I’m nearly done with the Pendragon series. These books are interesting. The Arthur legend from a Christian viewpoint. The last book, The Grail, is getting a bit weirdo to me, but that’s actually part of the whole series, that The Grail is such an important element of Christianity. I’ll reserve total judgement on this once I have this book read completely.
I must say now though, I’m uncomfortable with the power associated to a cup. That God would actually send healing and peace to a land via a physical cup, giving it metaphysical properties, and that those properties can show up in visions as real, but also that the actual cup is what has these properties. It’s used to heal Arthur once, and before that Myrddin (sorry, that’s Merlin to the non-Lawhead readers).
I love the scope and beauty of the series, and I guess what I’m mostly getting at here is how this is leading to sacramentology of depths not known to actual history of early England, from what I understand, but that as well, this stinks of oddness. There are other seeming miracles in the books, and I take it as a storyform and not exactly meant to parallel our world. It’s most unfortunate that this story is tied to the post-Christ human world – unlike Tolkiens story form. It is highly interesting that it IS set in this world, with Christ as Highest King.
So here I can’t help but think of all the swirling belief that truly does exist in our world for this Grail and the mass of literature that surrounds that whole enchilada. I’ve looked over some of the Mary Magdalena type books in the store. Read a few pages here and there.
I’m not hugely King Arthur legend studied. I have limited knowledge of most of it. The Pendragon Series is my biggest quest for understanding the different styles of the legend. I can’t say how highly The Grail plays in other arenas of Arthurian stuff. I will say that the Kingdom of Summer, as is called the reign Arthur is seeking, lives and dies with the Grail. Trouble is, the Grail has been stolen.
Why isn’t the metaphysical version of the Grail able to call for help? 🙂
See now, I have no real point. It’s just an itchy topic that I’ll be happy to finish reading.