I had this book pressed upon me when I was little, and consequently, never read it our of annoyance. I'm glad I didn't, because I don't think I would have understood how funny it is. I really enjoyed parts of it, especially the comic anachronisms (like knights who are in the 'jousting set' and the bumbling King Pellinore), but also found a lot of it to be a bit didactic (as children's books tend to be, I suppose). I also couldn't help feeling that White had a very specific political agenda in mind when writing this, something very peculiarly 1930s and British, a combination of conservatism and progressive ideas, and I always hate seeing that in children's books. It's like watching someone try to shape a child's mind a certain way in front of my eyes, and I was very unsettled by the Orwellian ant community (although this was written quite a bit before 1984, that part was disturbingly like it). Anyway, it's as much a book about 1930s England as about King Arthur. I also wasn't happy with the amount of casual cruelty to animals (hunting, hawking) that was described and often glorified. I really liked the change of mood at the ending, from comic to suddenly very serious and emotional. The atmosphere is a strange and sometimes delightful combination of nostalgic, whimsical and madcap, with Edwardian 'boy's stories' mixed in.
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