Le Morte d'Arthur Audiobook By Sir Thomas Malory cover art

Le Morte d'Arthur

The Death of Arthur

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Le Morte d'Arthur

By: Sir Thomas Malory
Narrated by: Bill Homewood
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Of all the legends of Western civilization, perhaps the glorious adventures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are the best known. The Quest for the Holy Grail, and the undying illicit love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenevere, have provided inspiration for storytellers and poets down the ages, and sparked so many films and books of our own time.

Fifteenth century knight Sir Thomas Malory penned the book with relish, packing his story with tales of heroism, treachery and revenge, noble suitors, beautiful princesses, dragons, sorcerers, giants, and bloody deeds of derring-do on and off the jousting field.

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2020 Naxos Audiobooks Classics Fairy Tales Fantasy Fiction Magic Royalty Arthurian
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This is another audiobook one does not review for the content of the book itself, as Le Morte d'Arthur needs no praise, and for an internet rando to attempt to do so would more diminish its greatness than anything else. Thus this is more for the narrator; ultimately I say do get *this* audiobook if you want to listen to Le Morte d'Arthur, even though the narrator mispronounces a couple names.

Bill Homewood's voice is great, as is his narrative interpretation. I chose this audiobook over the one narrated by Chris MacDonnell based on the voice samples, and though I couldn't say how well MacDonnell does over the whole audiobook, I can say that I am pleased I chose the version narrated by Homewood. In particular I'm enjoying how Homewood handles some of the more repetitive phrases: Malory often has his characters speak to each other by starting out with "'Sir,' said [character], "[proceeds to say something]"; so, for example:

"And when I saw her making such dole, I asked her who slew her lord. Sir, she said, the falsest knight of the world now living, and he is the most villain that ever man heard speak of and his name is Sir Breuse Saunce Pité."

(Malory doesn't have quotation marks.) Homewood's long "Siiiir," often particularly gravelly for "ancient knights" and older people like Merlin, is a lot of fun, as is when the "sir" gets more of an accent when Homewood is doing the voice of a peasant. And Homewood slows down and emphasizes Malory's formulaic "[something]est [knight/damosel] of the world," especially when that turns out to be true, as when someone is praising Lancelot as the best knight of the world. Then there's the part near the beginning, with the invisible knight Garlon:

"And as they were even afore King Arthur's pavilion, there came one invisible, and smote this knight that went with Balin throughout the body with a spear. Alas, said the knight, I am slain under your conduct with a knight called Garlon; therefore take my horse that is better than yours, and ride to the damosel, and follow the quest that I was in as she will lead you, and revenge my death when ye may."

Homewood makes sure you can tell something different from the norm is going on here just by the way he says "there came one invisible." His "alas" is also pretty good. And when Balin finally kills Garlon:

"And therewith Balin smote him through the body, and said openly, With that truncheon thou hast slain a good knight, and now it sticketh in thy body. And then Balin called unto him his host, saying, Now may ye fetch blood enough to heal your son withal."

Homewood makes that last line absolutely worth it. The past week I've found myself responding to situations by thinking "As for that" in Homewood's voice, since that too is one of Malory's common formulae.

This makes it unfortunate that Homewood very clearly mispronounces at least two names: First there's Beaumains, which he pronounces like "bow-manes," which is pretty grating given the French. I could see pronouncing the N, but not the S as well; both should be silent in the French. Then there's King Anguish of Ireland; somehow, and I have no idea how, Homewood pronounces his name as Agrivance. I had to pull out my copy of Malory and look up who Homewood was talking about. As this king is generally considered to correspond to King Oengus, it might make sense to pronounce Anguish as Angus; Agrivance sounds like he took part of Sir Agravaine's name and then did I don't know what. The rest of the names so far (I'm currently in the middle of the slog that is the Tristram books) he does fine with as far as I can tell, though plenty of them are obscure enough that I might not know the pronunciations myself. He does get Le Cote Male Taile right.

But again, ultimately the rest outweighs the mispronunciations. Homewood does a great job, and though I can't say MacDonnell's version is bad, you will not be disappointed listening to Homewood's.

Great voice and tone, but some mispronunciations

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I want to keep this review brief as I am no professional by any means, but this is the first audiobook I have completed entirely, and I was extremely satisfied with the contents and quality of the work. The book is pretty hefty, so the fact that it was an audiobook and that the narrator helped get me in the headspace and vibe was really helpful and entertaining to say the least. There weren't any weird things with the audio and the narrator was very clear, and I liked the voice changes even though they were very limited. Overall, it was an amazing and helpful experience. I recommend this audiobook to anyone who needs it or wants encouragement to get through the book easily!

Best audiobook yet!

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Bill Homewood has a voice and a style of delivery that has not always been well-suited to the material he's been given. Even when he's not a good match, though, you can always count on three things: meticulous preparation, expert pronunciation of all proper names, and the ability to rise to whatever heights of passionate intensity are demanded by the material.

Fortunately in the case of Thomas Malory you get all that AND a nearly perfect match between Homewood's voice and the story he's narrating. I've listened to three other renditions of Malory, and with one exception I can say that this is the best I've heard, and in fact the best I can imagine hearing. The exception is the recording by Derek Jacobi. There are two problems with Jacobi's reading, though: it's severely abridged, and the audio quality has suffered in the transition from older technology. I would still recommend it if you're not ready to tackle Malory whole and in one piece; but if you want the original straight up, Bill Homewood is your man.

As is (apparently) the case with all audiobooks based on Malory, this uses the Caxton edition rather than the Winchester manuscript; I believe there are still copyright issues involved in the latter that make its superior organization of the narrative off-limits for most audiobook publishers. That's OK. Caxton has at least the advantage of being broken down into short chapters that make it easier to swallow the epic a little bit at a time.

It's a powerful, tragic story. After all its digressions, it finally boils down to a terrible war between Arthur, Gawain, and Lancelot over Guinevere; Lancelot has rescued her from the flames for adultery and has proclaimed her innocence, laying waste to the knights of the round table in the process. But he knows that he's lying. Malory makes clear that Lancelot lay with the Queen by night and by day; Arthur's kingdom is undone by the malice of Agravain and Mordred, but Agravain and Mordred are telling the truth, and it is Lancelot and Guinevere who have actually betrayed the king. It's an awful story, all the more awful because it is so simple and so human and so inevitable.

Now, having praised Homewood for doing Malory whole, I'll come down on Malory for one thing. He makes such a terrible mess of the Tristan and Isolde story (known as Tristram and Isoude in his account) that no one will blame you, and you will truly miss nothing of significance, if you skip Books 8, 9, and 10 in their entirety. Get the story of those two lovers somewhere else. Malory doesn't even show you how it ends anyway.

Malory loses control of his story at times, but boy does he bring it in for a landing at the end. Bill Homewood never loses control of HIS take on the narrative, and when the story comes to its powerful, almost unbearable conclusion, he’s right there with it — and us.

Brilliant and powerful

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I know this is a classic book but it’s a slog to the modern reader.

Tedious

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I loved listening to this. I made it several hours in before the struggle to understand the narration just got to be too much. I was listening in my car while commuting, and the narrator’s voice has so much bass that it was hard to understand. I had to turn up the volume quite a bit to hear clearly, but then it was clearly taxing the bass in my car’s audio system. Shame, otherwise it was really great!

Great in every way, except too much bass in the narrator’s voice

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