A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain was not at all what I expected, which is entirely my own fault. So right up front, I'll admit the presumptions I had when I started reading:
1. It's by Mark Twain. His one-liners are witty and pithy, and surely all of his books should be extremely amusing.
2. I loved watching the movie A Kid in King Arthur's Court when I was a kid. I knew the movie was based on this book, so I expected some of the silliness and buffoonery of the movie to be present in the book.
Turns out I was wrong on both accounts. Instead of being a fool, the main character is a brilliant engineer and scientist. And instead of being laugh-out-loud funny, Twain's humor is subtle and satirical. Hank Morgan has no intention of molding to Camelot's culture. Rather, he wants to turn the sixth century into the nineteenth - railways, telephones, advertisements, and all. But more than industry, he wants to revolutionize their social structure. Knights should not rule, simply because they are strong. Slavery should absolutely be illegal.
In this book, Mark Twain essentially presents his plan for an ideal society. Through the main character's plans for the England of the time, Twain describes what he desires America to be like. There are political and social and moral overtones and undertones. This book went way beyond the simple "good story" I was expecting. By the time I realized how much deeper this book was, I had missed too much. This book deserves much more thought than I gave it, and it may end up as a reread at some point in my life. I should have remembered my experience with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school - Mark Twain doesn't write anything accidentally. It's all there for some purpose.
So considering what this book really is a vehicle for, it tells an awfully good story. And it is amusing (sorry if I made it sound dry before). King Arthur is certainly not the strong leader we always think of him as (if there's any buffoon in this story, it's Arthur). And I knew about the eclipse plot device before, but I had no idea it came from this book. It's amazing how stuff like that can enter our culture without our knowing its origin. (Although seriously - this bugs me - who has all the exact times and dates of eclipses throughout history memorized??)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a great read for fans of Mark Twain, Camelot, or social commentaries. Just don't expect a simple surface-level story, because this book holds so much more!
In this book, Mark Twain essentially presents his plan for an ideal society. Through the main character's plans for the England of the time, Twain describes what he desires America to be like. There are political and social and moral overtones and undertones. This book went way beyond the simple "good story" I was expecting. By the time I realized how much deeper this book was, I had missed too much. This book deserves much more thought than I gave it, and it may end up as a reread at some point in my life. I should have remembered my experience with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school - Mark Twain doesn't write anything accidentally. It's all there for some purpose.
So considering what this book really is a vehicle for, it tells an awfully good story. And it is amusing (sorry if I made it sound dry before). King Arthur is certainly not the strong leader we always think of him as (if there's any buffoon in this story, it's Arthur). And I knew about the eclipse plot device before, but I had no idea it came from this book. It's amazing how stuff like that can enter our culture without our knowing its origin. (Although seriously - this bugs me - who has all the exact times and dates of eclipses throughout history memorized??)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a great read for fans of Mark Twain, Camelot, or social commentaries. Just don't expect a simple surface-level story, because this book holds so much more!
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