Wednesday, 8 May 2024 02:51 pm
Book Review: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineI read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn back to back almost 30 years ago, and I reread the latter 4 years later. I also enjoyed screen adaptations of The Prince and the Pauper. It was high time I actually read something else by Mark Twain. Why not a time travel story published before The Time Machine?
Wikipedia identifies the Yankee as Hank Morgan, but I cannot find the name anywhere in the text. The opening and epilogue are narrated in the first person apparently by Twain himself, who calls the Yankee "the stranger"; the rest is narrated in the first person by the Yankee. For brevity's sake, I will defer to Wikipedia.
Hank has no explanation for how he travels from 1880s Connecticut to 528 Camelot, only that he awakens then and there after getting KO'd in a fight. Sir Kay promptly captures him, accuses him of evil wizardry (perhaps because of his anachronistic clothes), and persuades King Arthur to sentence Hank to death. But in the nick of time, Hank claims credit for a solar eclipse. Frightened, Arthur agrees to become largely a figurehead, with Hank bearing the title of "The Boss."
Let's take a moment to appreciate the improbability of this. I can accept unexplained accidental time travel. I can even overlook the locals speaking more or less Elizabethan English a millennium too early. But Hank readily remembers the exact date of an eclipse from more than 1300 years before he was born. He says this casually, as if it were common knowledge. Either 19th-century Americans were desperate for hobbies, or Hank is the Ultimate Nerd. Either way, he's saved by the Ultimate Coincidence.
This is no weekend trip; by my reckoning, Hank spends about a decade in the 6th century. As The Boss, he's neither lolling around in luxury (tho he benefits from an even bigger difference in the value of coins than there's been since) nor demanding statues of himself. Instead, he's doing his best to replicate his home time, both socially and technologically. I guess that's one advantage to coming from before the Information Age: It's not implausible for a single railroad superintendent to know how to make various then-modern devices. Regardless, Hank is unsatisfied with the rate of progress, and it is eventually revealed to be fragile. Figures that he doesn't institute changes that would have repercussions all the way to the present.
Don't think that Hank is never in danger again once he becomes The Boss. He succumbs to pressure to have a knight-errant sort of trek. He voluntarily goes undercover as a peasant, along with Arthur, who doesn't bring a signet ring or anything. He enters a jousting tournament, albeit bringing unorthodox weaponry. And again, resistance to his reforms reaches a crescendo.
Twain has the most caustic take on the Dark Ages I have ever seen. Hank explicitly likens everyone around him to children or even rabbits. Frankly, some of their behavior is even worse than that. They go along with the most blatant lies, unless they're big-time liars themselves. They would burn an innocent convict alive without hearing his side of the story, even if he surrendered peacefully. They have such a poor grasp on logic that Hank gives up arguing on that basis. And in Hank's opinion at least, nobody in the land can play a musical instrument with any skill.
Not that he never learns to like anybody. His first and closest confidant is cynical Clarence, who starts as a page. Hank replies to this information with "Go 'long, you ain't more than a paragraph." One of the few lines I find intentionally funny, but are you sure you're from Connecticut, buddy? Also, might I say that Hank's paragraphs are a lot longer on average than today's writers, with some taking up more than a page.
Then there's Sandy, who gives Hank his first quest and insists on coming with him. She initially annoys him with her endless empty chatter and difficulty answering basic questions, but he goes on to marry her. This is as awkward as it sounds, made all the more so with a time skip in narration. He doesn't truly love her until afterward.
Despite getting off on the wrong foot and believing strongly in the equality of men (not sure about women), Hank also comes to like Arthur. He's less consistently fond of legendary knights. Merlin becomes something of a nemesis to him, yet he pays more respect to the wicked Morgan le Fay. I don't know why Hank assumes from the get-go they're both frauds when he knows that magical time travel exists, but he appears to be mostly right. Only in the end does Merlin cast an apparent actual spell.
Hank's true hate-on is for the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike most of today's adamant RCC opponents, he's a self-described Presbyterian who favors a plethora of Protestant options. He blames the RCC for inhibiting the move to a democratic republic by introducing the concept of a divinely ordained noble class -- as if that hadn't been a thing in pagan Rome. I doubt even the early medieval RCC would oppose all advancements, even in hygiene.
As you may have guessed, I don't care much for Hank. He considers himself superior to everyone around him, rarely showing any awareness of his own flaws. His sect would not approve of him executing people just for telling tired jokes or playing music he deems lousy. And personally, I wouldn't try to change that much about a past era. Dude even has schools teaching modern American English.
My edition contains contemporary Daniel Carter Beard illustrations that Twain considered even better than the story. I appreciate them mainly for making the pages easier to read, when they don't break up the flow. I prefer the literal images to the figurative ones, which evoke old editorial cartoons.
ACYiKAC has a fine general premise, and I'm glad to see a comparison by someone who could remember antebellum slavery. I just think it's been handled better and more succinctly by later writers.
