I have a confession to make. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the legends of King Arthur. In fact, on more than one occasion, I hid whatever Arthurian retelling I was reading at the time behind the pages of my trigonometry textbook during my teacher's lectures. How could sines and cosines possibly compare to the adventures of Arthur, Guinevere and Morgan le Fay?

My grasp on history wasn't so great at the time (I might not have been paying too much attention in that class either). But as Lev Grossman points out in his author's note at the end of THE BRIGHT SWORD, the stories' indifference to historical fact is part of what gives the Arthurian legends their staying power: "the messiness is, I would argue, an authentic part of the Arthurian tradition.…[D]isparate elements from different periods mingle and fuse in ways they never did in the real world..."

"THE BRIGHT SWORD is ambitious, bold and often very funny, both in how the characters relate to one another and in the tongue-in-cheek ways in which the narration points to the many inconsistencies and oddities in the Arthurian tradition that the book carries on."

What results is a reading experience that feels utterly out of time in the best possible way. Picking up this book recaptured, many decades later, a little of that feeling of stealing away to immerse myself in that messy Arthurian world at every opportunity.

THE BRIGHT SWORD focuses initially on the character of Collum, a young man whose biography bears more than a passing resemblance to Arthur's own. Born to a loving mother and a father who left before he was born, Arthur was raised largely in the household of Lord Alasdair, a wealthy man in a remote northern part of Britain. Promised by his stepfather that he'd be able to learn swordsmanship there, Collum eventually (and violently) insists that the sword master hold up his end of Lord Alasdair's bargain. He proves himself on the training grounds and soon sets off to claim a place among the knights of King Arthur's famed Round Table.

Imagine Collum's surprise, then, when he arrives at Camelot to find that all but a handful of knights have vanished or been vanquished. Gawain, Galahad and Lancelot fled or were killed. Arthur himself appears to have lost his life in battle and then was taken away under mysterious circumstances. The only knights left are the ones Merlin, much later in the novel, calls "the other ones, the sidekicks, the spear carriers." He mocks them: "The stage is empty now but for the stagehands, and who will play the story?"

Well, as it turns out, those stagehands can act just fine. Surprised in their misery by an unsettling Green Knight, the motley crew sets off on a new quest --- hopefully one less disastrous than the search for the Grail that decimated the Round Table already. This time, the Green Knight assures them that he'll lead them to their next king. But that's only the beginning of the story.

Along the way, Collum and the rest --- including figures like Nimue, Sir Bedivere, Sir Dagonet and Sir Palomides --- contend with the increasingly messy nature of Britain itself, as well as their own backstories, which are revealed in well-developed narratives that in some cases stretch over multiple chapters. It's clear for these knights that the Round Table is more than simply the pinnacle of knightly achievement. It’s also a place where these individuals --- outsiders for reasons of gender, sexual orientation, birthplace, religious faith or temperament --- can find something like a band of brothers. On their journey, they'll traverse Britain while entering the realms of fairy, the bottom of the sea and other magical places.

THE BRIGHT SWORD is ambitious, bold and often very funny, both in how the characters relate to one another and in the tongue-in-cheek ways in which the narration points to the many inconsistencies and oddities in the Arthurian tradition that the book carries on. Perhaps it's true that die-hard King Arthur fans will find the most to enjoy in Grossman's pleasurable take on tradition. Still, I like to imagine it reaching readers for whom these characters are brand-new. I'm not endorsing this behavior, but it's not a stretch to imagine some other enterprising young person tucking THE BRIGHT SWORD behind the façade of a trigonometry textbook.