Product Description

Yet the density and complexity of the medieval poem make it almost impenetrable to a wide readership, even in translation. So the time is right for a retelling of the story. This is a lively, accessible, inspirational version attractive both to adults and older children. It stays faithful to the spirit of the original while highlighting the relevance of its themes to current issues. The storyline is clarified and simplified. There is a brief introduction and a longer, reflective essay to examine the larger questions and themes the story raises. There is a strong practical element to help readers engaged in their own quest for meaning.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #653314 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Lindsay Clarke's Parzival and the Stone from Heaven is a hypnotic retelling of the medieval romance of the quest for the Holy Grail. However, Clarke's book is not a novel in the conventional sense, but a free adaptation of Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th-century story Parzival.

Drawing on Eschenbach, Clarke recounts the adventures of the royal-born Parzival, whose name means, "to pierce through the middle". Brought up by a mother crazed with grief at the death of her chivalrous husband on the battlefield, Parzival is initially ignorant of his destiny as a knight who must search for the Holy Grail and unite it with the earth. As Parzival's swashbuckling adventures lead him from ignorance and wounding to insight and healing, he meets King Arthur, the Gawain Knight and the mysterious Fisherman, the failed guardian of the Grail.

Clarke takes many liberties with Eschenbach's original, but tells a well-paced story, one whose characters are more archetype than individual. This is why, for Clarke, the story is universal and remains "a contemporary story and a salutary myth for our own troubled and exhilarating times". --Jerry Brotton

From Publishers Weekly
The story line may be familiar, but Clarke does a solid job of bringing to life the world of the Arthurian legends in this retelling of Parzival's quest for the Holy Grail. The story opens with a brief account of the adventures of Parzival's father, a war-happy knight named Gahmuret who forsakes his new bride to go in search of conflict and glory, only to be killed in battle. From there, Clarke shifts to the son's tale, alternating accounts of Parzival's initial encounter with the Grail with the lusty meanderings of Gawain, a knight whose desire for romantic adventures is just as strong as his yearning for battle and recognition. Parzival's first encounter with the Grail throws his family into temporary disgrace and, when a witch curses him for his folly, he must go back and find the Grail a second time to square his accounts with the magic-oriented morality of the medieval world. Clarke, a scholar who provides a lengthy and thoughtful afterword to fill in the blanks for modern readers who are unfamiliar with Arthurian culture, certainly knows his material as well as his audience. But the nature of the story limits him to a wearisome alternation between battle scenes and love conquests, the one intriguing exception being Gawain's adventure in a house of horrors called Castle of Marvels that is controlled by an invisible evil magician named Kilgore. The craft and research that are obvious behind the writing will ensure Clark an audience among aficionados of medieval fiction, but there's nothing compelling enough in this particular retelling to earn him a wider audience.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
Praise for Lindsay Clarke's Chymical Wedding: 'I'm awed by the web you've spun. Not only the beautiful complexities of it but the fine texture of the threads ... Full of wise things' Ted Hughes 'This dazzling novel left me stunned ... a modern masterpiece' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail 'A splendid writer - a stylish, gripping story of alchemy across the ages' Sunday Express