My next read: Siren Queen by Nghi Vo. Multiple blurbs describe it as mesmerizing, so I hope to finish just in time for my birthday.
Wikipedia identifies the Yankee as Hank Morgan, but I cannot find the name anywhere in the text. The opening and epilogue are narrated in the first person apparently by Twain himself, who calls the Yankee "the stranger"; the rest is narrated in the first person by the Yankee. For brevity's sake, I will defer to Wikipedia.
Hank has no explanation for how he travels from 1880s Connecticut to 528 Camelot, only that he awakens then and there after getting KO'd in a fight. Sir Kay promptly captures him, accuses him of evil wizardry (perhaps because of his anachronistic clothes), and persuades King Arthur to sentence Hank to death. But in the nick of time, Hank claims credit for a solar eclipse. Frightened, Arthur agrees to become largely a figurehead, with Hank bearing the title of "The Boss."
Let's take a moment to appreciate the improbability of this. I can accept unexplained accidental time travel. I can even overlook the locals speaking more or less Elizabethan English a millennium too early. But Hank readily remembers the exact date of an eclipse from more than 1300 years before he was born. He says this casually, as if it were common knowledge. Either 19th-century Americans were desperate for hobbies, or Hank is the Ultimate Nerd. Either way, he's saved by the Ultimate Coincidence.
This is no weekend trip; by my reckoning, Hank spends about a decade in the 6th century. As The Boss, he's neither lolling around in luxury (tho he benefits from an even bigger difference in the value of coins than there's been since) nor demanding statues of himself. Instead, he's doing his best to replicate his home time, both socially and technologically. I guess that's one advantage to coming from before the Information Age: It's not implausible for a single railroad superintendent to know how to make various then-modern devices. Regardless, Hank is unsatisfied with the rate of progress, and it is eventually revealed to be fragile. Figures that he doesn't institute changes that would have repercussions all the way to the present.
Don't think that Hank is never in danger again once he becomes The Boss. He succumbs to pressure to have a knight-errant sort of trek. He voluntarily goes undercover as a peasant, along with Arthur, who doesn't bring a signet ring or anything. He enters a jousting tournament, albeit bringing unorthodox weaponry. And again, resistance to his reforms reaches a crescendo.
Twain has the most caustic take on the Dark Ages I have ever seen. Hank explicitly likens everyone around him to children or even rabbits. Frankly, some of their behavior is even worse than that. They go along with the most blatant lies, unless they're big-time liars themselves. They would burn an innocent convict alive without hearing his side of the story, even if he surrendered peacefully. They have such a poor grasp on logic that Hank gives up arguing on that basis. And in Hank's opinion at least, nobody in the land can play a musical instrument with any skill.
Not that he never learns to like anybody. His first and closest confidant is cynical Clarence, who starts as a page. Hank replies to this information with "Go 'long, you ain't more than a paragraph." One of the few lines I find intentionally funny, but are you sure you're from Connecticut, buddy? Also, might I say that Hank's paragraphs are a lot longer on average than today's writers, with some taking up more than a page.
Then there's Sandy, who gives Hank his first quest and insists on coming with him. She initially annoys him with her endless empty chatter and difficulty answering basic questions, but he goes on to marry her. This is as awkward as it sounds, made all the more so with a time skip in narration. He doesn't truly love her until afterward.
Despite getting off on the wrong foot and believing strongly in the equality of men (not sure about women), Hank also comes to like Arthur. He's less consistently fond of legendary knights. Merlin becomes something of a nemesis to him, yet he pays more respect to the wicked Morgan le Fay. I don't know why Hank assumes from the get-go they're both frauds when he knows that magical time travel exists, but he appears to be mostly right. Only in the end does Merlin cast an apparent actual spell.
Hank's true hate-on is for the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike most of today's adamant RCC opponents, he's a self-described Presbyterian who favors a plethora of Protestant options. He blames the RCC for inhibiting the move to a democratic republic by introducing the concept of a divinely ordained noble class -- as if that hadn't been a thing in pagan Rome. I doubt even the early medieval RCC would oppose all advancements, even in hygiene.
As you may have guessed, I don't care much for Hank. He considers himself superior to everyone around him, rarely showing any awareness of his own flaws. His sect would not approve of him executing people just for telling tired jokes or playing music he deems lousy. And personally, I wouldn't try to change that much about a past era. Dude even has schools teaching modern American English.
My edition contains contemporary Daniel Carter Beard illustrations that Twain considered even better than the story. I appreciate them mainly for making the pages easier to read, when they don't break up the flow. I prefer the literal images to the figurative ones, which evoke old editorial cartoons.
ACYiKAC has a fine general premise, and I'm glad to see a comparison by someone who could remember antebellum slavery. I just think it's been handled better and more succinctly by later writers.
My next read: Siren Queen by Nghi Vo. Multiple blurbs describe it as mesmerizing, so I hope to finish just in time for my birthday.