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Title: Clemens Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur'S Cour T (Nce) (Editor - Ensor) (A Norton critical edition)
ISBN: 0393013782
Author:
SL CLEMENS
Publicate Date: 1982-10-06
Publish: 1982-10-06
List Price: Not Available
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.98
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1: Excellent literature, not a children's book
This is Twaine at his best. The book provokes thought, draws sympathy, and is downright hilarious. It also reads smoothly and at a brisk pace. It's a quick, fun read. I should also emphasize that while this is frequently labelled as children's literature, I find that label to be completely misleading. While it can no doubt be enjoyed by children at their level, there are a number of subtleties, particularly in the humor, that will be beyond the comprehension of most 13 year olds.
The most pervasive feature of theme of the book is the ignorance of people in the sixth century. The Yankee is constantly dazzling both king and commoner with all manner of "miracles" (really just works of engineering or culture that he has as a result of his 19th century education). The people are the most easily duped idiots imaginable, and hold the most base conceptions and prejudices, and have no conception of justice. Twain believes these shortcomings are a product of their environment and education, rather than inherrent deficiencies ("training, all is training"). He also tackles slavery (an institution out of practice by the time of this book's writing), draws sympathy for slaves, and advocates the equality of all humanity. All pretty simple stuff. At a slightly deeper level, he tackles economic policy, namely protectionism vs. free trade, a debate that raged into his day and even into our own. He ridicules the views of the protectionists and their inability to understand the meaning of real vs. nominal wages, clearly a slap at certain arguments of his own day.
Though the social commentary is interesting, if elementary, the satire is by far the best part of this book. Twain takes so many shots at so many targets that it's difficult even for the careful reader to notice them all. By far the funniest character is Alisande, a charicature of Arthurian women, who the yankee pejoritively nicknames "Sandy." When she rambles on for hours to no apparent purpose "running her mill," by whihc Twain pokes fun both of women in general and of their style of speech in Arthurian literature. A very funny scene is when Sandy relates a story from Thomas Mallory ver batim, with the Yankee constantly interjecting with suggestions to improve Mallory's arid writing style. "The Irish guy sounds like all the others, Sandy. You ought to give him a brogue, or at least have him say something like 'be jabbers' so that you'd know it's him speaking," which of course is a suggestion Sandy takes.
Another great piece of satire is Twain's commentary on the yankee himself. When he defeats opposing knights, he makes them sell all sorts of trinkets and products, from top hats to soap to stoves, as his way of spreading civilization. Of course these goods don't make a nation civilized, but that the yankee thinks they do is Twain's pejorative commentary as a westerner on eastern materialism. Twain's way of telling it is very funny stuff. There's much more excellent humor that can't be mentioned for the sake of space.
The ending is another excellent commentary. The yankee's beautifully crafted civilization crashes down because of the irrascible prejudices of the people, which the church uses to its advantage. Twain's negative view of imperialism is here reflected, in how he depicts the folly of elevating a society by outside influences. A civilization must grow at its own pace, developing its views and values through a long process of trials. Attempts to import institutions from without are bound for failure. Though relevant in Twain's day, this is equally applicable in ours.
So, if you want the whole package: a quick, easy read that also provides thought-proviking commentary and great humor, I'd recommend reading this. It would be hard to find a better book that has everything this one does.
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2: Twain pays his debt to Cervantes and Swift
Not quite a classic, Twain pays his debt to Cervantes and Swift in this satiric fable about the collision between the "modern" world (19th Century America) and the world of Arthorian (authorian?) legend (6th century England). Twain gets in some sharp jabs against both time periods, with a deft touch of modern irony that makes the book seem surprisingly fresh at times (Twain even pops a "dudes and dudesses" reference!).
He puts his finger on the clear difficulty of interacting with (or portraying on books and movies) that pre-modern world: they inability to grasp the concepts of irony, reasoning, or disbelieve, leave Twain literally unable to communicate at times to both satiric and serious effect..
But the train wanders off the track in long dissertations on purchasing power, class and slavery, and Twain's seemingly gleeful telling of his facile ability to kill 50,000 knights with modern explosives, electric fences, and Gatling guns seems jarringly horrific and disturbing, especially after the historically-realized horrors of the last hundred years.
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3: Anti-Catholic polemic dressed up as a classic
I have always loved Mark Twain since reading Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer as a kid. At one point I had even memorized "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" as a seventh-grader in Catholic school. Twain has always held a sentimental place close to my heart, so when our book club chose to read and discuss A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, I was all for it.
I had heard vaguely of Twain's atheist mindset and his antagonism toward religion in general. But until I read Connecticut Yankee, I had no idea how much irrational and unfounded antipathy Twain had for the Catholic Church in particular. The pervasive theme in Connecticut Yankee is that our modern enlightened world is far superior to that which went before and that the "bad old days" of slavery and oppression were almost completely the fault of the Catholic Church. This anti-Catholic sentiment can hardly be denied as Twain himself urged reviewers not to mention it when the book first came out. "Please don't let on that there are any slurs at the Church," he told a sympathetic reviewer in the Boston Herald. "I want to catch the reader unawares, and modify his views if I can."
