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Does the world need another telling of the Arthurian legend? And one written by a New Yorker? Well yes, it turns out. The Bright Sword might be the best version of Britain’s mythic origin story since Thomas Malory drew the sword from the stone with Le Morte d’Arthur in 1485. Grossman’s novel starts with a would-be knight turning up at Camelot only to find that Arthur is dead and goes back and forth from there. It blends gritty realism, magic, paganism and early Christianity with such history as we have of the Dark Ages. Underpinning the familiar – the Holy Grail, Excalibur, Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot et al – is some serious scholarship and a thought-provoking impression of how Britain might have come to be. It’s beautifully written too, a rare quibble being an occasional lapse into modern vernacular – no one at Camelot was a pain in the ass: the word in these parts is arse. But don’t mind that. In these thrilling 700 pages the once and future king returns to life, just as was promised.
