Literary A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

[Wearever]

Thanks for posting the pics BelleZora !

Twain certainly enjoyed traveling the western U.S. Hawaii , Europe, Britain and Australia .His other books are set there as well, and I would like to read them too.

I finished the book, and am so glad I read it. Twain is very funny in his common man type observations. He counted a great deal on the superstitions of the time, and it seems everyone regardless of class, had them. His biggest concern was not to come under the scrutiny of the church, the real power of the times. He preferred to stage his magic shows well in advance. His other concern was not wanting to preform on demand magic, so he carried dynamite Lol ! around with him just in case he needed a quick display, in a pinch.

I also kept thinking about the time period he was writing this book in. The civil war had almost broke the union. He knew, had dinners with , and entertained the abolitionists in his home. He also knew Tesla, as a friend the same way, and was a frequent visitor to Tesla's laboratory in New Jersey . Also Harriet Beecher Stowe was his neighbor. I can't help to think they all had influence on this book. Ah to be a fly on the wall, in the Twain home back then ! How exciting & interesting those conversations must have been !

[Bookpossum]

I have just finished reading the book this afternoon. The ending of the Arthurian story is always heartbreaking, and Mark Twain does not disappoint in this. The ending neatly explains how all Hank's introductions of 19th century scientific progress were destroyed, to allow the Dark Ages to take their proper place.

I'm very glad I have finally reread this book after so many years, and of course I got much more out of it this time around.

[AnotherCat]

I had this book fairly close to the top of my several hundred years long reading list as I have liked the Twain works I had read to date. So I jumped it to the top.

I have only just finished it as I was late getting going on it and I found it to be a book that I could not maintain much interest in so was easily distracted away from it, including on several occasions falling asleep if late evening :-).

As I got into it I found that I was put into the position of trying to decide whether to Twain the book was predominantly a story or was propaganda. This really struck me first in Chapter 4 where some of it seemed to me to be easily regarded as a rant rather than literature (or not even as a level headed propaganda); some later chapters included similar distractions from the story. This was a pity to me as I felt that the basic story line was very strong but its enjoyment was drowned by redundant and repetitive material if the heart of the book was supposed to be the story, or by propaganda if it was not.

Assuming these distractions were essentially Twain propaganda as to his view of society (and I suspect that they were) then that opens up some questions in my mind about Twain himself. If so then his main social hits were against the related slavery, class, nobility and privilege, and the church. He also pushes some perceptions such as the garrulousness of women; there are lengthy passages about Sandy's garrulousness which seemed to me to go well beyond making what was perhaps intended as just a comic point.

I will leave slavery and the church out of it for a moment and mention nobility and privilege as this is where I really wondered what Twain was up to; were they just a useful part of the story line or propaganda. Twain is known to have enjoyed (even revelled in) the attention he got from his earned nobility status as being world famous. He was also enormously privileged due to his wealth. Also while he seemed to despise class differences, and remembering that during his lifetime the USA was essentially classless and he could have stayed home to enjoy that society, he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of apparently enjoyable time in the "classed" societies of "Britain" and Europe mixing with the privileged, the upper classes and even nobility (and on at least one occasion, royalty).

This contradiction as between his real life behaviour and the propaganda in the book (should it have been intended as propaganda) makes me wonder as to the veracity of his overt hits against slavery and the church, for example. Were his hidden personal beliefs contrary to those he hits against in the book. Did he have internal conflicts over his supposed virtuousness, and if he did so was he aware of those?

Down a similar track I found that he was free with advice on things he had a reputation of being no good at at all. For example, his very lengthy and repetitive passage teaching a theory of wages and prices; Twain was abysmal in his own life as a businessman and investor, at one point losing most everything of his very substantial wealth on foolish business decisions and investments (the main example being in a printing invention of another where one would have assumed from his background in that industry he would not have been so foolish). Interestingly he was assisted out of that financial hole by one of the USA's wealthiest and privileged men. Now he may have just meant his teaching on this as just part of the story and not propaganda, but if that was so it was far too long and repetitive.

For me I found the prose had a slight character that I could not put my finger on as it was not as fluid to me as I would have liked (for my own reading). What I did find was that if I read it aloud in my mind with a slow southern drawl (I can only do that in my mind, not aloud ) it got some life and flowed better. So another contradiction for me as Hank was a New Englander.

When I compare the book to Huck.. and Tom.., and also some of his travel/memoir works, all of which I enjoy, I think they have very strong storylines which prevent propaganda, should there be any, becoming burdensome and distracting. I don't think that is the case with Connecticut...

Note that these are just comments that came from my personal wonderings as I went through the book; I am not making any claims or suggesting anything at all beyond those wonderings that came to me specifically out of the book itself. Personally I think the book would appeal to those who don't look for a crisp storyline and are untroubled by redundant prose (so are like Sandy, perhaps ), or those who like to judge the societal practices of our forebears as individuals against the practices of contemporary society, and that especially so if they feel some guilt when making such unbalanced judgements against the behaviours of their quite distant forebears for whom they actually have no responsibility for at all (see, I can do propaganda too ).

