Here Lies Arthur

"Putting this story in Philip Reeve’s hands is exciting in itself. His story telling is so clever. He says himself that this isn’t true historical fiction. And yet the world that he creates is so believable – it’s visceral, it really feels real, grubby and authentic – and it has to feel real in order for us to visualise that there were people living their lives around at the time that these powerful stories were being built up around King Arthur. Reeve imagines that King Arthur was not a terribly bright man – so the opposite of the legends around him! That he was held in place as king by the people around him who are all much more able than he is. One of the key characters is called Myrddin (who will become Merlin in history). In this book Myrddin is a clever spin-doctor not a great wizard. So many of the glittering, magical tales from the legends in this book have rather more basic and almost sordid origins – they are constructed by Myrddin. It’s brilliant the way Reeve constructs a story behind the great myths we know today. One of Myrddin’s slaves, and one of the main characters in the book, is a girl called Gwyna, who spends a lot of the book pretending to be a boy. Myrddin enlists Gwyna to help create the Lady of the Lake myth. Myrddin tells Gwyna to swim down through the lake with a sword. He instructs her to wait in the lake until everyone is gathered round and then rise out of the water. So, we’ve got this glittering myth of Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake but in this re-telling it’s a rather grubbier tale of a slave girl hired by a spin-doctor to pull off a stunt to make King Arthur look more magical than he really was. It lets the hot-air out of the myth – brings it all down to a more earthly, realistic level – and it is great story telling in itself. Yes. It’s a bit sad in a way as well, isn’t it? To see the truth behind life and find out that it’s not as exciting as you’d been led to believe. Yes. Underneath this myth-busting there are real characters living their lives. And his beautiful spare writing style makes you feel you are really there. It’s so vivid. And it has to be totally believable for him to pull off the underlying structure of the story. I also think it’s important, particularly at the moment with the rise of fake news, for us all to understand how historical fact can be manipulated by anyone with an agenda."