AVALON HIGH
Authored by Meg Cabot
Published by HarperCollins
Published on 27 December 2005
Avalon High is one of magical novel from Meg Cabot. The story is basically about a modernized Arthurian legend. But if you expect some kind of tug-war or round table knight, don’t bother read the book since they won’t appear anyway. Interesting enough, the story did have happy ending, unlike the original where Arthur dead after the Guinevere incident and Mordred treason.
Elaine Harrison, or Ellie, just moved from Minnesota to Annapolis, Maryland due to a year long sabbatical that her parents took to continue their medieval studies. She was an outer crowd (typical Meg Cabot girl), her grades just average save for World Literature since she used to read almost all her parents research and a fast runner. In summary she was a normal girl, at least until she moved to Annapolis, or rather her new school, Avalon High School.
Despite being a new girl, she found herself accepted in her new school. She even made her way to join the school track club. And like any other school in Meg Cabot universe, this school also had inner crowd consisting jocks, cheerleader and other popular peoples and outer crowd that Ellie found herself at first.
There were Will Wagner, the famous quarterback and senior student pres, Jennifer Gold, Will’s girlfriend and the nice blonde cheerleader squad, Lance Reynolds, the dependable lineman and Will most trusted man and later Marco Campbell, the problematic Will stepbrother.
The story started to take higher step when Mr. Morton, Ellie World Literature teacher, gave Ellie who paired with Lance an assignment to review a poetry about Alfred Tennyson, the Lady of Shallot. During this assignment she surprised about the coincidence about the name of character in Arthurian legend and her new environment.
For example, Will middle name is Arthur, Jennifer is the American name for Guinevere, the Queen of Camelot and Arthur wife, Lance can be represented as Lancelot, Arthur best man, and Marco resemble Arthur half brother Mordred, and Ellie herself would be represent Elaine the Lady of Shallot who commit suicide after knowing her unrequited love with Lancelot, except that she found herself in love with Will instead Lance.
After Ellie got to know Will better on his party, she even more surprised that the situation around herself even almost identical with the legend. Jennifer affair with Lance, Marco evil intention to Will driven by jealously, and eventually the discovery about Will parents truth.
Just when Will found out about Jennifer affair, Mr. Morton reveal to him about the truth about his mother and Marco. Will father, Admiral Wagner, actually the man who sent Marco’s father away to battlefield and eventually made him dead. Wagner then marry Jean, Marco’s mother and Will was born as the result. This made Marco resemblance to Mordred more clear.
That night, Will went missing. Marco stole a gun and also went missing. When a heavy storm hit the town and put all electricy down, Ellie started to get more worried about Will. And when she knows about Marco’s little robbery, she decided to found Will.
She eventually found him in a meadow, despite the disaster that she had to go through to get there. There she met with Marco, gun in his hand and aimed to Will. In her attempt to save Will, she threw a sword that actually belong to Richard the Leon Heart, which is his father research subject, to Will. Will evaded the bullet and caught the sword, and the sight of Will holding that sword, magically, scared Marco and cleared the sky.
This event cleared Ellie resemblance as Elaine the Lady of Shallot, since the only one that gave Arthur his sword, Excalibur, was none other than the Lady of the Lake, which took Arthur to Avalon to rest forever after Guinevere left and Mordred treason.
In the end, Will took refuge to Ellie house after being kicked from his house and both of them acknowledge their love together.
One little thing about the story, since Ellie spent her childhood moving from one town to another and one country to another, she barely had a permanent home. But, she stated that ‘home’ is not just a place, it’s people who make home. People that we care and love and care and love us. And at the end of the novel, when Will rang the Harrison house, Ellie was the one who opened it and invited him inside to take shelter. Similar to the Lady of the Lake who brought Arthur after everything was over to his last resting place, his last home, Avalon.
The book comes in 304 pages on its first print of Hardback and twenty-nine chapters long. Each chapter begin with a piece of Tennyson poem which is the center of the story, the Lady of Shallot. Other than that, there’s nothing special about the book’s layout.
Europe old culture always intrigued my interest, including Arthurian legend. Cabot nicely brought that legend into a good modernized plot, even though the story doesn’t share the similar end with the original legend. But, to put it bluntly, it sure brought more interest, since Cabot intent to write the sequel of this book.
Overall, the plot sure is nice, even if it just some kind of modernized old legend and as always, Ellie’s, that serve us with her first person narration, mind always amusing with her little comment here and there. And since there is a sequel, this one won’t be ‘one night stand’. My number will be SEVEN out of ten.
