The Table of Less Valued Knights, by Marie Phillips

This is a quite clever, modern take on the knight’s quest of an Arthurian legend, with more than a nod in the direction of Monty Python And The Holy Grail. The setting might be Medieval, but Phillips’ writing style is modern, and so are the ideas of the characters. There are evil knights, good knights, squires, damsels in distress, battles and castles and horses aplenty. After having read the book a second and a third time, I finally realized where Phillips had placed the emphasis: it is a rather sneaky commentary on gender, gender roles and gender-swapping. I had not particularly noticed that at first, which says something about how subtly she worked it in. (Continue reading…)