I could go on, but won't except to say that at the end I was left wondering if Twain had fallen into the trap that some modern artists, especially among actors and authors, seem to fall into in that once they achieve fame and fortune they seem to regard themselves as experts in other fields unrelated to the art of story telling or acting.

If nothing else, I have likely proven that a modern man can be as garrulous as feudal England Sandy was.

[Wearever]

So if I read this right AnotherCat, from your own personal wonderings, you claim anyone who liked this book are untroubled by a crisp story & redundant prose ? Just like Sandy ? Perhaps you are being just as judgmental, as you claim Twain to be ?

[bfisher]

I read this book a long time ago, and my main recollection of it was the scorn heaped on the age of chivalry. I had forgotten the ending. Although the satire is far less subtle than as in his masterpiece, there are deep currents in this book. In particular, the enslavement of King Arthur and the Boss, and the perverting of science to build a killing field that eventually kills its creators speak to the recent past (American slavery and the cumulation of Civil War slaughter at Petersburg) and point to a dire future (the Western Front, the Gulag and Nazi slave labour and death machines, and ultimately, nuclear weapons). Twain’s pessimism is on full display here; there will be no Huckleberry Finn happy ending.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Wearever

So if I read this right AnotherCat, from your own personal wonderings, you claim anyone who liked this book are untroubled by a crisp story & redundant prose ? Just like Sandy ? Perhaps you are being just as judgmental, as you claim Twain to be ?

No you do not read it right.

First, I was very careful throughout to emphasize that the various things I mention were ones in the book that made me wonder.

Second, you have not noticed that my text immediately preceding that which you question was:

Note that these are just comments that came from my personal wonderings as I went through the book; I am not making any CLAIMS or suggesting anything at all beyond those wonderings that came to me specifically out of the book itself. Personally I think the book would appeal to those who don't look for a crisp storyline and are untroubled by redundant prose (so are like Sandy, perhaps )...

So I specifically stated and made clear that I was not making any claims, the things I mention are just how the book read to me (so were impressions). Also it was a departure from his preceding style and that and his taking an increasingly poisonous approach as the book moves on invites questioning (also, my understanding is that the book was generally not well received; is there one of his novels that is regarded now as of less merit than Connecticut.. ?). ). So perhaps one is allowed, in a free ranging manner, to wonder why his change of tack and wonder what would be the motivations behind its appeal to another reader and its non appeal to oneself.

For the sake of good order I should make it clear that I am not a member of any of Twain's target groups so have no personal sensitivity to his hits. Nor do I hold any particular disregard for any of them either. I have no barrow to push with regard to them one way or the other.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by bfisher

...Twain’s pessimism is on full display here; there will be no Huckleberry Finn happy ending.

Your use of pessimism is interesting? It is claimed that Twain became increasingly bitter as he got older and also that he suffered from depression, that surfacing especially during his personal losses later in life.

Maybe this book, written when he was around 55'ish I think, is a turning point where these were becoming more oppressive and visible?

[fantasyfan]

In the 1966 edition of Major Writers of America, Henry Nash Smith wrote a thoughtful general introduction to the section on Mark Twain. Among the work he discussed was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. While Smith did not attempt an in-depth analysis of the book he made a number of points which contextualize the novel and which I personally found quite interesting and useful in exploring and evaluating the book.

Evidently Twain intended the novel to be “a burlesque of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur” and in the early chapters one can certain see evidence for this. But it clearly developed into an attempt by

“a vernacular hero . . . launched upon the magnificent adventure of transforming a sty of filth and poverty and superstition and tyranny into its polar opposite—an enlightened republic where industrialization will provide the material basis for comfort and general happiness.”

Hank Morgan fails utterly, as the Established church supports the monarchy and class system of the status quo.

The hero is surprised by this result and Smith goes on to make a very interesting extrapolation of this which I will quote at some length.

“He [Hank Morgan] is surprised by this outcome, and we must imagine that the author was to some extent surprised also. Mark Twain’s career had been sustained by a basic confidence in the sanity, health, and sturdiness of the mass of mankind. He had also assumed that technology was the peculiar possession of the common people as contrasted with the upper classes. Thus democracy and progress—especially the general enlightenment of mankind as a result of industrialization—had seemed o him so closely related that one could not be imagined without the other. But in the course of writing A Connecticut Yankee he had become aware that his assumptions might not be valid. . . . his loss of faith both in the soundness of the common people and in the benign effects of technology is unmistakable.”

If Smith is correct then this novel represents a significant move to the deeply bitter and pessimistic attitude in Twain's later work.

