for teens and adults alike; it has some dirty content that the YA and juvenile retelling doesn't have, such as Gawain almost being seduced by a girl (they're in bed and they kiss and snuggle, but nothing more), and references to the "activities" of Gahmuret and his two wives, and briefly of Parzival and Condwiramurs. In addition, there are some very gruesome scenes, such as Parzival's maddened, deteriorated cousin who totes around the head of her dead lover. A good retelling for any who enjoyed Parzival's Page, or Katherine Paterson's retelling. Or for anyone in the mood for some freshly-told Arthurian stories.