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A rather pedestrian assemblage of the grail quest stories, which differ mostly from the classic Arthurian stories in an extra layer of moralizing. Read lacking any of that fervor which in a 13 year old can seem religious, this is the tale of an autistic fighter and a handful of knights being tantalized, tricked, and goaded by a variety of supernatural pranksters. ( )

I haven’t yet read The Sword and the Circle, the first part of Rosemary Sutcliff’s retelling of the legends of King Arthur, but the trilogy really doesn’t need to be read in sequence. The Light Beyond the Forest is a children’s novel, yet it’s one written with grace and poetic sensitivity (as is everything by Sutcliff), telling the story of the Grail Quest. Thereby it tackles some fairly weighty issues: trust, honour, truth, loyalty, temptation, sacrifice and evil. If I’d read it as a child, I think I’d have been deeply impressed by its grandeur; reading it now, I’m struck by its lyrical simplicity and by the way it boils down a complex mix of Christian and pagan legends into a highly readable story...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/08/01/the-light-beyond-the-forest-rosemary-sutclif... ( )

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