BOOK REPORT: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Title:  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Author:    Mark Twain

Original Copyright Date:        1889

My Rating:   2 out of 5 stars  ( might be a good short story )

Backcover Description

One of the greatest satires in American literature, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court begins when Hank Morgan, a skilled mechanic in a nineteenth-century New England arms factory, is struck on the head during a quarrel and awakens to find himself among the knights and magicians of King Arthur’s Camelot.

What follows is a culture clash of the first magnitude, as practical-minded Hank, disgusted with the ignorance and superstition of the people, decides to enlighten them with education and technology. Through a series of wonderfully imaginative adventures, Twain celebrates American homespun ingenuity and democracy as compared to the backward ineptitude of a chivalric monarchy. At the same time, however, Twain raises the question of whether material progress necessarily creates a better society. As Hank becomes more powerful and self-righteous, he also becomes more ruthless, more autocratic, and less able to control events, until the only way out is a massively destructive war.

My Thoughts
Mark Twain wrote Connecticut Yankee as a satire on royalty, chivalry and other romantic notions of Arthurian legend (linking it occasionally  to the politics of the antebellum south transitioning to the postbellum reconstruction) However, I have to say he didn't execute it very well. It might have made an entertaining short story, but this went on and on, changing voices, direction, and sometimes bringing the story to a dead stop.

The premise behind this book is a common one now-a-days, but from what I understand, Twain was one of the first, if not the first to have a person bump their head or fall asleep only to wake up in another time. In this case, an intelligent, renaissance man who works in a arms factory wakes up in 6th century England in King Arthur's court.  Think of the Yankee as a nineteen-century MacGyver.

The problem is, the Yankee is too powerful.  He knows everything, from the exact moment in time a solar eclipse will occur over England 1300 years before he is born in Connecticut, to mining and metallurgy, chemistry, biology, politics, art, underwater basket weaving, and other magical skills which shock and awe the native royal ignoramuses.  He is not a likable character at all.  

Twain spends an inordinate amount of narrative having the unlikable yankee waxing philosophical on the mundane aspects of life beyond King Arthur's court, including economics, the politics of "freemen" vs. slaves vs. nobility and the churches motivation for keeping the royal status quo.  Twain will then gloss over years of time where he gains power and creates a network of educated lackeys which work diligently in the background setting up phone lines and creating an intelligentsia which will aid and support his goal of usurping this backward monarchy and setting up a proper republic. I would have found those details much more interesting.

Now, for all of its warts, Connecticut Yankee does have its moments.  There is a fabulous chapter where the Yankee is sent off on a noble quest to free 9 princesses from some evil ogres in which he describes life inside a suit of armor.  Then there is the way he uses the knights as riding advertisements for products for which there isn't a market yet (like soap).  But, these moments are sparse and I had trouble fighting through the doldrums to get to the next enjoyable scene.

On a final note, this story was MUCH darker than I was expecting.  In his quest to oust the nobility  and set up a republic, The yankee is absolutely merciless in its execution.  I've read a few  pieces on Mark Twain since finishing this book, hoping to find some reasoning for the way Twain wrote this novel, only to really find out that Connecticut Yankee is a transition in Twain's literary career, where he enters a very dark phase.  To borrow a section from the Wikipedia page on this Connecticut Yankee:

 It is possible to see the book as an important transitional work for Twain, in that earlier, sunnier passages recall the frontier humor of his tall tales like The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, while the corrosive view of human behavior in the apocalyptic latter chapters is more akin to darker, later Twain works like The Mysterious Stranger and Letters from the Earth.