This week I've been reading the Grail legend. There are many versions of the story, but this version treats the Quest as a spiritual journey of Christian knights, most of whom fail miserably in their attempts to find the Grail. Perceval, Bors, and Galahad are the most virtuous knights and the only ones to succeed; two of them achieve a mystical state that makes ordinary life impossible thereafter. They never return to Camelot.
I first read this story when I was nine. I remember the set of maroon bound classics, which had everything from Alice in Wonderland to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I ate the books raw; it was extreme pleasure, a whole vista of imaginary realms accessible only through the mind's eye. Especially, I remember the King Arthur stories. I sprawled on the living room floor on a rainy Sunday (much like today, actually), lost in a landscape unlike anything I'd come across before.
The Arthurian world was somehow adult in a way other stories were not. For one thing, the main characters were all adults. For another, it was a mysterious, indeterminate place, full of chapels, monks, references to the Pentecost, and other Christian symbolism, but it had an otherwordly, somewhat eerie atmosphere. A mysterious cup, draped in white samite, floats over people's heads in the dining hall at Camelot, striking everyone dumb and filling the hall with an incredible sweetness. A hand and forearm, clothed in (what else?) samite, passes through a chapel, bearing a candlestick and perplexing Sir Gawain and Sir Hector. Belligerent knights appear out of nowhere, visions abound, hermitages hidden deep in the forest harbor strange ceremonies. Everything happens; nothing is explained.
I know these stories are likely a mix of myths and legends from several sources, an explanation that accounts for the layers of meaning but doesn't diminish the magic. I also understand the archetypal nature of the symbols -- the Grail itself, the lances, the swords, the castle, the maidens -- and of the Quest, a type of story that appears in many guises. The Grail Quest is a type of labyrinth. (Or is it a maze? Very important question.)
Finding an edition of this story that is like the one I remember (that first book being long gone) has been a quest in itself; "the right version" has taken on aspects of the Grail in both allure and elusiveness. The translation I'm reading comes very close; the elegant diction has the right solemnity and tone. I always pictured the events taking place in a misty, watery sort of atmosphere, either because the book created that impression or the day I started reading it was (in my memory) dark and rainy.
The characters, though, raise more questions than they used to. Aha! Rather than seeing just a group of knights, I am noticing how tortured Lancelot is, how hearty and plain-spoken Gawain is, and how agreeable Hector is. Galahad and Perceval are virtuous and irritating, though Perceval does have the decency to be nearly seduced by a woman who is not at all what she appears to be. He makes a hairsbreadth escape in an episode that also features a winged serpent and a lion.
I feel bad for Lancelot; I think his passionate love for Guinevere is what makes him human. His suffering is more compelling than Galahad's cool composure, at least so far. Galahad, the perfect knight, is the product of another illicit union, that of Lancelot and Elaine. He waltzes into Camelot and usurps his father's position as foremost knight, and that is supposed to be right and just. All I can think of is how hard that must be for Lancelot, and how annoying complete virtue is when you really think about it.
What it amounts to is that I can't enter the story the way I used to. I was once enchanted by the difficulty with which the Grail was achieved. I still am, but now I'm wondering if I would really want to be one of the knights who found it but never came back. Poof, enlightenment, and poof, you're gone. Ouch. I think the Grail is something different for me than it is for those knights, and I'm working that out bit by bit. That's why it's in my dissertation. That and the fact that I'd still like to know what samite is.
