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Le Morte d'Arthur

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Le Morte d'Arthur

By: Sir Thomas Malory
Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
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About this listen

 The legendary tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a superb story of adventure, love, honor, and betrayal. Originally published in 1485, Le Morte d'Arthur is filled with dramatic power and deep, tragic irony. This audio adaptation of Malory's epic poem grips the listener with the fateful story of Arthur's ascension to the throne as a boy, his marriage to Guenever, the formation of the Knights of the Round Table, the quest for the Holy Grail, the ill-fated passion between Guenever and Launcelot, the treachery of Arthur's illegitimate son Mordred, and the ultimate destruction of Arthur's realm.(P) and ©1997 HighBridge Company; Cover Illustration Reproduced by Permission of The Granger Collection, New York. Classics Arthurian Royalty
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A good but not great production of the seminal version of the Arthurian legends with a lot to recommend it. But a few factors reduce it to 2 star book. Let's start with the good points:
Although it's abridged that seems to have been applied to whole chapters rather then pieces of description so what you do get does give a wonderful taste of the original book. The stories themselves are some of the most gripping yarns of all time. If you like tales of knights and chivalary then you will certainly enjoy this book.
But here are the bad points:
Whole stories have been cut, most noteably Tristian and Isolode and the tale of Sir Gareth. This ruins the balance of the book as what is left is mostly about Lancealot, whom I got quite bored with towards the end!
Previously I've found Derek Jacobi to be a wonderful reader, saddly his performance here is limited and everything is delivered in the same authoritive tone, this also gets a bit boring after a while.
The sound quality is very poor (you will notice a contrast between the Audible introduction and the reading itself) and the chapter marks/navigation points seem to be in random and unhelpful places.
Overall there's plenty to like if you are a fan of King Arthur. But if you just want to enjoy some tales of chivalary go for Terry Jones reading of Sir Gawian and the Green Knight or the excellent Naxos childrens production read by Sean Bean.

Only 2 stars for such a classic? Why?

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