Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel is a 1978 novel by American author Thomas Berger. Berger offers his own take on the legends of King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

, from the heroic monarch's inauspicious conception, to his childhood in bucolic Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, his rise to the throne, his discovery of the great sword Excalibur

Excalibur

Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...

, his establishment of the Knights of the Round Table, his long and honorable reign, and his heroic death in battle against the evil Mordred

Mordred

Mordred or Modred is a character in the Arthurian legend, known as a notorious traitor who fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where he was killed and Arthur fatally wounded. Tradition varies on his relationship to Arthur, but he is best known today as Arthur's illegitimate son by his...

, his bastard

Bastard (Law of England and Wales)

A bastard in the law of England and Wales is a person whose parents, at the time of his/her birth, were not married to each other....

 son.

The author emphasizes the glory and idealism of Arthur's court at Camelot

Camelot

Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world...

, but the ultimate futility of any attempt to ignore human nature and sinfulness. The book is written in an archaic style appropriate to the subject, but with a witty and engaging tone. It is essentially respectful of the Arthurian tales while putting a more modern, even somewhat rueful imprint on them. For instance, the wizard Merlin

Merlin

Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...

 makes occasional anachronistic

Anachronism

An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...

 references to such things as aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

, virus

Virus

A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...

es and nuclear power

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

, but always couched in period-appropriate terms, reminiscent of T.H. White's characterization of Merlin, in "The Once and Future King

The Once and Future King

The Once and Future King is an Arthurian fantasy novel written by T. H. White. It was first published in 1958 and is mostly a composite of earlier works written in a period between 1938 and 1941....

," published in 1958. Berger gives considerable attention to the adulterous

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

 relationships between Guinevere

Guinevere

Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. In tales and folklore, she was said to have had a love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot...

 and Sir Lancelot, and Tristan and Isolde

Tristan and Iseult

The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult...

, and even offers a somewhat sympathetic portrait of the villainous Mordred. The Lady of the Lake is a prominent character.