We do see signs of it in Huckleberry Finn. There is the violent attack on Christianity from the gullible stupidity of the camp meetings to the hypocrisy of the church-going Grangerfords who keep their guns near them during the service. Then there is the speech of Col. Sherburn who faces down the mob with the words:

“I know you clear through, I was born and raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North, so I know the average all around. The average man’s a coward.”

By the time we get to “What Is Man?” (1906) Twain had come to the conclusion that humans are simply complicated automatons. The Mysterious Stranger which was not finalized by Twain when he died is probably the darkest work of fiction he wrote.

So how does A Connecticut Yankee work as a novel? I think it has moments of power—particularly the journey of Hank and Arthur—but as a whole it fails. There is a great deal of what is, in effect, sermonizing. Twain “tells” rather than “shows.” The hero is far too sure of himself and his values and we never see anyone engaging in the great dramas of conscience that we see in Huckleberry Finn. Of course Twain’s picture of The Middle Ages is absurd and bears little relsemblance to the reality. One can take the view that this isn’t important in that the purpose of the book is to show that the social structures of all ages are inherently oriented to supporting a privileged and parasitic upper class. But I don’t think that Twain anywhere in this book comes close to being as effective in developing this message as he had been in Huckleberry Finn. The characters lack depth and I quickly lost interest in them and this includes the narrator.

In the end I think this novel is a curiosity that throws light on Twain but it is not a major work.

[Bookpossum]

Thanks for this fantasyfan - some interesting comments and thoughts. I enjoyed it more than you did, but I can see what you mean by Twain telling us rather than showing us.

I'm prepared to cut him a lot of slack because of his passion for justice and equality of treatment for all people, remembering that he was a young man in his 20s during the Civil War, and so knew something about the degradation and horror of slavery.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

No you do not read it right.

First, I was very careful throughout to emphasize that the various things I mention were ones in the book that made me wonder.

Second, you have not noticed that my text immediately preceding that which you question was:

Note that these are just comments that came from my personal wonderings as I went through the book; I am not making any CLAIMS or suggesting anything at all beyond those wonderings that came to me specifically out of the book itself. Personally I think the book would appeal to those who don't look for a crisp storyline and are untroubled by redundant prose (so are like Sandy, perhaps )...

So I specifically stated and made clear that I was not making any claims, the things I mention are just how the book read to me (so were impressions). Also it was a departure from his preceding style and that and his taking an increasingly poisonous approach as the book moves on invites questioning (also, my understanding is that the book was generally not well received; is there one of his novels that is regarded now as of less merit than Connecticut.. ?). ). So perhaps one is allowed, in a free ranging manner, to wonder why his change of tack and wonder what would be the motivations behind its appeal to another reader and its non appeal to oneself.

For the sake of good order I should make it clear that I am not a member of any of Twain's target groups so have no personal sensitivity to his hits. Nor do I hold any particular disregard for any of them either. I have no barrow to push with regard to them one way or the other.

Yes I read your disclaimer.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

...There is a great deal of what is, in effect, sermonizing. Twain “tells” rather than “shows.”...

Rasmussen in his Critical Companion to Mark Twain~A Literary Reference to His Life and Work is crueler than either of us; he refers to them as being political diatribes (Rev. ed. 2007, Volume 1, p.59).

I must sit through the Ken Burn's PBS films again (I believe one of Rasmussen's earlier books was a reference during its making?) as I haven't watched them for a decade or more (they demand a quite big lump of time); I seem to recall there is quite a bit on his business failure, personal stresses and strains, and demeanour during his later life-those building around the time of Connecticut....

One of the strengths I feel Twain had, at least in his earlier books up to Huck..., was that he did not publish his first novel until he was close to 40 years of age. Like some similar others he thus approached them in a mature way (as an example of another, his approximately contemporary Joseph Conrad also did not write his first novel until of a similar age). That contrasted against many writers who start at a much earlier age, who often come across to me as producing an over written school pupil essay type of outcome.

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Rasmussen in his Critical Companion to Mark Twain~A Literary Reference to His Life and Work is crueler than either of us; he refers to them as being political diatribes (Rev. ed. 2007, Volume 1, p.59).

I must sit through the Ken Burn's PBS films again (I believe one of Rasmussen's earlier books was a reference during its making?) as I haven't watched them for a decade or more (they demand a quite big lump of time); I seem to recall there is quite a bit on his business failure, personal stresses and strains, and demeanour during his later life-those building around the time of Connecticut....

One of the strengths I feel Twain had, at least in his earlier books up to Huck..., was that he did not publish his first novel until he was close to 40 years of age. Like some similar others he thus approached them in a mature way (as an example of another, his approximately contemporary Joseph Conrad also did not write his first novel until of a similar age). That contrasted against many writers who start at a much earlier age, who often come across to me as producing an over written school pupil essay type of outcome.

I haven't read Rasmussen but then I suspect that most of my critical literature is probably somewhat old-fashioned now. I'll have to update.

I did, at one point in my post, nearly use "harangue" but then this was my 1000th post and I felt that I should be polite. LOL.