''L'Enchanteur'' ("the wizard") is a 1984 novel by the French writer

René Barjavel René Barjavel (24 January 1911 – 24 November 1985) was a French author, journalist and critic who may have been the first to think of the grandfather paradox in time travel. He was born in Nyons, a town in the Drôme department in southeas ...

. It tells the story of the Knights of the

Round Table The Round Table (; ; ; ) is King Arthur's famed table (furniture), table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status, unlike co ...

and the quest for the

Holy Grail The Holy Grail (, , , ) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenanc ...

from the perspective of

Merlin The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Re ...

and his relationship with Viviane. Barjavel had studied the material on the Grail legend extensively. He added several new concepts to the backstory of the grail, placing its origin to the time of

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

and

Eve Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...

. According to the novel, Eve used the cup to collect Adam's blood from the wound created when his rib was removed. The novel was published in 1984 through

éditions Denoël Éditions Denoël is a French publishing house founded in 1930. Acquired by Éditions Gallimard in 1951, it publishes collections spanning fiction, non-fiction and comic books. It published some of the most important French authors of the interwar ...

. ''The Arthurian Handbook'' (2nd ed., 1997) describes it as "among the best of the modern French adaptations of

Arthurian legend The Matter of Britain (; ; ; ) is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. The 12th-century writer Geoffr ...

Plot

When the one true god came from Jerusalem to occupy the continent, the devil couldn’t pervert men anymore, so he impregnated a virgin with the goal of giving birth to an antichrist, but god, seeing that the child had inherited a pure heart from his mother, let him keep his devilish powers. Now an adult, Merlin uses his powers to find a man of pure heart capable of finding the Aventureux Castle guarded by an injured king in order to bring back the Holy Grail, and with it, bring happiness and peace to man. He employs in his quest a number of knights, who came together around King Arthur’s round table, those who Merlin placed the biggest hope in; Arthur, Percaval, Lancelot of the lake, lastly Galaad. The courage, sincerity and above all love of them were all subjected to the difficult trials of the devil, and almost everyone ended up failing their quests. Merlin himself, despite all his powers and his forever youth, doubted, suffered and succumbed to the love of Viviane, the only one who saw the human in the wizard Merlin, the only one who will love him and who will love him for who he is.

References

External links

Publicity page
at

's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Enchanteur 1984 French novels Arthurian literature in French French-language novels Works based on Merlin Modern Arthurian fiction Novels by René Barjavel Holy Grail in fiction

Plot

See also

References

External links