So Twain engaged in what we know today as the "last acceptable prejudice." By way of a simple comparison, let us imagine that, instead of Catholics, Twain had chosen Jews, Mormons, or Evangelicals as the villains of Connecticut Yankee. Would it still occupy the exalted position it does as an American classic? Or would it be relegated to those dusty shelves where reside other scurrilous works or racist manifestos to be studied as a historical curiosity of a meaner age?
For me, the most annoying aspect of Connecticut Yankee was Twain's almost total ignorance of history--or, perhaps more accurately, his decision to turn history on its head to better fit his polemical aims of blaming all the ills of society on the Catholic Church. This is a classic example of what happens, I suppose, when a journalist with a wide breadth of knowledge but no depth attempts to novelize about a historical subject. To address some of Twain's errors:
1.) Slavery in antiquity was in no way the fault of the Church. That pernicious institution long predated Christianity and was endemic to classical pagan societies. Indeed, the Church has a long history of making the lot of slaves more tolerable and being among the premier abolitionist institutions in the world.
2.) The idea that the Church suppresses intellectual freedom is a fable made up during the Protestant rebellion, though it is heartily embraced by Twain. Far more erudite scholars than I have examined this fallacy in detail, so rather than address this topic in detail here, I would point the reader to Tom Woods's excellent book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.
3.) Twain writes naively of democracy, putting in Hank Morgan's mouth the notion that "Where every man in a state has a vote, brutal laws are impossible." One wonders what Twain would have made of our modern America, where not only every man, but every woman has a vote, and yet the ghastly practice of abortion is not only legal, but enshrined as a human right. Democracy of itself does not ensure enlightened government. Without the temper of religion, democracy is as likely to produce brutal and repulsive laws as the worst monarchy. De Tocqueville understood this. It's a wonder that Twain did not.
There are many more, but this review is already more prolix that I had intended.
As always, Twain's writing sparkles in Connecticut Yankee and his lampooning of the style of Mallory is very funny. His characters, however, viewed 120 years later, are crudely drawn. Hank Morgan is an Alger-esque self-made man whose compendious knowledge of all subjects is just a little too convenient. The legendary Arthurians are all soulless pawns that Twain moves around to further his polemic. No insight is offered into their characters at all. They are all cruel and completely self-serving--as they must be in Twain's mind because they belong to the aristocracy. The story ends on a bizarrely depressing note for a tale that was predominantly a humorous satire for the first seven-eighths of its length.
In short, this is not a book I will be reading to my kids as a bedtime story. For me, it is to be considered a shameful period piece, written at a time when it was acceptable and even laudatory to be a Know-Nothing and make up slanders about the Catholic Church. That it is a cleverly-written slander is only another mark against it. Amusing slanders are pleasing to read but have the potential to do real harm both to the target and the reader.
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4: Love Twain's writing, but not so much in this one
Although I usually enjoy Twain's writing style, and his sense of wry humor, there was something about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court that was less than satisfying.
Some of the situations that the protagonist gets himself into are "classic" Twain. When the narrator is transported back to the time of Camelot, he begins to speculate about rituals, customs and general style of life. There is one part where the townspeople are convinced that he can perform great magical feats (he actually has Merlin as his rival), and when they corner him about performing one, he has to think of a way to please them or face punishment. He realizes that he can remember when an eclipse is going to come, and there is the way out of his situation. There are many adventures, where the narrator becomes critical of their ways, as a time warp will do. He is a fish out of water in many ways in this new world, not understanding, for instance, their need to have extravagant adventures: "Hardly a month went by without one of these tramps arriving; and generally loaded with some tale about some princess or other wanting help to get her out of some faraway castle where she was being held in captivity by a lawless scoundrel..." Because of his ability to perform great acts, he becomes known as the Boss, and helps to free some poor peasants from terrible punishments.
Maybe what made this less of a story was that it became too "preachy" and filled with social commentary. Although this is what usually makes Twain's novels, here it seemed to detract from the over all story. I was much more interested in hearing about the next adventure, but the narrator continued to rattle on and on about what he felt was wrong with this society. You get the feeling that Twain, not the narrator, is speaking after awhile. In the end, I guess it wasn't really the book I expected it to be. Still, it has its moments, and there are some parts that will have you chuckling to yourself as you read.
I consider Twain to be one of my favorite authors, but this is one of his lesser achievements.
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5: Promising premise, disappointing and remarkably dour delivery
Twain spoils a promising premise with bloated preachifying, colorless prose, and an uneven, nigh-absurdist plot arc.
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