The Eagle (novel)

The book's author, Jack Whyte, began work on the A Dream of Eagles series in 1975 as a reimagining of the Arthurian saga. He spent numerous years conducting a historical study of the time period. The first installment of the series, The Skystone, was published in 1992. The Eagle was published by Viking Canada and Penguin Books Canada in 2005. In the United States, Forge released an edition of the book in 2007. As with the previous books in the series, The Eagle was carefully crafted by Whyte so that it could be experienced as an independent work. Whyte dedicated the book to Beverley, his wife. According to Whyte, an earlier installment, The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis, was tougher to write than the final installment, The Eagle. Of The Eagle he said, "my mind had bidden farewell to Camulod by that time and was anticipating moving to another century and another project". ==Plot summary==

Narrated by Clothar, The Eagle is set several months following the end of Clothar the Frank. Clothar is 20 years old, and Arthur is 22. With the support of Merlin, the Round Table is created, which allows Arthur to command a military force capable of challenging the Saxons, the Danes, and the local rulers. Numerous regional leaders want Arthur to marry their daughters to cultivate alliances. Arthur marries a northern king's daughter. During combat, Arthur is grievously injured. Clothar, who had been visiting Gaul on Arthur's behalf for commerce and establishing partnerships, comes back to Britain to lead the Queen to a secure place. Arthur dies while Clothar and the Queen are away. ==Style==

The Eagle is an epic novel. Wiersema said it has a consistently "elegiac tone". According to the scholar, even though Whyte avoids focusing heavily on Camulod's collapse and Arthur's death, his depiction of the High King's dream drawing to a close is deeply poignant. The scholar thought that the book's final paragraphs are "devastating, as the force of nine volumes rushes in with keen emotional acuity" and that Whyte reimagined a major myth in Western culture, rendering it "fresh and vibrant". ==Themes==

The Eagles themes include honor, fidelity, and intelligence. The book features politics driven by individuals. Whyte, the author, delves into the mythology of King Arthur, persistently probing the ideas of "perception and reality". He contrasts the legendary Camelot with the constructed world of Camulod. The Eagle depicts episodes like Galahad, Clothar's son, being born; Arthur and Gwinnifer getting married; and Mordred, Arthur's illegitimate son, appearing at Camulod. Through these moments, the scholar Robert Wiersema said Whyte challenges the audience's preconceptions about the legendary tale. According to Wiersema, the author simultaneously draws on readers' familiarity with the myth to evoke emotional impact and derives strength by subverting key mythic elements like the Round Table and Merlyn's magic via "gritty realism and convincing historical specificity". The scholar cited as an example how the author's portrayal of Arthur, Clothar, and Gwinnifer departs markedly from the legendary love triangle yet feels authentic for his characters. Nicole Forrest of the Calgary Herald observed that the book's characters, Arthur, Clothar, and Gwinnifer, must confront challenging choices that sometimes are not well-received. Their moral fortitude enables them to transcend the conflict and make morally sound choices. According to Forrest, the novel features a cast of compelling men and women characters who are "talented and intelligent and interact with ... believability". ==Reception==

The scholar Robert Wiersema said the book may not appeal to everyone's taste since people expecting the Arthurian saga to be simply recounted would find themselves caught off guard and dissatisfied. Praising the book as "fresh and vibrant", he concluded that "those who are open-minded enough will find much to love (and return to)". A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book "an imaginative if rambling account" that is "overburdened with a stew of subplots and backstories". The reviewer said the extensive account of how Mordred was the son of Arthur and Arthur's half-sister was "distracting". Jenni Mortin of The StarPhoenix lamented that the book's ending was "enormously anti-climatic and disappointing" in that the Queen, Clothar, and King Arthur ought to have perished side by side. However, she praised the author for having done "exceptionally well" in "[keeping] the wisp alive". The novelist Candas Jane Dorsey lamented that the book had "remarkable and encompassing detail" up to page 517 on which it switched to "hurried storytelling" and "a strong taste of wrap-up". She wished that he had had Clothar return to Britain to join Arthur in combat, allowing readers to be given a direct view of Arthur dying. She concluded, "The end of this popular, eminently readable and well-thought-out saga could have been so much more nutritious." ==References==