I lived briefly in the "Hamptons", not long before John Steinbeck passed away. I first encountered this book at The State University of New York at StonyBrook. Portions of this book exceed genius...the description of Merlin's entrapment by Nimue (Vivian, or Nyneve, depending on your preference)...the sight of King Arthur on the battlements, weeping over his known fate, as seen by a younger man, the training of a knight in the tiltyard of the Lady Lynne, and the ensorcelment and ensnarement of Lancelot by the three Witches---North Galys, Arthur's sister (Morgan Le Fay) and one other (to be emended later), the mistaking by a knight of another night asleep in his tent for his lady--and the ensuing brawl, and the besmirching by three young women of a knight's shield. The gamut of emotions, from sadness, amusement, nobility, abasement is played on the human soul with expert depiction by Mr. Steinbeck. He halted and experienced "writer's block" at the story of Arthur and Guinevere, the betrayal by Lancelot du Lac, presumably as he could not dis-entangle his own emotions and experiences from Arthur's. Someday, I will make and have the time to read this cover to cover, if I have not done so already, and have merely forgotten that I have so done.

As one of the other reviewer wrote, this is not the Arthur that some of us grew up on. This is a dark Arthur who Merlin declares is forsaken by God. Even though this is a darker book it is easier to relate to Arthur in this book. He is no knight in shining armor. He is a man like us all that has some very serious faults. He makes many mistakes but tries to press on forward. Steinbeck seems to focus a little more on the more sinister side of being a king and Arthur's fallen human nature.

I have to say, there are only two things that I didn't like about this version:

First, it ends too quickly. Sadly, Steinbeck died before he could finish this. That said, it is a treasure to behold and the open ending pushing your imagination to make your own conclusion. But I still wish there more.

Second, Sir Gawain, my favorite knight, is an arrogant, braggart in Steinbeck's Arthur. In all other Arthurian literature I love Gawain but in this I wanted someone to run him through. His cockiness oozes off the pages. But, maybe the reason I can't stand him in this version is because he reflects some of my less than favorable traits that I hate...

All in all this is a great and little known book. I would caution parents from getting it for their kids under 14 because of how dark it is and some of the adult situations. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (Puffin Classics) is a good choice for the younger ones.

This book can be summed up with this:

Rich Characters
Amazing Writing
Timeless Story

At one stray moment in "Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights", a lazy knight named Sir Lyonel is pressured to join his uncle Lancelot on a quest. In casual conversation, he catches a glimpse of Lancelot's heroic nature, staring unblinking in the face of doom.

"...suddenly Sir Lyonel knew why Lancelot would gallop down the centuries, spear in rest, gathering men's hearts on his lance head like tilting rings."

In "Acts Of King Arthur", written in the 1950s but unpublished until 1976, John Steinbeck tries to do the same for us, explaining the world of Arthurian legend so as to make us understand its singular appeal in an age of TV cowboys and atomic bombs.

Steinbeck largely succeeds, though not without difficulty. His "Acts" is a scattershot collection of stories that gathers steam only after leaving behind Arthur himself and most of the best-known elements of his storyline to delve into the marrow of lesser tales. There, Steinbeck grasps the opportunity to marry his own modern sensibilities to the centuries-old legends he retells.

In the book's final and finest chapter, Lancelot is confronted by a jealous knight who catches him up in a tree without his sword. Building a fire, he tells Lancelot to come down and get what's coming to him. Lancelot asks how the knight can scruple to slay an unarmed foe.

"I will recover from my shame before you grow a new head, my friend," the caitiff knight replies.

Lancelot manages to get out of this hazard, only to discover another kind when old friend Sir Kay, managing Camelot's larder and tasked with feeding every passing knight, tells him how miserable the job has made him, worn down by "the nibbling of numbers."

It's a dynamic way to read of Camelot's glory, dealing with such out-of-time concerns in a recognizably Arthurian way, but it took time for Steinbeck to reach this level of fluency. As an appendix of Steinbeck's correspondence during this project reveals, he found it hard work recrafting the stories of his middle-English sources without losing the beauty of its poetry, which had attracted him as a young boy.

Only the chapter on Lancelot, and the one before it featuring three quests carried out by Sir Gawain, Sir Ewain, and Sir Marhalt, manage to pull this off completely. On their own the two chapters provide brilliant reading of pure fantasy and escape, not to mention more than half of the book's sizable page count.

Elsewhere, a seemingly more tentative Steinbeck plows through the story of the Sword and the Stone, rushes the wizard Merlin to his untimely doom, and barely pauses long enough to allow his title character to pick up his fabled sword Excalibur. It's decent storytelling, just not that enthralling. Arthur is seen as a bumbler and, in one instance, quite brutal, something Steinbeck had in his source texts and was determined to keep in. It's hard at times to think why Steinbeck would think such a character would carry our enthusiasm, a problem he deals with by shuffling Arthur to the sidelines for most of the book.

Yet as "Acts" moves along to its two closing chapters, it, like Sir Lyonel, finds that enthusiasm, prying out the child in many an older, cynical reader and transporting him or her to a place of wide-eyed wonder and enchantment. It's a shame Steinbeck never finished what he started, but what he creates here is no less special for its unpolished beauty.

Now, I have never read the original King Arthur stories or any other attempts to re-tell it. So, I do not know how I would compare them. That however may not be really important, for this book can stand on its own. It starts with very terse language and becomes more and more colorful as stories progress. Indeed it reaches its apogee in the last tale of Sir Lancelot, which should really be thought as one of the best fantasy stories. It has a sad and ominous feel as story seem to move to its fateful and resigned end prophesied by Merlin, which it never truly reaches, since the book was left unfinished. Despite the fact of been incomplete, it does transcend the simple story telling of knightly deeds and seem to project certain futility of knighthood. As any fairy tale suppose to be, it has plenty of gore and head chopping and yet unlike many of other modern fantasy stories it does not use them for their shock value, but rather to accent the human virtues in face of his vices. This book is a gem and I could only wish if Steinback finished this book, and in the same key as last tale. There is a lot to learn for a young reader from this book.

I read this book as a teen and loved it and forgot about it until I came across it again recently. I forgot what a little jewel it is. Steinbeck, with his own inimitable style, has taken the ancient stories and retold them with his own wry, wise perspective of live and of human frailty.

I am particularly partial to the story of Sir Marhalt, an under-appreciated knight in the romantic pantheon. Marhalt is a fierce warrior and a great knight but he is very independent and doesn't want to be part of the Round Table. He goes adventuring with a "damsel" he meets in the forest and the results are both comic and exciting. When he is forced to do battle with the Lord of the South Border and his six sons, his damsel worries but Marhalt does not. Finally he tells her that he would rather fight seven men than one beecause if any one of the seven thought he was any good, he wouldn't need the other six.

A knight after my own heart.